DevOps Traps to avoid when you are working on a DevOps Transition

1. 10 traps to avoid during a devops transition
@AlainDELAFOSSE
Eric MATTERN

2. 2
DevOps begins
DevOps OperationsAgile
Methodologies
Business Developers
DevOps started on interaction between developers and operations
Release
Analysis
Dev &
Bugfixing
Tests
Deployment
Changes
Monitoring
Incident
detectionAnalysis
Problem
Management

3. 3
Trap 1- Think it’s only tooling
Processes
Culture
Tooling

4. 4
Trap 2- Start with the wrong tooling strategy
(1/2)
•Manage and
deploy OS &
Software images
•Less flexibility
•Infrastructure
and Deployment
Coverage
•Automate
deployment using
a market solution
•Stick on
requirements
•Numerous bricks
available
•Requires
Integration work
-A-
Build own
solution
-B-
Deployment
Tool
-C-
Appliance
Images
-D-
Adopt PAAS
Approach
Dependency
Management:
Middleware and OS

5. 5
Trap 2- Start with the wrong tooling strategy
(2/2)
Clone Configure Develop Package Configure Deploy
Infrastructure / OS Software
-A- Build own
solution
-B- Deployment
tool
-C- Appliance
images
-D- PAAS

6. 6
Trap 3- Think only server deployment (1/2)
OS & Software
Configuration items
Software
components
and middleware
dependencies
OS & Software
Configuration items
Software
components
and middleware
dependencies
Infrastructure
configuration
and provisioning
Deployment
orchestration
OS & Software
Configuration items
Configuration
Management
Configuration
Management
Software
Deployment
Software
Deployment
Platform
Deployment
Platform
Deployment

7. 7
Trap 3- Think only server deployment (2/2)
CFEngine
Puppet
Chef
Fabric
Ansible
Capistrano
Control Tier
Salt
RunDeck
Func mCollective

8. 8
Trap 4– Trying to automate data & database
Database schemes and data are tricky to automate
● Upgrades and rollbacks
Not an infrastructure size challenge
Configuration challenge: failover, replication, logs, crons,
backups.
Automation make sense but update process is challenging:
clean install every time with migration scripts
Think about new database schemes ? new databases where
structure is easier to update ?
Try to uncouple database
changes from code changes

9. 9
Trap 4– Trying to automate data & database
Databases and
Data are tricky to
automate
Upgrades/dep
mixing data and
DDL
Rarely an
infrastructure size
challenge
Config challenge:
failover,
replication, logs,
crons, backups.
Try to uncouple database
changes from code changes
New database schemes ?
NoSQL databases where data structure updates are
easier
Mixing data and DDL and DML,
scripts updates, duration

10. 10
Trap 5- Rebranding teams/persons as DevOps
Re-name teams
Setting DevOps as
title or function
Create a new
team
Forget the name
Empower your
teams to foster
the transition!
Don’t Do

11. 11
Trap 6- Underevaluate the cultural shift
Collaboration
Long and difficult
journey
Devops cultural
aspects
• Sense of continuous
improvement
• Collaboration level
• Transparency
Re-use AGILE
transitions
practices

12. 12
Trap 7- If you don’t measure it, you can’t value it
Define goals Find metrics Expose KPI’s
• Deployment metrics examples :
• Deployment rate and delay
• Releases quality: number of rollbacks
• Rollback delay
• Effort and delay for configuration update
• Dev/ops releases ratio against number of
servers/components/releases
• …
Contextualize
metrics to
your goal and
context
Evaluate progression & share the success

13. 13
Trap 8- Forget continuous improvement loops
Capture Feedbacks
• Regular internal
user meetings
• Pair deploying
Formalize and categorize
Process evolution/Tools
bugfixes or improvements
Backlog
• Milestones and
prioritization
Improve
• Implement and
deploy
Devops is a endless journey
Setup a continuous improvement loop : tools and processes
Don’t specialize resources on
maintenance, think transversal and
collaborative: virtual team.

14. 14
Trap 9- Focus only on deployment process
MonitoringSucks
•Common dashboards using
OPS,DEV and BIZ metrics
•Stop servercentric
•Logs management
•Monitoring==test (cucumber)
Performance
management
•Continuous integration with
automatic stress tests and
performance analysis plugins
•Scalability and Capacity
management
•AutomaticScaling
Incident/Problem
management
• Bring dev into ops room
when incidents are popping.
• Capture production logs and
expose to dev.
BCP/DRP design
•Collaborative design of the
business continuity and
disaster recovery plans
•Cloud BCP hot deployment
Security management
•Continuous integration with
flaw detections plugins
• There are other processes /areas where collaboration between dev
and ops make sense.

15. 15
Trap 10– Conflict with
Some production environments do require strong service management
Devops doesn’t enforce a specific organization or processes
Devops will seed the ITIL processes by bringing new tools and new
practices
ITIL Process New tool New practices
Change management Configuration updates automation
through Chef,Puppet
Automatic change logging and
audit
Release and Deployment
management
Software deployment tools Continuous deployment
Blue/Green deployment
Capacity management Platform deployment tool
(Coupling IAAS+ Software
deployment)
Live scaling
Service Continuity
management
Platform deployment tool
(Coupling IAAS+ Software
deployment)
Cold BCP deployment through
platform deployment
automation

16. Thank You…
….Questions ?
Contact : Eric MATTERN emattern@objetdirect.com