Presentation by Damon Edwards and John Willis at PuppetConf 2011 in Portland, OR.

1. Operations is a
Strategic Weapon

2. Spock Scotty
Little bit weird Pulls levers & turns knobs
Sits closer to the boss Easily excited
Thinks too hard Yells a lot in emergencies
John Allspaw and Paul Hammond, Velocity 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdOe18KhtT4

3. DTO Solutions

4. When did they call?

5. When did they call?
A. First signs of issues brewing
B. Initial negative impact felt by some
C. Heads are on fire

6. When did they call?
10% A. First signs of issues brewing
30% B. Initial negative impact felt by some
65% C. Heads are on fire

7. Why did they wait?
#1 Answer:

8. Why did they wait?
#1 Answer:
“Couldn’t get budget approval
or business support”

9. Operations has a perception problem

10. Operations has a perception problem
Business View
Necessary Cost

11. Operations has a perception problem
Business View Ops View
vs
Necessary Cost Strategic

12. What does
this have to
do with you?

13. First Law of Business Spending
Things that Things that
cost you money make you money

14. Change Biz’s Perception of Ops
vs
Necessary Cost Strategic

15. Textbook definition of operations:
“Operations is all of the activities that a firm
conducts in order to deliver value to its customers.
It's the set of processes that transforms either
materials or information into a product or service.”
-David Upton
Chair of Operations Management
Oxford University

16. Result
Ah-ha!
Transformation
Value Creation

17. Dev QA Sec Ops Result
Ah-ha!

18. Ah-ha! Ka-ching!

19. Ah-ha!

20. Velocity of Innovation...
Ah-ha! Ka-ching!
cycle time
Day 0 Day n

21. Companies were able to
achieve somewhat defensible
positions based on
technology...

22. Companies were able to
achieve somewhat defensible
positions based on
technology... then came the
web

23. How do we compete now?

24. How do we compete now?
1. Scale

25. How do we compete now?
1. Scale
2. Innovate Quicker

26. How do we compete now?
1. Scale
2. Innovate Quicker
3. Lower Costs

27. How do we compete now?
1. Scale
2. Innovate Quicker
3. Lower Costs

28. Innovation is really a numbers game...
Ah-ha! Ka-ching!
Ah-ha!

29. Innovation is really a numbers game...
4%*
Ah-ha! Ka-ching!
94%*
Ah-ha!
*Study by Doblin Innovation Consultants

30. Innovation is really a numbers game...
4%*
Ah-ha! Ka-ching!
94%*
Ah-ha!
*Study by Doblin Innovation Consultants

31. How to win a numbers game...
Company A
Result
Ah-ha!
Company B
Result Result Result Result
Ah-ha! Ah-ha! Ah-ha! Ah-ha!

32. How to win a numbers game...
Company A
Result
Ah-ha!
Company B
Result Result Result Result
Ah-ha! Ah-ha! Ah-ha! Ah-ha!

33. How fast can ops move?
• Production deployment every 11.6
seconds (weekday)
• 1,079 deployments in one hour (record)
• ~0.001% of deployments actually cause an
outage
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2971521

34. Business is already thinking about this...
Customer Development Model

35. How do we compete now?
1. Scale
2. Innovate Quicker
3. Lower Costs

38. Operations becomes a strategic weapon

39. Operations becomes a strategic weapon
When you are continuously...

40. Operations becomes a strategic weapon
When you are continuously...
1. Increasing velocity of innovation

41. Operations becomes a strategic weapon
When you are continuously...
1. Increasing velocity of innovation
2. Improving return on investment

42. Let’s Talk....
@damonedwards
damon@dtosolutions.com

43. Let’s Talk....
@damonedwards dev2ops.org
damon@dtosolutions.com

44. Operations is a
Strategic Weapon
(Part Deux)

45. Are you an ...
aaS

46. Are you an ...
aaS

47. Are you an ...
aaS

48. Are you an ...
aaS

49. Are you an ...
aaS

50. Are you an ...
aaS

51. Are you an ...
aaS

52. Are you an ...
aaS

55. Green vs Red
Widgits
1 Million 1 Million
2 Million No TD
10 Million Profit 10 Million Profit
10 - 3 = 7/3 10 - 1 = 9/1
233% ROR 900% ROR

56. It Gets Worse...
Technical Vicious Toxic
Terminal
Debt Cycle Operations

57. Tale of Two Startups

58. The Meat to Math Ratio
http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/08/meat-to-math-ratio.html

60. Clouds Gone Wild
Busine
ss
Dev
AWS
business s3put s3
ssh
ideas !
apache/php Rightscale
memcached
mysql

61. apache/php
p arty,
3rd s3
memcached
& are AWS mysql
w
m iddle
Rightscale
yum
Business
apache/php puppet
memcached
mysql apache/php
s3
AWS s3 memcached
AWS mysql
Rightscale
Rightscale
s3put s3put
ssh ssh
Business2 Business3

62. “As-is”
operations server
templates
TAR
RPM restarts
TAR
TAR
code,
EC2
content pupp
deploys et RS
app RS deployment
devs deployment
S3
yum
repo
Provision-time builds
reconfigs
TAR EXE
TAR AUTO
server
TOOLS
code templates
TAR
RPM
middleware
devs platform CONTROL PROVISION RELEASE
system
eng

63. Tec
hnic
al

64. Infrastructure Deveopment Life Cycle
Everything starts
here
SVN
hud agent cfg
yum pup
son repo pet
packages
active users run packages
directory deck
commands
nag splunk
ios
resource model
sys cfg
right instance create
scale
events
new node Node a log data
CONTROL PROVISION RELEASE

65. Meet your competition

66. •Betting on better experience
•Attacking / chased by the majors
•Real money at stake

67. •Betting on better experience
•Attacking / chased by the majors
•Real money at stake

70. go read: http://eng.wealthfront.com

71. go read: http://codeascraft.etsy.com

72. 95% 5%
Necessary Liability Strategic Weapon

73. DevOps Cafe
subscribe in
iTunes

74. C
A
M
S

75. Culture
Automation
Measurement
Sharing

76. Let’s Talk....
@botchagalupe
john@dtosolutions.com

77. Let’s Talk....
@botchagalupe dev2ops.org
john@dtosolutions.com