The book "Philosophy of DevOps. The Art of IT Management

Hello, habrozhiteli! Finally, we have a book by Jennifer Davis and Catherine Daniels - DevOps Philosophy.

The agile IT principle has become the mantra of the digital age. With the growth of projects, the transition from monolithic applications to a microservice system, the increase and accumulation of products, questions arise that require a completely different approach. Now the most interesting is the DevOps methodology at the junction of development and operational management.

DevOps is not just a set of techniques, it is a philosophy. User-centric developers should pay attention to support and its needs. Sysadmins should report product issues and contribute to improving the process. But building relationships within the company is just the first step. To make the product simple and convenient, you will have to invest time and resources in its development. Configuration through the central service, implementation by simple copying, the absence of external dependencies, well-considered metrics instead of garbage in the logs - these are just some of the tasks that will have to be solved along this path.

Imagine such a scenario. A small web company began to face the following problems. The website of this company “slows down” and periodically “lays down” in the event of an unexpected increase in the number of users. Employees are increasingly complaining about the increase in labor required to provide services, and also because of the need to develop and roll out new functionality. There are barriers between globally distributed development teams caused by using different languages ​​and time zones. The number of recriminations caused by stress due to the growth of "falls" of the site is growing. This leads to increased suspicion and reduced transparency in the interaction between groups of employees.

Faced with such problems, the organization's management decides on the devops transformation. To implement this solution, several employees are hired to form a new devops group. Members of this group carry out call duties, that is, they are contacted by members of the operational group in case of unsolvable problems. Devops team members are experts in their subject area and are better prepared to solve problems. But if the members of the operational team have neither the time nor the opportunity to learn new skills, the same problems will arise again and again.

Sooner or later, members of the devops group will get tired of playing the role of intermediaries between the development team and the operational team. Instead of removing tension, such a “decision” of management will lead to an increase in misunderstanding, since none of the groups is involved in the planning, messaging, and error tracking processes implemented by members of the other group.

As a result, the management declares the idea to fail with the formation of the devops-group and ceases to devote time, money and efforts to the development of the devops-group and the operational group. The members of these groups are beginning to be treated as incompetent loafers who contribute to “site crashes” and only “interfere” with developers doing “real” work. It is only natural that the members of these groups, unable to bear the burden of accusations of incompetence, begin to quit the organization, further complicating the performance of their duties by the remaining employees.

First acquaintance with devops

What is the reason for the appearance of problems in the described situation? It seems like introducing “devops” was a good idea, but creating a devops group led to negative consequences. What needs to be changed to achieve a significant improvement in the situation and real resolution of problems? Throughout the book you will see how you can perform effective conversions based on devops thinking.

Do not consider this book as a compilation of indisputable recommendations for implementing the devops approach. We do not offer you devops out of the box, devops as a service, and we do not tell you that you are not correctly implementing devops solutions. In this book you will find a collection of ideas and approaches to improve cooperation between individual employees, to achieve uniformity at the level of a particular group and organization as a whole, and to use tools at the company or organization level. You will also see how these concepts contribute to the change and adaptation of organizations, if necessary. Because each organization is unique, there is no single, universal approach for implementing devops. Existing common approaches should be applied in every organization in different ways.

Who is the book for?

This book is primarily intended for managers and ordinary employees who play the role of leaders and face problems in their organizations. Thanks to this book, they will be able to take concrete real actions aimed at implementing or improving devops-culture in the working environment. Ordinary employees in various positions will find practical suggestions here to help ease pain points by following up on effective recommendations.

Readers of this book play a variety of professional roles, as devops is a professional and cultural movement focused on supporting repetitive efforts to open access to organizational information, track relationships, and resolve misunderstandings between groups in an organization.

The book covers a wide range of skills and theoretical concepts of devops, including the foundations of fundamental ideas and concepts. It is assumed that you are already familiar with the term “devops” and may even have a basic knowledge of the tools and processes used in this area.

We recommend that you abandon hard-coded and quickly formulated definitions and tune in to the perception of devops principles, which, in our opinion, are the most effective.

After reading the book, you will have a clear idea of ​​what the devops culture for your organization means in practice. You will learn how to stimulate effective cooperation so that individual employees belonging to different layers and groups, having different goals and owning different working styles, can work productively together. You will receive information on how to establish teamwork in such a way as to maximize production value while increasing employee satisfaction. You will learn to balance between conflicting organizational goals and choose the tools and organizational flows that build the potential of your organization.

Book structure

We put a lot of effort into streamlining and organizing the chapters of the book. Just as there is no one right way to implement devops, there is no one right way to streamline the actions required to implement devops. Each book reader will use a unique sequence of devops implementation steps, solve their own problems and resolve conflicts that arise during this.

This book consists of several parts. Part I examines the overall picture, which is detailed down to the level of ideas, definitions, and principles related to devops. Parts II – V discuss four fundamental concepts that underpin the effective implementation of devops. Part VI concludes the discussion on building relationships between individuals, groups, and organizations.

?? Part I. "The basics of devops."
???? Part II. "Cooperation".
???? Part III. "Proximity."
???? Part IV. "Instruments".
???? Part V. “Scaling”.
???? Part VI. "The union of devops cultures."

Parts II – V conclude with a chapter discussing various misconceptions related to one or another concept underlying the implementation of devops. This chapter also discusses some universal troubleshooting scenarios related to this topic. Readers who implement devops in their organizations will also find a number of practical tips in the chapter “Misconceptions and Troubleshooting” that will be useful in your work.

Readers who prefer a computer society rather than a living person may be tempted to skip material that describes interpersonal interaction and communication culture. This is impractical because this material gives an idea of ​​the principles of collaboration, including intercultural and technological interaction, due to which the degree of effectiveness of devops increases.

Read the chapters of the book in the most convenient way for yourself, act in the style of "choosing your own adventure." The concepts underlying devops are intertwined and closely related, so when reading a book you will repeatedly return to previously read material in order to refresh a particular concept.

Practice methodology

Throughout the book you will get acquainted with the stories of employees of different companies. This information was obtained in the process of conducting interviews with people at different levels of organizations, based on messages published on blogs, from presentations and applications for registration of companies. While the topic for each chapter informs about the direction of the practice, the nature of devops leads to the fact that each case study touches on several, if not all four concepts underlying devops.

Also, a combination of more formal practices, informal stories, and our personal experience is presented to readers. All of this is done to demonstrate the variety of ways in which devops can influence decision making and narratives.

Read the stories presented in the following chapters. Recognize stories relevant to your organization. Answer the question about what affects your groups and informs them. Share your stories in corporate or public meetings. Listen to stories about introducing devops from other people.

»More information about the book can be found on the publisher’s website
» Table of Contents
» Excerpt

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