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Author: Sam Bocetta

  • The Secret to Winning at DevOps: Are You Up for the Challenge?

    The Secret to Winning at DevOps: Are You Up for the Challenge?

    The main idea behind DevOps is to enable companies to keep up with the increased software velocity and advancements in agile culture for a smoother end-to-end software delivery cycle.

    The main goal of DevOps is to accomplish integration and automation, which is why implementing this philosophy can be challenging. Not only do you need to replace older methods and practices, but you’ll also have to change the mindset of the developers and the operations team to ensure they work in sync.

    Several IT operations teams and software teams have adopted DevOps practices into their work culture for faster evolvement and improved innovations. The pipeline comprises continuous integration, testing, deployment, as well as monitoring application and system performance.

    Introducing new DevOps tools and changing the mindset to prepare teams for the fast-paced world remains crucial for a successful implementation.

    Despite the revolution that this philosophy brings to software development, several enterprises find themselves taking DevOps to an unproductive extreme. To remain productive, one of the aspects that teams need to work on is reducing rework, and the best way to ensure this is automation.

    Understand How DevOps Works

    Under a DevOps model, the development and operations teams are integrated into one to prevent them from getting siloed. This also improves collaboration and productivity.

    You see, it brings alive the possibility of both the teams thinking more alike, working together and sharing responsibilities. This is done by automating code testing and workflows, automating infrastructure and continuously measuring application performance.

    In some models, even the QA and security teams merge with the dev and ops. In cases where security becomes the primary focus, the name gets modified to DevSecOps.

    In essence, the focus of DevOps is on automating processes that were otherwise manual and slow. Teams use a technology stack and tooling that can operate and evolve applications more reliably and swiftly. As engineers will be able to accomplish tasks such as deploying code and provisioning infrastructure faster with reduced issues, teams can reach testing and maintenance stages quicker.

    Balance Between Standardization and Adaptability

    Software products are mostly developed from the customers’ perspective, and if not, from end-user experience. Often, developers work backward to identify customer needs and wants for ascertaining successful innovation.

    One of the biggest challenges when developing a software development life cycle (SDLC) strategy for organizations is to consider dynamic customer needs, strict compliance policies, unpredictable market trends and company goals. To ensure a consistent workflow, DevOps teams need to adopt standardization. In fact, workflows, technologies, processes, protocols and metrics need to be standardized before they can be automated.

    This is also the main reason why organizations adopting DevOps need to strike a balance between standardization and adaptability. One industry that has excelled at this has been the financial industry, which has been leading the charge when it comes to adopting the latest software delivery practices and technologies, including DevOps. Financial executives view DevOps as being a way to improve security and risk and governance strategies. 

    The result is that cloud-based financial services are now automating virtually all of their processes through their software delivering pipelines, which makes tasks such as scanning receipts, sending invoices, tracking expenses or making payments seamless as they sync to your account. This simpler process is beneficial for boosting developer productivity and resource utilization, and for enabling enterprise scale management. If anything automating processes is becoming necessary for achieving higher product quality, compliance and scalability. 

    As mentioned above, new DevOps tools need to be introduced to team members to keep up with the constantly evolving strategies and implementation. But to prevent the creation of silos between teams, mechanisms need to be developed to make the adoption of new technologies easier. 

    Achieving the delicate balance between standardization and automation will help eliminate communication gaps, performance bottlenecks and silos between the different teams.

    Benefits of Automation in the DevOps Landscape

    The following are the advantages of adopting a DevOps philosophy:

    • Code Development. Source control will keep everyone in the loop by managing, tracking and documenting any changes in code. This can be time-saving, and reduce the complexity of software projects.
    • Smoother Testing. Testing is a continuous process in DevOps frameworks that includes system communication, several test integrations, predicting and tracking issues, and integrating approved automated builds. In the absence of automation, executing and managing continuous testing could be a rather tedious job that might cause problems between developers and the operations team.
    • Better Visibility. The main job of the ops teams is to be aware of the code changes, ongoing problems and the impact of a specific code on the end goals. Plus, when they operate in a DevOps environment, they need to keep the developers in the loop as well.
      For example, if a system administrator from the ops team identifies code issues weeks after submission, it puts more pressure on developers. Now, the developers have two jobs: solve the problem in the previous code, and simultaneously work on making progress with the new code. This is what gets time-consuming, which can harm the company’s market standing. To remain ahead in the competition, innovation needs to be frequent and accurate.
      When there is a constant feedback loop between the dev, ops and QA, bottlenecks, and silos are eliminated, productivity is improved and customers are happier due to quicker innovation.
    • Continuous Integration and Delivery. Automation can help deliver appropriate software built, data, code changes and tests to target environments. An example is how web hosts for e-commerce businesses need to be updated frequently for robust deployments. Automated testing will help ensure that code is delivered properly and doesn’t introduce new bugs, thus creating a platform with a superior user experience.
      This, in turn, helps DevOps teams to introduce frequent software changes by deploying error-free codes and continuous testing.
    • Data Processing and Monitoring. The teams also need to measure and monitor the performance of their environment, which can be done by reading and analyzing system logs. But the existence of hundreds or thousands of servers in the environment can make it complicated.
      Automation will allow the teams to make sense of all the data and let them know how an application is performing and whether there are any bottlenecks.

    Getting the Balance Right

    Organizations need to realize that automation involves placing technologies around once-manual processes. The catch here is as the processes will become inherently repeatable, they need to be correct. Otherwise, organizations will only have flawed processes running faster, which will ultimately defeat the purpose of adopting DevOps in the first place.

    Companies need to understand adaptability as well. This can be done by mixing both the old as well as new systems. For this purpose, an inventory of all applications, data stores and development processes for promoting meta development processes that include design, development, testing, deployment, configuration management and so on can be made.

    In the end, the secret to winning DevOps is aligning DevOps tools with your organization’s goals – not following the footsteps of other organizations.

  • How DevOps Can Save Your Business from COVID-19

    How DevOps Can Save Your Business from COVID-19

    COVID-19 drastically changed the landscape of the American workforce. Remote work went from something of a niche field to a way of life for millions of people. In fact, research shows that roughly half of all employed Americans began working from home as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. 

    While some employers struggle to adapt to this new way of life, others adapted quickly. Looking forward to the future, the ability to adapt in this way could mean life or death for many businesses. 

    It does not look like this trend will end once a vaccine is found for the disease. Many major companies, including Mondelez and Barclays, have said that working from home may become a permanent fixture of their business models. It is easy to see why. In such an advanced age of technology and communication, people can talk to each other over the phone or computer as easily as walking to someone’s desk. 

    Very soon, a business could utilize 1,000 home locations instead of just one. But all of this comes down to the abilities of IT departments nationwide.

    A recent report from GitHub came out focusing on new software development in the era of COVID-19. While there have inevitably been disruptions in numerous industries, IT professionals have more than met the challenge. The report’s author, Nicole Forsgren, was even quoted as saying, “Developers have continued to contribute and show resilience in the face of uncertainty.” So going into the future, what could be every organizational team’s best friend? 

    If you look at where the market is heading, then it certainly seems like DevOps is in for a massive boom. 

    The Resilience of DevOps

    The need for reliable software has only increased as more and more people attain smartphones and other essential pieces of technology. Five billion people now own mobile phones, which is going to result in speed problems across the globe. This is where DevOps steps in to pick up the pieces. 

    DevOps has the ability to sync, organize and automate the pace of new software releases. By design, it is made for remote operations. However, it also remains viable for operations that take place in the office or any other location. DevOps has the capability of adapting and changing along with the world around it. 

    In the era of COVID-19, that is an incredibly advantageous model as companies may want to work in an office building one week and from home the next. It is the software you need for the world you live in. 

    However, DevOps is only as good as the people utilizing it. It can be a challenge for individuals at companies, who already have so much on their plates, to adapt to the DevOps model. That is why the company has come out with the DevOps Institute. At this point, it just comes down to companies finding the right people who have the necessary technical prowess and soft skills to bring the benefits of DevOps to their workplaces. 

    According to data collected by DevOps, it certainly seems like many businesses face shortages of people skilled in information technology and other skills that could help them adapt to a more remote way of working. 

    The report shows that 48% of respondents were not entering the workforce with the skills needed to manage modern IT environments. Out of all of the people surveyed, only 28% said they believe new workers came in with essential skill sets. 

    These skills will only grow more vital as more businesses begin working from home. For example, the ability to communicate rapidly is essential when people are not in the same location. And it may not come down to human errors either. Faulty technology could result in people not seeing messages or emails on-time, delaying crucial projects. 

    The perfect DevOps engineer will be an individual who has the perfect balance of hard and soft skills. It is someone who knows how to correct a network error promptly but has the communication skills necessary to reach out when issues arise. The ideal DevOps engineer for a company is someone who understands how VPNs work inside and out but also communicates in a manner other people outside of the IT department can understand. 

    Additional Considerations for Implementing DevOps

    There are extra considerations that need to be brought to the table for companies interested in utilizing DevOps. For starters, people in a company need to get started pushing technology and DevOps toward the cloud. In a situation like the COVID-19 crisis, there is no clear timeline of when things will get back to normal. If your company is not already utilizing the cloud, then it is high time to get started. 

    Next, companies need to begin implementing automation as far as possible. Delays in communication can set back company timelines by weeks or even months. Plus, when people are aware, you are going to realize how much time is actually spent performing various tasks that could be done through software. 

    Instead of having a person check for malware, you can have everyone install malware scanners onto their computers so that their safety is being examined in the background as they focus on more important tasks. Detecting malware is only the beginning as businesses can also use automation to test functionalities and deploy to several environments simultaneously. 

    Lastly, as employers turn to DevOps to meet their companies’ obligations, it is critical to keep an eye on potential burnout. With more people working from home, they need to juggle work, family and other obligations in closer corners. 

    DevOps can be a huge lifesaver, but you want to make sure you give your employees sustainable workloads your team can handle. This time is also good to establish clear boundaries between people’s personal lives and work. It can be a good idea to set clear hours for when employees can communicate with each other. Outside of that time frame, it is important to let people relax and focus on other aspects of their lives. 

    Conclusion

    The COVID-19 crisis will pass, but the American workforce may never look the same. Many organizations may end up deciding there are more benefits to working from home than renting an office space. People will get through this, and DevOps will be there to lend a helping hand.

  • DevSecOps vs. Agile Development: Putting Security at the Heart of Program Development

    DevSecOps vs. Agile Development: Putting Security at the Heart of Program Development

    Despite most developers and managers being well aware of the concept of DevSecOps, it is still often confused with a number of related processes and concepts. This is particularly true for the Department of Defense (DoD) contractors because they have long been encouraged to use a related process known as agile development. 

    Since agile development has been around for more than a decade, there is a tendency for organizations to regard DevSecOps as an extension, or even a synonym, for it. In reality, though, the two approaches are distinct. The objectives of both approaches are similar: balancing speed and agility, detecting risk early and both focus on cloud-native security and performance. 

    However, while DevSecOps does build on some agile development principles, such as the continuous integration and delivery of software systems in cycles, its key emphasis from the beginning of the process is to integrate security features, while Agile only focuses on delivering software.

    In this article, we’ll look at the key differences between agile development and genuine DevSecOps processes, and how each complements the other.

     

    DevSecOps vs. Agile Development

     

    The difference between DevSecOps and agile development methodologies can be understood in reference to one aspect of software development: security. When, where and who implements security in software development varies between the two approaches.

    Agile development methodologies focus on iterative development cycles, in which feedback is continuously reintegrated into ongoing software development. However, even in mature agile development processes, security is still often added to software as an afterthought. This should not be read as blaming software developers for often underestimating the potential harm from malware or overlooking the importance of cybersecurity. 

    Rather, in many firms, it is simply not the responsibility of developers to think about the security implications of their code, because software will be passed to the security team before release.

    DevSecOps takes security and puts it on the same level as continuous integration and delivery. DevSecOps methodologies emphasize security at the very earliest stages of development and make security an important part of overall software quality.

    In essence, these approaches shift the program manager’s perspective away from making sure that software is in compliance or meets a specification or audit, to ensuring that the code is written correctly and securely and that it’s deployed in a repeatable manner.

     

    The Changing Culture of the DoD

     

    The adoption of DevSecOps methodologies is critical for DoD contractors because these methodologies reflect DoD’s own modernization strategy. Following high-profile vulnerabilities being discovered in all types of systems, DoD seems to have released that cybersecurity weaknesses are not just a potential threat to critical defense data, but also impose a significant operational bottleneck on the continuous delivery of functionality.

    At the moment, even those firms who possess a mature agile development framework can find that the multiple security checks and compliance processes that must be performed on software, prior to shipping, can detrimentally impact on their ability to deliver iterative software improvements. This is the issue that the transition to DevSecOps seeks to overcome, by attempting to shift organizations’ approach to cybersecurity away from compliance, and toward genuine security consciousness.

    At the same time, analysts are aware that shifting responsibility for cybersecurity onto developers will be uncomfortable, and potentially dangerous, for many DoD contractors. Developers working on the base code for military software do not have – and are not expected to have – an exhaustive appreciation of all of the contexts in which this will be deployed, and exactly which systems their software will be required to interface with.

     

    Automation and New Models

     

    In response to these concerns, DoD contractors are reappraising the DevSecOps model and thinking seriously about how it can be deployed in contexts where continuous service delivery is key. There are three key ways in which this is happening.

    The first is the rise of automation. The types of large-scale, multicloud infrastructures that most contemporary DoD projects rely on can often necessitate repetitive, ongoing maintenance and security assessment across both development and security teams. DevSecOps replaces these human checks with automated systems: Instead of requiring a person to go through checklists of hundreds of controls, this is done automatically as part of the software development and supply process pipeline. 

    The second key element in the transition to DevSecOps is endpoint security. The types of monolithic development processes that DoD contractors traditionally worked with are not suited to the contemporary deployment environment of many DoD projects. In these traditional methods, systems were built as discrete holes, with no expectation that data would be exposed as it moved between components. 

    This is now an obsolete approach: In DevSecOps processes, virtual private networks are used to provide security and encrypt data as it moves within a network, and the principle of least privilege reduces staff access to small portions of It environments. 

    Thirdly, a new generation of younger military and civilian personnel in the DoD, many of them trained in the commercial sector rather than entering the military directly from college, are bringing corporate approaches to the development of military software. This is seen in the exponential increase in the utilization of cloud services in DoD applications, and more dynamic and distributed managerial frameworks that distribute security responsibility across entire organizations, rather than having this as the sole remit of a dedicated security team.

     

    Get Support

     

    Moving to a truly DevSecOps methodology is likely to be a challenge for many contractors. However, just as in the last decade many firms have had to redesign their development lifecycles in order to be agile, now they will need to achieve secure development lifecycles in order to stay competitive.

    If you are looking to make this shift, you should also recognize that you are not alone. DoD is working actively with its partners in order to facilitate the roll-out of DevSecOps processes and to make commercial tools and techniques available and useful for military contractors because the department recognizes the value of this methodology for the software they commission. 

    This is seen most clearly in the recent updates to Microsoft Azure Government, though you should also be aware that many of the resources recently released by the Defense Logistics Agency are also focused on the transition to DevSecOps.

    In short, whilst the transition to DevSecOps may be challenging, it will be no more so than the earlier shift to agile development. To make this shift, however, firms should draw on the resources available to them, recognize the value of integrating security into their development workflows and build on existing agile frameworks.

  • How to Design DevSecOps Compliance Processes to Free Up Developer Resources

    How to Design DevSecOps Compliance Processes to Free Up Developer Resources

    Anything that gets rolled out quickly in the technological world is a major step forward—as long as it doesn’t compromise security.

    DevSecOps is able to provide compliance processes far more effectively than before, and without jeopardizing security while also freeing up developer resources.

    How do you direct your IT team to keep your applications and customers safe without completely draining your resources in the process?

    The answer: automation.

    Why is Security Vital to DevSecOps?

    To take full advantage of the agility and responsiveness of DevOps, you must bring forward an IT security team through the entire life cycle of your apps.

    In the past, when software could take months or years to complete, it was perfectly acceptable to bring in the security team in the final stage of development. But in the days of DevOps, a security team must get consulted from day one due to rapid and frequent development cycles.

    An effective DevSecOps system can be completed in days, so the outdated approach to handling security during the development phases also must change.

    How Did Security Radically Change DevOps?

    It is important to remind developers that security is a shared responsibility that must be integrated from end to end to guarantee a smooth and functional application. The mindset is so important that many have changed from using the term DevOps to DevSecOps to stress the importance of the need to build a very sound security foundation.

    If you are already making the transition to the cloud with AWS, chances are you have already implemented DevOps strategies into your interface so you can test new virtual machines (VMs) and deploy applications quickly without waiting for infrastructure to get manually configured.

    For those who prefer the old-school method of developing applications, neglecting security until the end leaves their applications exposed. One of the most common security issues with most SMEs is misuse of security during beta tests, which is basically akin to leaving your front door wide open when you go to sleep at night. It’s just a terrible idea.

    Making the transition from DevOps is not a luxury but a necessity for developers who want a secure environment, even during the dev/test period.

    Designing Compliance Processes for IT

    Even if you add “security” to the term DevOps, it means little without properly adding the processes you use into the building of the applications.

    Security must be built into the processes by design, or you are not correctly taking advantage of what DevSecOps means—and your developer resources will get neglected, too.

    Like the name implies, security must be in the center of development and operations. To maintain compliance, you must enforce a shared responsibility between AWS and the customer:

    • AWS is responsible for security of the cloud, including the hypervisor and hardware.
    • Customers are responsible for security in the cloud. They do this by securing your applications and network with services through a third-party vendor.

    The best examples of DevSecOps in the cloud take this philosophy to heart.

    Automation is Critical to Compliance Processes

    A “security first” mentality is good , but are you really taking action with your compliance processes to free up developer resources?

    The answer for many developers is, “Not quite.” Automation is essential to DevSecOps, yet so many systems lack the right tools. This is especially unfortunate for organizations that have the necessary skills and procedures in-house to implement built-in security processes directly into the application by design.

    For other organizations, automation is only achievable by leveraging their services from a security integrator, who can then provide services to help define processes and roles, unveil security tools and set up automation procedures.

    Steps to Establish Automation on DevSecOps

    Now that you know automation is crucial to the success of any system, here are a few basic steps you can take from day one to start building the security processes into your design:

    1. Consider a “shift-left” mentality when adding new processes, ones that incorporate design thinking from customers’ security needs and remain consistent. Steps such as threat-modeling storyboards build cyber resilience into the application before the first code is even written.
    2. Consider a cloud-based vulnerability scanning solution. It will help you define standards for the AMI as well as validate adherence to those standards.
    3. Implement an audit, logging and monitoring solution to track changes to the in-use AMIs. It helps combine account activity and AWS resources from the cloud with data related to security incidents. The in-use AMI changes can do everything from providing ongoing insights to allowing other security controls and having influence over network security.
    4. View the AWS Marketplace catalog. Along with what an internal staff or a systems integrator can help automate, there are a number of other terrific resources out there for automation. The software listings are all from independent software vendors that make it straightforward to locate, test, buy and deploy software that runs effectively on your AWS environment. Like other AWS services, the providers are billed based on consumption, so you pay only for what you need.

    By asking yourself the important question, “What am I trying to accomplish with my security controls?” you can get a variety of answers regarding what measures you need to take for compliance processes.

    Final Thoughts

    Speed, speed, speed. Developers today simply have no time to waste when it is time to launch new applications and get them out the door.

    You have little time to burn on extra features, but you also can’t afford leaving your systems exposed and vulnerable to attacks. That’s why DevSecOps uses superior security processes to free up developer resources by utilizing as much automation as possible.

    — Sam Bocetta