It has been stated time and time (and time and time) again that DevOps is primarily a matter of shifting IT culture. The tools and practices that comprise DevOps play a secondary role. But that is only partially true: In reality, the culture shift revolves around continuity, and the applications and tools that fuel continuous delivery drive the DevOps engine.
I alluded to this point in a post in early 2015. I stated, “Everything is continuous. Continuous development and continuous testing lead to continuous deployment and continuous delivery, which requires continuous support. Continuous monitoring produces continuous integration and continuous change. Continuous security results in continuous incident response … or vice versa. To top it off, all of the continuous activities continuously feed each other to drive more continuousness in some sort of DevOps Mobius strip of continuity.”
That post last year was a bit tongue in cheek. I have since refined my position, however, and come to the conclusion that the hint of sarcasm was perhaps unwarranted. That continuous continuousness is the crux of the culture shift. It is the thing that separates DevOps from non-DevOps.
On the Continuous Journey
Speaking on the topic of continuous security, Andrew Storms, vice president of Security Services at New Context, explains, “Smaller incremental changes are always easier to handle than a large behemoth of a release that can include hundreds of changes. Try finding the single change in a monthly release that resulted in an unexpected security hole in your database configuration vs the release with only two changes that was just developed and released in the last few hours. Security practitioners cannot continue to rely on manual, human-controlled processes to defend against attacks. Automation is a requirement for the next evolutionary phase of security protection.”
That sentiment extends beyond security to all of IT. When we talk about the culture shift in IT required for DevOps, we are generally talking about breaking down silos and removing the barriers between different teams. The goal of the culture shift is to shed tedious bureaucracy and red tape and empower employees to freely collaborate and cooperate to get things done. In other words, we want to eliminate barriers and roadblocks so productivity can be more continuous.
Assuming the DevOps transformation begins at that level, it creates an environment of continuous collaboration which becomes continuous development. What follows is a natural evolution of continuity. Continuous development becomes continuous delivery, which requires continuous testing and continuous deployments, followed by continuous monitoring, which provides the metrics and feedback that take you back to the beginning of the loop.
All of the “continuous” tools and solutions may seem to be part of the technologies and practices that come after the DevOps culture shift, and to some extent, that is true. However, they are also indispensable and inseparable from that DevOps culture shift because without all of the various gears meshing together smoothly—and continuously—what you’re left with is a more traditional approach to IT where everything comes to a halt.
Is DevOps more of a cultural shift than a collection of tools? Absolutely. That culture shift revolves around continuity, though. Continuousness is the culture shift that drives DevOps.
Barry Crist is CEO of IT automation company 
