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Tag: DevOps 101

  • What’s the Difference Between DevOps and Platform Engineering?

    What’s the Difference Between DevOps and Platform Engineering?

    The DevOps space is buzzing with a new trend—platform engineering. Platform engineering has been gaining steam over the last few years but has really peaked in interest lately. In fact, according to a study conducted by Puppet Labs, 51% of organizations have adopted platform engineering or plan to do so in the next year. But what exactly is platform engineering, and how is it different than DevOps?

    Below, we’ll explore the nuances between these two concepts. We’ll review what DevOps and platform engineering are and see how they’re similar and dissimilar. We’ll also outline the benefits of platform engineering and suggest some best practices to make the most of this emerging discipline.

    What is DevOps?

    DevOps is a broad topic, but it generally involves efforts to increase software release efficiency and frequency. Some of the hallmarks of the DevOps discipline include reducing siloes between teams and increasing collaboration. DevOps is often directly associated with various tools that automate the process of moving code from a local environment into production, also known as continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD). Monitoring, incident management and configuration management tools also support the DevOps process.

    “DevOps reflects more of a philosophy and a way of working,” said David Sandilands, senior solutions architect for Puppet. DevOps enables more of a shift left mentality. Instead of having operations teams “guarding the gates,” developers work in partnership with Ops. In doing so, groups can decrease build time significantly, he said. This style helps engineers incrementally and rapidly release new features, replacing old waterfall development cycles.

    The ultimate goal of DevOps is to automate the software life cycle and shorten the feedback loop. Thus, DevOps takes a life cycle approach to shipping applications more efficiently, streamlining phases such as build, release, configure, monitor, plan, create and verify. Microservices architecture and containerization also often play a crucial role in enabling DevOps.

    What is Platform Engineering?

    Platform engineering is all about developing a self-service internal platform that serves the needs of developer consumers. Although DevOps opened things up and empowered individual developers with advanced automation, it left organizations with scattered tooling and processes, especially at large enterprises. For example, various infrastructure-as-code (IaC) configurations might exist for similar functions within the same organization but be unknown to engineers in different departments. Not to mention, overseeing a growing DevOps pipeline means added responsibilities around continual updates and security.

    Platform engineering places more control in the hands of a central platform team rather than individual developers. These teams typically treat the platform as a product. They do so by evaluating the needs of developers across an organization, building out internal self-service tools that suit the needs of most consumers and maintaining the platform.

    The 2023 State of DevOps Report found that this self-service approach typically handles areas like deployment, operation of infrastructure, monitoring production applications and security and compliance. Other capabilities, such as abstracting Kubernetes or overseeing secrets management, may also play a role in these efforts.

    Benefits of Platform Engineering

    • Improve developer experience: Platform engineering can enhance the experience a developer has with their software build and release systems. A better developer experience can do loads to improve morale and create a more productive engineering atmosphere.
    • Standardize DevOps practices: By bringing together common DevOps approaches into a shared platform, organizations can begin to standardize with reusable build processes and automated infrastructure. This can unite an organization on common runtimes, observability methods and deployment processes. This can streamline the introduction of DevOps practices to an organization.
    • Secure the DevOps pipeline: Various vulnerabilities exist within tooling that comprises modern CI/CD chains and cloud-native open source software. By outsourcing DevOps responsibility to a shared platform team, the organization can coalesce around more secure practices and avoid overlooking important updates or holes.
    • Supply additional guardrails: Platform teams might also assist in the acquisition of new tools as well as outlining and enforcing policies for software infrastructure. While this may come at the cost of customization, additional guardrails can help avoid shadow IT and governance around internal development. Letting platform teams handle it could make maintenance easier across an organization.

    Platform Engineering: Under the DevOps Umbrella

    I don’t see platform engineering as replacing DevOps. Instead, I view platform engineering as falling under the umbrella of DevOps since platform engineering takes DevOps processes and makes them more reusable and self-service. Both use a lot of automation and share many of the same end goals.

    However, there are nuances between the two approaches that reflect the recent trends in the IT market. With DevOps, the market was more interested in shifting responsibility left and empowering individual developers to oversee the entire software life cycle. Now, as sprawl and shadow IT emerge, the pendulum seems to be shifting back toward a bit more centralization and governance with platform engineering.

    Platform engineering is typically more of an in-house development initiative. So, what are some best practices IT divisions should remember to get the most out of platform engineering? Hope Lynch, senior director of platform at Cloudbees, shared some great strategies to consider that revolve around treating the platform as a product. Doing this involves accepting feedback from developers, not controlling everything and always maintaining a focus on developer experience.

    Hopefully, by following these tips, organizations should have a better grasp of the emerging discipline of platform engineering and have the confidence to begin introducing platform-based concepts within their own environments.

  • How Good Developers Become Good Engineering Managers

    How Good Developers Become Good Engineering Managers

    Being a good engineering manager means that, to some degree, you have a natural affinity for the work involved. And if you’re a good developer, you likely already have some of those innate skills and attributes.

    But simply having the skills doesn’t mean you’ll enjoy being an engineering manager. For example, the nature of the role is that you’re no longer the one writing the code. I’ve known great architects who became great managers, but they ended up going back to being individual contributors (ICs) because they missed working with nitty-gritty coding details and the joy that brought them.

    It helps to take a realistic inventory of your skillset and preferred working style before making the transition. There are certain competencies you should have completely dialed in, and other tips to know that will help your transition.

    Basic Skills of a Good Engineering Manager

    If you’re a good engineer, you likely already have the following foundational skills that also make a good engineering manager. With these in your toolbox, you’ll have a better chance at success.

    1. Attention to detail. The buck stops with the engineering manager. You need to know when to push and ask questions and how to set outcomes for your team’s accountability. If you work loosely as an IC and need reminders about your own work, you probably won’t do well as a manager.
    2. Amazing personal planning skills. As an engineering manager, you’ll be planning an entire team’s work. If you’re terrible at planning your own work, maybe the engineering manager role isn’t for you.
    3. Speak intelligently about broad technical topics. If you’re a good developer, this shouldn’t be a concern. You’ll need this knowledge to advocate for your team and justify their work to upper management.
    4. Team player attitude. Even as an IC, you should have a collaborative, team-oriented mindset. It goes without saying that you’ll need this when leading others.
    5. Interest in managing others. This might seem obvious, but if you don’t have a natural interest in managing others and in the people side of engineering, you’ll be unhappy as an engineering manager.

    Making the Transition From Developer to Engineering Manager

    If you can do all of the above and are ready to make the transition from developer to engineering manager, here’s what to be aware of as you navigate that process. These tips aren’t meant to deter or discourage you but rather provide a helpful dose of reality.

    Satisfaction in your work takes new forms. If you’re an excellent developer, you know the value you bring and likely get personal satisfaction out of the contributions you make. As a manager, it’s harder to see the direct value you provide. Shift your mindset and realize that now, you’re the one enabling developers to do that rewarding work, and that’s the value you provide. You’ll learn to take enjoyment and fulfillment from your team’s accomplishments.

    People take up a lot of your time. What most frequently catches new engineering managers off guard are the people-related aspects of the role. They’re not prepared for how much time managing people takes. I’ve seen it over and over again where a new manager thinks they can still set aside time to code, but you really have to prioritize learning the craft of management.

    Remember to communicate upward. In the absence of information, it’s human nature to assume the worst. When I was at BitBucket, I assumed that because I had always done a good job, the leaders would think my team was crushing it. The opposite was true; leadership thought everything was on fire.

    I started sending updates every two weeks to various levels of management, and that’s when I learned the power of upward communication. I realized I needed to sell my team’s work, contributions and challenges. Learn what higher-level leaders are looking for and then give them that information regularly.

    Context-switching is part of the job. As an IC, constant context switches kill your day. But being an engineering manager means dealing with endless context-switching. Going to multiple meetings is baked into the job, and you’ll still have to find ways to block off time to get other work done.

    Shield your team. You also need to be prepared to help protect your team from context-switching. You might learn information that’s important to your team during your many meetings, but not all of that needs to be communicated with them. Filter out the junk so it doesn’t rain down on them and they can maintain their flow.

    Being an engineering manager can be a rewarding role that has a considerable impact on an organization. The more prepared you are for the realities of the role and its differences from being a developer, the more you’ll enjoy it and the more successful you’ll be.

  • DevOps Done Right: How to Succeed in DevOps From Day One

    DevOps Done Right: How to Succeed in DevOps From Day One

    Whether you are diving into DevOps for the first time or trying to do it right this time, DevOps Onramp provides all the information you need for a successful DevOps journey. Join us on May 4, 2023, to learn how to get started with DevOps—and how to do it right.

    You’ll learn:

    • DevOps best practices, processes and the tools you’ll need
    • Tips and tricks from experienced practitioners sharing their real-world experiences
    • The basics of DevOps
    • How to choose the right technologies
    • Common challenges and how to overcome them
    • The benefits of DevOps as a methodology and a career
    • And more!

    As organizations face increasing pressure to adapt faster and become more agile, getting DevOps right and adopting a DevOps mindset is crucial to deliver high-quality software faster and increase business value. And that opens up great opportunities for anyone looking to start a new career or pivot from an existing role in technology.

    DevOps has become the standard of software development methodologies and it’s critical for successful digital transformation. Adopting DevOps—and doing it the right way—can benefit not only your organization but also your customers and end users by fostering innovation, reducing time to market, increasing development productivity, improving product quality and reliability and reducing costs.

    That’s why many big companies, such as Amazon, Netflix, Facebook and many others have adopted a DevOps mindset—and DevOps practices. And as more businesses are looking to move to the cloud and transition into DevOps, there are plenty of job opportunities available for DevOps engineers at various levels.

    DevOps is a growing field with a lot of opportunities for professional growth. According to a research study by Global Market Insights Inc., the DevOps market is expected to surpass $30 billion by 2028. Due to the high demand for skilled DevOps engineers and the shortage of qualified DevOps professionals in the industry, there is no better time to upskill than now.

    Whether you are diving into DevOps for the first time or trying to do it right this time, DevOps Onramp provides all the information you need for a successful DevOps journey.

    At DevOps Onramp Virtual Summit, taking place on May 4, 2023, you’ll get all the knowledge you need to get started with DevOps —and how to do it right. Join us to learn about DevOps best practices, processes and tools and get tips and tricks from experienced practitioners sharing their real-world experiences. We’ll go through the basics of DevOps, how to choose the right technologies, common challenges and the benefits of DevOps.

    One thing is for sure: The future of DevOps is very promising. The rush has started—don’t be left behind!

    DevOps Onramp Virtual Summit - Submit your talk

    If you’re interested in becoming a sponsor, please contact us. For more information, please visit the DevOps Onramp website.

  • The Whats and Hows of APIs: A New Developer’s Guide 

    The Whats and Hows of APIs: A New Developer’s Guide 

    For those who are new developers, you may not know a lot about application programming interfaces (APIs). However, it is likely that you’ve used them before as a consumer or an end user, whether purchasing online, using business communication software to reach colleagues or sharing images from a monogram logo maker on social media platforms, for example. It makes knowing about them helpful, regardless of if you plan to make and use one yourself or want to understand how the tools you use work. 

    Although coding and developer tools can be daunting for the outside world, we’ll put APIs into a language that new developers (and even non-developers) can understand. In this guide, we’ll cover what APIs are and the different types that exist. You’ll also learn how they work and how you can use them. By the end, hopefully, you’ll be more comfortable with APIs and know how they impact you and your business.

    What Is an API?

    An application programming interface is a piece of coding used by developers to communicate between different devices, systems, or applications. It allows information to be passed on—allowing procedures to be followed across multiple platforms. Depending on the API, this could be transferring data, images, videos, text, files and other content, or allowing developers to connect through the use of backend-as-a-service (BaaS) to link their apps to the cloud. APIs are often used in a business context and for personal projects or other purposes. 

    Generally, APIs are concerned with the raw information and passing this on to another program rather than the appearance or visual side of these applications. Another set of coding is used instead to build the aesthetic and usability of the interface, while the API tends to be less visible to users. Nonetheless, they form an essential part of our technology stack today, allowing systems to integrate and become more agile, making applications easier for users to navigate.

    Image sourced from developers.facebook.com

    For example, when you refresh your omnichannel communications application, a request is sent to the API to check other linked programs for new messages on your social platforms or calls to your 800 numbers for business. These programs inform the API of new communications and send the appropriate data across. The API returns this data to the application you are using, enabling you to read the messages from here or notify you of no new calls.

    Types of API

    1. Private

    A private API is used internally within a team, created by developers who work for the company or organization. It can help make highly personalized APIs for the needs of your business and adapt the API as and when needed. Private APIs can’t be used or worked on by external developers, as it is purely for your in-house team. These APIs tend to focus on aiding your company’s productivity and project management across multiple applications.

    2. Partner

    Alternatively, partner APIs are used externally with companies that your business collaborates with. Often, this transfers information between businesses, such as within an affiliate scheme or for external postage of online orders. However, APIs can also share and update files such as your release of liability contract or emergency procedure templates. Developers from both companies can improve the API system to effectively share data between partners. 

    3. Open/Public

    Because they are not restricted to usage by specific businesses, open APIs (also known as public APIs) can be used by anyone. You may need a subscription to give you access to the API depending on how frequently you use it, although there are other APIs that are completely free to use. Once you’ve sorted out your access, any software developer can use the API to make changes and transfer information more easily between various software for several purposes. 

    Image sourced from mailchimp.com

    4. Composite

    By taking the responses of multiple programs and streamlining these onto one platform, composite APIs are essential for business and personal use. Or, vice versa, a composite API allows you to make requests of multiple platforms simultaneously. It is helpful for omnichannel management, tracking customer interactions, online faxing and purchases across various platforms. These tend to require little input from developers and are set up for anyone to use.  

    How to Use an API

    • Choose Your API

    As you may have gathered, APIs can be used for several purposes. When choosing your API, look for something relevant to the business that helps you complete the tasks you already do. The software and tools you use may have recommended APIs to try, or there may be APIs that similar businesses use. Do your research to ensure your API performs the right functions and works with your rephrasing tool, calendar software or other add-ons you use. 

    If you’re getting used to APIs, you may want to start with a free option. It means that if it doesn’t work as you hoped, you’ve not lost anything by trying. Many APIs have a free trial period or a free subscription tier with the basic functions, so you can get a feel for the API and decide if it works for your business. When you’re confident in your choice, you can invest in the other subscription tiers that tend to allow for additional users and added functionality.

    • Find Your API Key

    An API key identifies you as the user, authenticating your actions using the API and tracking your usage. It is crucial to have, particularly with subscription-based APIs, as without it you may not be able to perform certain actions, or your users of the API may be limited. Even if your API of choice is free to use and publicly accessible, there still may be an API key to keep your information and preferences stored and linked between your platforms. 

    Image sourced from developers.google.com

    Your API key may be issued as you sign up for the service, so remember this and ensure those in your business who need it can access it. Otherwise, you may need to request or pay for an API key, although this should be clear when you sign up for your chosen API. To increase your API security and avoid your preferences being altered, keep your API key private and limit who has access to it. If your account is hacked, you may need to request a new API key. 

    • Read the Instructions

    It can be easy to overlook the documentation and instructions an API comes with, assuming you’ll get the gist through practicing and by actually using it. Although this may be true to an extent, you could be missing out on useful functions or not using the API as effectively as possible. Likewise, you could get yourself into a mess, not properly setting resource requests and limits, leading to more issues for your business when using the API in the future.

    Set aside time to read the instructions and documents for your API or divide the workload between your management team. You may discover it comes with setup instructions or useful tutorials you can use with the rest of your teams. As you introduce more people to the API, the instructions ensure everyone uses it in the same way. It prevents confusion for your teams and enables them to build their confidence with the API more quickly. 

    • Set Up Your Requests

    Depending on the API, there may be suggested requests for you to set up or you may have to create and code your own. Following the instructions from your API can help with this, allowing your in-house developers to reach their full potential within the API and informing you of the coding structure to use. Nonetheless, there are plenty of tutorials online covering how to set up your API requests without relying on coding expertise.   

    Image sourced from developer.paypal.com

    Just because a request is possible doesn’t mean it’s always relevant to your business. Consider why you’re using an API and what you want it to do once you’ve set up your requests. If you’re new to using APIs, start with a few basic requests and build on these as you gain confidence and experience, using CI/CD best practices to ensure it runs well. It allows you to become familiar with using each request and ensure it works in the way that you intended it.

    Are You Ready to Use APIs?

    As technology progresses and software is developed, having APIs in place is becoming more helpful. Being able to communicate between applications can streamline your virtual receptionist service, incoming video calls and outgoing messages, for example, as well as accelerate cloud-native application development. Having one place to make your requests and display information from multiple platforms gives you more control in managing your tasks.

    If you’re still new to APIs, you don’t have to start using them for everything immediately. Take your time learning to use them for specific functions, getting familiar with them, and enabling your teams to adjust to using them. From this foundation, add new APIs or requests as they’re needed, personalizing them to your business and the tasks you complete. Over time, you’ll gain confidence in using APIs and build a strong network of requests to run your business effectively.

     

  • 5 Reasons to Adopt DevOps

    5 Reasons to Adopt DevOps

    DevOps IT methodologies are taking the development industry by storm. Some call DevOps great for software development. Others find it ideal for pushing out regular software updates and pursuing continuous delivery for clients.

    If you do not know what DevOps is or why your business should adopt DevOps, read on. We’ll break down five reasons why your organization should adopt DevOps at the earliest opportunity.

    What is DevOps?

    In a nutshell, DevOps is short for “development” and “operations.” It’s a software development and programming methodology that helps teams execute ideas more quickly and pursue continuous deployment for organizations and clients. In web and mobile app development, DevOps can be very beneficial thanks to its agility, responsiveness, and versatility.

    Many organizations think of DevOps as some new approach or technology, but it’s actually been around for some time. This approach to IT delivery combines special practices, philosophies, and tools to help mitigate bottlenecks from operations and development.

    Specifically, DevOps combines both development and operations principles to some extent. In this way, most of the major aspects of software or app development are unified. This, in turn, allows teams to respond more capably to shifting project demands and bugs.

    Furthermore, DevOps focuses on organizing and separating “silos” in organizations. In this way, teams or individual workers can take responsibility for a given project. This is superior to separating tasks by individual roles or team labels. DevOps’ advantages mean it’s being used in many different and unique industries, from fintech to medical communication services, and manufacturing.

    However, many businesses are wary about switching to DevOps or any other methodology because it:

    • Requires a major culture switch in workers. It is never easy to shift methodologies, especially when the methodology in question is as complex as DevOps.
    • It is not a one-size-fits-all solution. For DevOps to be successful, your team has to embrace it thoroughly, understand and master its principles, and spend some time practicing.

    Even with these potential downsides, it’s still a very good idea to get your team on board with shifting to DevOps sooner rather than later. Many competing organizations have already done this!

    Benefits of DevOps for Businesses

    DevOps can provide numerous important advantages for businesses just like yours, regardless of industry, niche, or size. Let’s take a look at the five big advantages one by one.

    Better Team Collaboration

    For starters, DevOps often leads to increased team collaboration. Specifically, it allows your development and operations teams or departments to communicate and collaborate much more easily than before.

    In turn, this translates into freer communication between both departments and more trust between individual team members. Your development and operations teams can share their inputs, knowledge, and specific understandings of tools, code, or client desires.

    Think of DevOps as unifying the two teams in your organization. A unified team is one that’s better prepared to respond to changing industry trends, new consumer tastes, or sudden objective shifts that you can’t avoid.

    DevOps is so good at fostering team collaboration because it’s an agile methodology. Agile methodologies are ideal for simplifying complex tasks into more manageable or smaller pieces. This results in a more iterative, manageable planning and development process across the board.

    Greater Security

    DevOps may also lead to greater developmental security. DevSecOps, a broader version of DevOps, involves merging your development and operations teams with your security team.

    In essence, you shift security focuses and practices to the left of your development pipeline. Security checks, cloud monitoring, and regular examinations of code to prevent breaches or vulnerabilities happen earlier in the development process as opposed to later, closer to launch (and when problems or bugs are always harder to fix).

    DevSecOps lets your team identify and fix security issues earlier and more regularly. Any software products or apps your team puts out should be tighter in terms of code security and should be harder to breach or break by any bad actors or hackers.

    Improved Efficiency

    DevOps is very beneficial for organizations because it can improve efficiency in many key ways. DevOps culture and methodologies often require you to use automated tools such as Docker, Git, AWS, and more.

    With these automated tools, your DevOps team can quickly identify bottlenecks or potential issues and take corrective actions as needed without having to waste time. Remember, DevOps inherently means that your teams are more collaborative and communicative, so you don’t need to spend time sending messages between both departments unnecessarily.

    DevOps is very high velocity, infusing your development team with more agility and flexibility than ever before. Naturally, this is a majorly competitive advantage; it allows your team to iterate and innovate more rapidly and regularly than your competitors.

    Faster Bug Resolution

    However, DevOps can also prove advantageous to your organization by helping your company solve discovered bugs more quickly. CI or continuous integration is a core element in any DevOps team or department.

    In a nutshell, this involves checking the final build and any related code regularly. Since more checks occur under a DevOps methodology, that means your teams will be more likely to discover bugs or issues with a software product before launch.

    Furthermore, this allows your team to constantly make small changes to improve code or repair bugs immediately rather than waiting for them to lead to long-term issues later down the road. This is beneficial since it will help you:

    • Crush bugs before your clients and customers see them
    • Fix bugs before they spiral out of control by deploying patches through the cloud
    • Avoid putting off or delaying software launches
    • And more

    More broadly, DevOps methodologies let you produce smaller releases and smaller changes. Since every code change has to be run through automated testing processes before getting to production, bug fixing is both faster and rarer. 

    More Client Satisfaction

    Lastlty, and perhaps most importantly, DevOps can help your organization produce greater and more consistent client satisfaction overall. After all, the primary goal for any programming or software methodology is to make sure that clients or end-users of software have excellent experiences and don’t have any complaints.

    This is even more important in the modern day when you have to compete against other software development organizations all the time. If you want your organization to be efficient, agile, and organized, DevOps is the way to go.

    DevOps should produce software with:

    • Fewer bugs or other issues
    • More manageable software updates and releases
    • A more integrated team supporting its processes
    • And more

    All of this will contribute to a better initial and long-term experience for clients or end users. In addition, DevOps allows your team to deliver innovative solutions or code changes quickly and easily, allowing your brand overall to improve customer experiences as time goes on.

    In other words, DevOps lets you evolve your product along with the desires of your customers.

    Conclusion

    As you can see, DevOps practices and methodologies are beneficial in more ways than one. Once you adopt DevOps for your organization, you could see improved efficiency, more continuous delivery of online or software-based services and other advantages. Both you and your clients will benefit, so start adopting DevOps across your company today.