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Tag: noops

  • Time to Rethink Infrastructure Operations in Enterprises

    Time to Rethink Infrastructure Operations in Enterprises

    “Business is technology and technology is business” seems to be the new mantra as the rules of corporate strategy are being rewritten across industries. According to IDC’s survey in 2017, “Two-thirds of global CEOs will have digital transformation as part of their corporate strategy.”  That’s CEOs—not CIOs—who will have digital transformation as part of their corporate and, not IT, strategy.

    time for change

    While digital transformation is not a new phenomenon, making digitization core to the corporate strategy is a fundamental shift for technology teams. Delivery units, or “change the enterprise” teams, have warmed up to new ways of working over the last few years and are already on the learning journey. Most enterprises today have digital or agile transformation initiatives that tend to focus on the “change” aspect significantly. However, the less glamorous “run the enterprise” dimension tends to be forgotten or side-lined in these initiatives.

    The rise of DevOps was meant to bridge the gap between “change” and “run.” However, many DevOps transformation initiatives seem to be taking the same old path of least resistance that agile transformations have historically adopted: by focusing on the “change” and delivery teams.

    As a consequence, the infrastructure and operations teams—or, “run the enterprise” units—are now waking up to the new reality and have far less time to adapt than their “change” counterparts. The big question really is, What does it mean to infrastructure and operations teams when the CEO is now embracing digital transformation?

    This means that the technology infrastructure required to support business strategy requires a combination of the usual consistency and quality that infrastructure and operations have historically focused on—but only with greater speed, innovation, flexibility and customer intimacy. For the first time, business is looking at infrastructure as equal partners on this journey, not as a subservient IT function.

    What Caused This Shift in Thinking?

    Since 2001, there have been four game-changers in technology that have caused this shift in thinking: the Agile Manifesto of 2001, adoption of Cloud by enterprises, rise of startups and the DevOps movement. The world of technology as we know has been going through a tectonic shift as a consequence of these overlapping waves of change.

    Agile and DevOps

    Version One’s 11th “State of Agile” report highlights that 71 percent of organizations have current or planned DevOps initiatives in 2018. While Agile ways focus on effective team structures, value focused mindset and greater business alignment, DevOps has taken the principles to the logical next steps of delivering value by focusing on flow, amplified feedback loops and building a culture of learning and innovation. In addition, full stack automation covering infrastructure, application delivery and release orchestration has really catapulted DevOps into the top initiatives in organizations. In terms of architecture, new constructs such as evolving design, microservices, containers and serverless computing are all redefining technology infrastructure. The rise of these new ways of working is only piling immense pressure on traditional infrastructure organizations to reform and rethink every aspect of their operating model and challenge processes built on a foundation of perceived stability.

    The Startup Way

    Enterprises increasingly are being influenced by the ways of startups and how they are driving rapid innovation. There is a cross-fertilization of people moving to enterprises who are challenging the thinking in these enterprises, especially infrastructure area. Teams are now embracing once considered absolutely alien, if not impossible, concepts such as chaos engineering and anti-fragility.

    Cloud

    The recent RightScale “State of Cloud” report reveals that 97 percent of enterprises are using cloud in 2017. However, only a small share of their workload has actually been moved to cloud, indicating the potential for cloud in the enterprise context. This indicates that enterprises are past the quick wins such as digital front-ends and will now struggle with the difficult areas of their applications—the bulk of the enterprise apps where the traditional infrastructure constraints and mindset rules. Enterprises can tackle this by truly embracing change, thinking big but starting small with experiments and continuous refinement of the every single dimension of the way infrastructure teams operate.

    “Nothing is permanent but change.” The wise and timeless words of Confucius ring true!

    — Aditya Vadaganadam

  • The Role of Operations in a No-Ops World

    The Role of Operations in a No-Ops World

    It seems that every once in a while, we in high tech get wrapped up in the next thing that will eliminate work and/or jobs. Sometimes, as is the case with DevOps, we get something that reduces redundant work and actually makes our life easier in the long run. Most of the time, however, we don’t. XML was going to end programming, Java would make everyone a programmer, SOAP meant non-programmers could piece together chunks of code and create complex systems … the list goes on and on.

    Today’s trip on the merry-go-round is for Ops and DevOps. The love in some quarters is “No-Ops”—no operations necessary at all! The data center will run itself! But where is there meat to these claims, and where is it just not possible with today’s technology? Let’s take a look.

    SaaS is Today’s No-Ops Option

    If you want a nearly complete no-ops solution today, sign up for software as a service (SaaS). You’ll still have to manage users and access—the normal AAA stuff—but the application is built and managed by someone else. That’s as close to no-ops as we have in today’s world.

    Any other solution requires a fair amount of ops, no matter what we are told. Installing servers—be they in the data center on hardware, in VMs or in cloud instances—still requires work. Even if you have a tool such as Ansible or Kubernetes cranking hard for you and doing most of the repetitive heavy lifting, you are still tying the pieces together and making things work correctly. Networking is often left to operations/DevOps teams, and making servers into cattle requires operations heavy lifting, even if you are that automated. Apps break and troubleshooting is still a largely manual exercise, with automated help in figuring out what went wrong, but the fix still heavily in the hands of operations.

    Hints at an Future Sans Operations

    As is usually the case with these claims of ending some portion of the IT workload, there is some underlying benefit if you don’t get caught up in the hype. Remember that early in cloud some were telling us that there was no longer any reason for a local data center. Of course, there are a billion reasons, and each environment is different. But there is no denying cloud has opened up how we look at server deployment. The same is true for no-ops. There are a lot of reasons that it will not actually be no-ops for an entire project (let alone an entire data center), but there are huge benefits to gain from the idea.

    Serverless

    In serverless, you develop the code behind and API, then expose the API. The system is designed to run the code only when requests come in. Application firewalling is generally mandatory and built into the system. This partially a security feature, and partially the location used to determine what code needs to be called to service a given request. The idea in the cloud is that you only pay while your API is running, and all of the operations parts of the call are taken care of for you. That’s true, if you accept that, in serverless, developers are doing operations as part of development—app firewall configuration, even the simplified version of it that serverless uses, is definitely operations, not development. And troubleshooting between serverless and server-based apps that call the API is going to fall—at least to some degree—on operations. It must, since operations are the people who have network and internetwork knowledge.

    Serverless offers some great options for deployment, though, that undeniably reduce operations overhead. For things such as cloud-bursting, the benefit is pretty undeniable. It makes pay-as-you-grow cloud into a seriously granular proposition, and can eliminate the kind of bottlenecks that all code has by spinning up a new instance for each connection.

    Container Management

    With an increasing amount of functionality folded into container management tools, the ability to auto-scale applications (or, at least, instances of a part of an application) is a big step toward no-ops. Without manual intervention, the container management tool can expand or contract the application’s footprint in response to connections, response times, etc. The built-in routing, when it fits the needs of the organization, limit the amount of networking required to facilitate this scaling also. As time goes on, expect more automation to be folded into container management to make at least the maintenance of applications easier. The advertised ability to perform rolling upgrades on applications while keeping them live is a huge operational bonus too. It’s not precisely no-ops, but it certainly is less-grey-hair-ops.

    Dev/Test/Deploy

    Application release automation, the growth of continuous test/delivery/deployment and configuration automation tools all reduce ops as well. They don’t make for no-ops, but they do facilitate the concepts, reducing operations overhead while advancing the concepts of DevOps. Expect these tools to continue to grow. Most configuration management/application deployment tools work with a selection of networking devices/appliances already, expect that trend to continue. Again, it’s a reduction in ops—not quite no-ops, but a great step in that direction.

    And More

    We’ve looked at a couple of really cool technologies that forward the reduction in operations theme beyond what is listed here. Automation of auditing and full-on automation of security testing (combining code analysis with real time data to get better coverage than today) are just two examples. Keep an eye on the market as these toolsets mature.

    Keep Kicking It

    Meanwhile, Ops isn’t going away. Stay the expert while expanding your skills. As I (and others) have said before, a tool that reduces the hands-on aspects of operations is not a threat, it’s an opportunity. That freed-up time will be useful for all those projects you wish you could do, but didn’t have the time. Or, even better (we can debate that statement later), all of those things the business wishes you could do but you don’t have time.

    In the end, you are keeping the org running, and connected to the world. Embracing the parts of no-ops that make your job easier just makes sense. Don’t fall for the hype; just pick up the good bits, and keep rocking it.

    — Don Macvittie

  • Redefining NoOps to Better Inform IT Decision-Making

    Redefining NoOps to Better Inform IT Decision-Making

    It is safe to say that since the term NoOps escaped from its confines as an assembly language instruction (NOP or NOOP mnemonic for no operation) and in microelectronics (NoOps or null instructions inserted into pipeline, creating bubbles*) into enterprise IT, it has caused more than its fair share of consternation and controversy in the DevOps community. This is hardly surprising, when some of the more prominent claims for NoOps placed emphasis on ending operations entirely, threatening the jobs and livelihoods of thousands of knowledge workers. As with previous movements for automation, NoOps came under immediate attack—and, somewhat ironically, the criticism came from IT industry workers. For better or worse, IT has more than its fair share of hyperbole, religiosity and grandstanding, with the NoOps debate being no exception.

    As someone who started his technology career as a developer, moved into infrastructure and is now accountable for resources being allocated to IT, I find the debate does little to inform my decision-making. In this article I want to share my definition of NoOps with the broader community to clear path for greater adoption of NoOps principles among the DevOps community. I see both of these communities as being distinct and yet highly complementary, as long as our ultimate goal is to generate value for the organizations we choose to work for and, by extension, the customers which they serve.

    NoOps as an Ideological Principle

    Various definitions of DevOps have been refined and become more stable over time. I don’t believe it would be particularly controversial to recognize DevOps as a culture, a methodology for creating high-quality applications and delivering them into production in the most efficient manner. In my book, “NoDev NoOps NoIT,” I choose to define NoOps as a guiding principle that makes assertions to help IT decision-makers inform their decisions. It is more useful to separate our notions of DevOps and NoOps into methodological and ideological categories, because doing so strengthens our understanding of both terms and equips us to make better IT decisions.

    Before we examine the assertions made by the NoOps principle, I want clarify why I have rejected other definitions of NoOps and critiques of NoOps itself.

    NoOps Spells the End of Operations

    One of the most common and enduring uses of the word “NoOps” is to refer to eliminating IT operations entirely. The problem with such definitions is that they conveniently scope IT operations in a manner that allows them to be eliminated. IT operations roles are not static in the face of changing technology; arguably, they evolve more rapidly than application roles. The original activities of racking, stacking, cabling and administering IT infrastructures in a typical enterprise has been hugely diminished by outsourcing, commoditization and the advent of cloud infrastructure. However, new activities in software development life cycle, automated provisioning, monitoring, metering and security have created new roles for infrastructure/operations developers. NoOps is not about eliminating IT operations; rather, it is concerned with maximizing automation in IT operations.

    NoOps is the Evolution of DevOps

    While superficially it may well seem that NoOps takes DevOps to its logical conclusion, this line of thinking chooses to ignore the huge swath of DevOps methodology that does not overlap with the automation of operations or the fact that DevOps is itself an evolving methodology. I simply don’t find this definition to be particularly useful in day-to-day decision-making. At best, it’s a dimly lit observation.

    DevOps is NoOps—NoOps is Just a Confusing Term

    The idea of NoOps is an expression of the benefits of automation. How we choose to define the term will dictate its utility. If we choose to define it in a fashion that leads to confusion, then fault lies with the definition and not with the idea itself, which I believe is a powerful one that should not be ignored. Attempting to simply define away NoOps is as wrong-headed as stating that NoOps is the end of operations. Overloading DevOps methodology to encompass NoOps ideology stretches the definition of DevOps beyond its useful boundaries.

    NoOps Assertions: Eliminate All Manual Intervention in IT Operations

    Eliminating manual intervention in IT operations is a fundamental assertion of NoOps. This assertion is made from an understanding of the benefits of the automation and the observation that the very tools we use in IT—computers—were invented to automate conative and algorithmic processes.

    While we may never be able to fully automate every aspect of our operations—for example, some regulators demand four-eyes processes for approval and execution—we must rigorously challenge the unthinking orthodoxy that currently governs many IT processes.

    Automate, simplify and standardize: I subscribe to this mantra but one has to proceed in the right order; that is, simplify, standardize and then automate. Otherwise, you literally risk making an ASS out of your IT automation efforts.

    I can say with a high degree of certainty that any failure to automate a process could probably be traced back having made no attempt to simplify the process before automating it. No attempt was made to challenge the process, to question who is doing what and why before automating it. Indeed, no effort, was made to question the existence of the process in the first instance.

    Once a process has been simplified, standardizing it follows almost naturally. Stakeholders adopt your process because it is simple, it saves them time and generates value for them.

    The opposite is also true: A poorly thought-out, complex process will never win buy-in from users. Any attempt to put lipstick on such a pig will be fraught difficulty, often resulting in the vast majority of users and stakeholders finding exceptions to your attempts to increase adoption of the offending process. 

    NoOps Assertions: Eliminate All Dependencies Between Application Developers and Infrastructure/Operations Developers

    As the trend toward software-defined everything matures, we need to change our organizational structure to adapt with the new landscape. Within enterprise IT, the war between application and operation teams is over, even if there are still combatants that don’t realize that the application teams won. In the software-defined paradigm we are all developers. Application developers write business/end user logic and infrastructure/operations developers write run-book instructions using the tools and APIs made available to them by infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) vendors. Both of these types of developers write code and we find more and more frequently it is the same individuals writing both application and infrastructure code; hence, the rise of the full stack developer and the full spectrum technologist.

    As a CTO I organize my technology division into three teams: Application Development, Infrastructure Development and User Experience Development. These teams are physically situated next to each other and work toward a single technology strategy defined by a NoOps ideology and DevOps methodology.

    In Summary

    When we are presented with ideas that are threatening and challenge fundamental elements of our existence, such as the way we work, the best response is to seek out opportunities presented by those ideas and adapt to them. For the DevOps community, the first step in engaging with NoOps is to accept the ideology is based on a very real and powerful foundation of automation. As a community we can choose to dismiss NoOps or we can choose to embrace the possibilities it offers and allow it to enrich DevOps methodology. I would posit that those among in the DevOps community who can adapt to a NoOps reality will not only survive but thrive.

    About the Author / Hussein Badakhchani

    Hussein Badakhchani is a Distinguished Technologist and author with over 20 years of professional experience in financial services technology. Having worked for institutions such as the Bankers Automated Clearing System (BACS), Deutsche Bank and VocaLink – MasterCard, Hussein has a proven track record of delivery in some of the most competitive global capital markets. As a trusted academic, practitioner and adviser, Hussein also provides critical analysis of technology to executive and investment decision makers in government, banking, financial, commercial and defense sectors. He is the author of “NoDev NoOps NoIT,” principles governing the ideology, methodology and praxeology of informed IT decision-making. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

    *”Microelectronics,” by Jerry C. Whitaker.

  • Does the Future of DevOps Lie in NoOps?

    Does the Future of DevOps Lie in NoOps?

    Why DevOps is more a bi-directional rather than a simple top-down approach

    DevOps is one of those buzzwords that nearly everyone wants to discuss these days. However, it often is interpreted as an extension of Development’s influence to the detriment of Operations teams.

    So much has changed in the past few years that it is conceivable we will see another major shakeup: Could Operations teams disappear altogether? Or to put it another way, is “NoOps” the future of IT? While DevOps promotes faster delivery of new digital services and a blurring of the lines between Dev and Ops, in reality, is Dev consuming Ops entirely?

    Before DevOps was called DevOps, the two disciplines were growing further apart. Agility has been driven by Developers since the turn of the century, with the famous Manifesto for Agile Development. Meanwhile, Operations formalized repositories of good practices into frameworks such as ITIL or COBIT, which were implemented by most large companies in the mid-90s. Those two approaches seem to oppose, as DevOps advocates the acceleration and multiplication of changes and ITIL tends to monitor and control them.

    NoOps, or the End of Operations?

    If you believe everything you read, then Operations is a dying art. But in practice, Development does not want to be involved with infrastructure, while few organizations would trust developers to manage their data centers, whether physical, virtual or cloud. So breathe easy: DevOps does not mean the end of Operations teams.

    On the contrary, Operations remains essential throughout the DevOps approach. Production infrastructure is a complex and delicate stack of technologies, often with a discreet mix of modern architecture and historical applications. It often is impossible for Development to replicate these types of environments. And that is why an application successfully tested in a qualification environment often does not work properly in production. However, it is crucial to validate new developments in a representative replica of the production environment.

    So is DevOps doomed to constant failure because of lack of continuity between qualification platforms and production systems? Well, this is probably the case if we merely consider DevOps as a simple top-down approach from Development to Operations. Focusing on producing changes at a higher frequency only shifts and grows a bottleneck that sits in production, without producing the added value expected by the company. As a consequence, DevOps must also be seen as a bottom-up process. In other words, if we consider DevOps, we must also take very serious look at “OpsDev” (OK, it doesn’t flow off the tongue, but you see my point!).

    DevOps or OpsDev?

    For a successful DevOps approach in practice, Development must position itself as a consumer of turnkey infrastructure environments. Operations then adopts an OpsDev approach and provides infrastructure on demand for all steps of continuous integration, from compilation to qualification, through unit testing.

    If DevOps is a radical change in how Development works, OpsDev would also revolutionizing common Operations practices. It comes with more agile “declarative” infrastructures (described and built from source code), an even more sophisticated level of automation and the ability to provide self-service infrastructure for developers.

    The adoption of DevOps does not mean that Operations will disappear or will be replaced by Development, but rather the emergence of bi-directional agility that needs to be supported by more sophisticated automation. In fact, DevOps implies OpsDev rather than NoOps. Finally, whatever you consider your release process under the ITIL or DevOps angle, isn’t the end goal exactly the same: delivering zero-default service to customers?

  • Why NoOps is a DevOps disaster waiting to happen

    Why NoOps is a DevOps disaster waiting to happen

    Ever since the first hunks of Big Iron hit the streets, we’ve been struggling (and failing) to keep up with the demand for software applications.

    Now it’s getting harder. Not only do we have to satisfy an insatiable appetite for new apps and services, but the nature of the business palate is changing. Business now demands a continuous flow of software innovation over back-office application support – or using the haute cuisine analogy – they want IT to serve a classy degustation menu versus just warming up a ready-made TV dinner.

    All this bodes well for the fast iterative style agile, with fully autonomous development teams empowered to increase the rate of software deployments.

    Sound great, but what does this mean for IT Ops?

    Many would argue that IT Ops is a completely defunct or redundant function. Even credible analysts and thought leaders have touted NoOps (No IT Operations) as a viable option. Some even suggesting that it accelerates DevOps collaboration since by removing the Ops function you remove all friction.

    There appears some validity to these arguments. After all, if developers can codify operational functions into their activities, why do we need the disciple?  Perhaps this logic explains why for some, IT Operations as a function is becoming disenfranchised; no longer having a voice into critical digital transformation initiatives – or if it does, just the sound of “No” – the last deployment bottleneck.

    The death of IT Ops has been greatly exaggerated

    All this NoOps thinking is flawed for a couple of reasons.

    Firstly, however operationally awesome developers think they are, building resilience, maintainability and supportability is not always top-of-mind. Worse still, these elements might be neglected if management is fixated on rewarding developers according to ‘speeds and feeds’. Secondly, even if these elements are addressed, they’re often conducted at the end of development cycles or bolted on after problems are discovered – that’s like baking a cake, forgetting the sugar, and then trying to compensate with a sickly sweet chocolate sauce.

    In reality, great operations engineers are best equipped to help incorporate operational excellence into all practices. After all they have years of experience supporting every new wave of technology – from Mainframes to Microservices. What must change, however, is how their expertise is developed and shared.

    • Become cloud connoisseurs – Like our development colleagues, operations’ emphasis will shift from on-premise to cloud. This means ensuring Ops expertise is fully leveraged to support the business nirvana of delivering high-quality digital customer engagement at scale. So if you’re an IT operations professional still configuring QoS policies on routers or manually provisioning development environments, it’s probably time to skill-up in PaaS, Amazon EC2 and containers. Either that or go and find a gig with a cloud service provider.
    • Embed Ops In Dev – This means being less separatist and silo’d and more inclusive and unified. Rather than focus on technical diagnostics and reacting to failures, the new operations professional will apply systems thinking to holistically look at how business applications and the all-important customer experience can be improved. This is easier said than done with skeptical development teams, so it’s essential that monitoring feedback is automatically shared and incorporated into all practices – like for example, agile sprints
    • Embrace Lean thinking – this involves being less interrupt-driven – fixing one technical problem after another, to working side-by-side with other teams to ensure a constant flow of value is delivered to business with all waste removed. As with our development colleagues, elements of agile (and common sense) thinking will come to the fore – with terms like “never done” and continuous improvement becoming established elements of the new operations and performance management mantra.

    Perhaps the biggest change IT Operations will undergo is how it interfaces with other teams. Here, IT Ops will morph into providing sets of easily accessible and repeatable processes other teams will use to bake quality into everything developed and tested. To this end, operations will transform from a separate “keeping the technical lights on” function, to a high-value to a craft that outfits the software factory and staff with new capabilities they need to ensure speed and quality at scale.

    The new age of Agile Operations “craftsmen”

    For IT Operations this means letting go of many traditional admin tasks – not just running things, but participating in crafting new automated processes. So rather than routinely monitoring applications in production, the Ops in DevOps will ensure this capability is available in pre-production. Rather than mundanely provisioning servers from change requests, new teams will equip the organizations with a complete release environments that support program level goals.

    Operating as DevOps “craftsmen” makes complete sense because it moves expertise out from behind the production curtain. The organizational focus of IT operations positively changes too — from being technically good at describing and fixing problems, to being awesome at prescribing improvements that drive better business outcomes.

    Great organizations exploit their business models with flawless operational execution. With these models now being constantly re-shaped by software applications, IT Operations is more important than ever. Relegating it with NoOps thinking isn’t an option.