DevOps: Everything You Need to Know with Mirco Hering - DevOps 166
Jun 22, 2023
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Mirco Hering, Global DevOps Practice Lead, talks about approaches used for DevOps, managing a DevOps team, challenges and solutions. The importance of architecture, time in issue resolution, AI tools, and collaboration is emphasized. Standardization in data science and upcoming podcast topics are also discussed.
DevOps requires addressing both technical and organizational challenges for successful transformation.
DevOps is a continuous journey of improvement and adaptation that requires a mindset shift and ongoing optimization.
The podcast emphasizes the importance of commonality, alignment, and standardization in IT tools and processes for effective communication and collaboration.
Deep dives
Defining DevOps
DevOps is an umbrella term encompassing various practices aimed at building IT solutions in a faster, more secure, and easier way for developers to solve business problems. It includes practices such as continuous delivery, continuous integration, and platform engineering, among others. The goal is to continuously improve the overall development process, regardless of the specific buzzwords or technologies involved.
Addressing Technical and Organizational Challenges
To succeed in a DevOps transformation, it is important to address both technical and organizational challenges. On the technical side, improving the architecture is crucial. IT organizations need to move away from monolithic systems and adopt more flexible, scalable architectures like microservices. This involves optimizing processes related to testing, quality validation, deployment mechanisms, and post-deployment validation. On the organizational side, it is important to bring different teams together and encourage collaboration. Value stream mapping can be a useful tool to identify bottlenecks and improve communication and alignment among teams. Additionally, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and adaptation is necessary to sustain a successful DevOps transformation.
The Never-Ending Journey
DevOps is not a one-time transformation with a fixed end state. It is a continuous journey of improvement and adaptation. As technologies evolve and new challenges arise, organizations need to keep up with the changing landscape. The goal is to reduce the transaction cost of development and deployment, making the process more efficient and effective. This requires ongoing optimization of processes, embracing new technologies, addressing organizational issues, and constantly measuring and evaluating progress. Successful DevOps transformations require a mindset shift towards continuous learning, flexibility, and a focus on long-term improvement.
Optimizing the Overall System
The podcast emphasizes the importance of optimizing the overall system rather than focusing solely on individual components. It suggests that organizations should aim to have a common language and align different teams, such as mainframe and data specialists, to ensure effective communication and collaboration. This emphasis on commonality and understanding the overarching process of application development and deployment can lead to improved outcomes for the organization as a whole.
Prioritizing Commonality over Tooling
The podcast highlights the need to prioritize commonality and standardization in IT tools and processes. It cautions against becoming overly fixated on the latest and greatest tools, as the focus should be on managing a fleet of vehicles rather than the specific components of each vehicle. While different tools may have their merits, the goal should be to find tools that fulfill the necessary requirements and enable smooth workflows across the organization. Additionally, the podcast mentions the importance of continuous improvement and finding ways to make different tools work together seamlessly, even as new technologies and frameworks emerge.
Mirco Hering is a Global DevOps Practice Lead, IT Transformation & Delivery Lead, CIO Advisor, Blogger, Author, and Public Speaker. He is the author of "DevOps for the Modern Enterprise". He starts off by deriving his own definition of DevOps. He also dives into some approaches used for DevOps, managing a DevOps team, challenges he faces and possible solutions, and many more! Sponsors
