Adam Jacob Discusses DevOps, Modelling Infrastructure, and Increasing Collaboration
Oct 2, 2023
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Adam Jacob, CEO and co-founder at System Initiative, discusses the challenges of DevOps, modeling infrastructure, and increasing collaboration between developers and operators. Topics include the evolution of DevOps, using a programmable simulator for implementing DevOps, compatibility of GitOps with infrastructure management, onboarding challenges, and the business potential of open source software.
Rethinking the way we model infrastructure and establish digital twins can lead to better collaboration, agility, and safety in DevOps.
A programmable simulator as a representation of infrastructure and application models allows for higher collaboration and avoids the constraints of code-based representations.
Deep dives
The Need for a New Approach to Infrastructure Management
Adam Jacob discusses the need for a step change in how we manage infrastructure and deploy applications. He emphasizes the importance of rethinking the way we model infrastructure and establish digital twins between models and real-world infrastructure. Adam highlights the limitations of the current approach, which primarily focuses on automating existing processes, and suggests that we need to design a system that allows for better collaboration, agility, and safety.
The Evolution of DevOps and Continuous Delivery
Adam reflects on the evolution of DevOps and continuous delivery over the past 14 years. He contends that although the tooling has improved, the fundamental approach remains largely the same. He compares the practices discussed in a classic talk by John Alsporpe all Hammond on Flickr's DevOps journey to the contemporary principles and practices. Adam emphasizes that while the individual pieces have been iterated upon, we have not significantly changed the overall approach to how these pieces work together. He argues that it is time for a new wave of DevOps tooling that takes into account the systemic challenges of collaboration and system design.
The Limitations of GitOps and the Power of Simulation
Adam challenges the dominance of the GitOps paradigm and suggests a different approach. He argues that GitOps, which relies on a one-way flow of truth and code as the canonical representation of infrastructure, has limitations in terms of collaboration and flexibility. Adam introduces the concept of a programmable simulator as a better representation of the infrastructure and application model. By programming the simulator's behavior, users can achieve higher collaboration, visualization, and instantaneous feedback. He explains that this paradigm allows for more expressive interactions with the infrastructure and avoids the constraints of code-based representations.
The Vision for System Initiative and Collaboration
Adam outlines the vision for System Initiative, a product that aims to enable a new level of collaboration and agility in infrastructure management and application deployment. He describes the product as a multiplayer browser application that allows real-time collaboration and visualization of infrastructure models. Adam emphasizes the goal of empowering experts to express their expertise in a complex and powerful system, while still providing an intuitive and user-friendly experience. He invites individuals and organizations to participate in the System Initiative community, contribute to the open-source project, and explore the possibilities of using the software to transform infrastructure management.
In this episode, Adam Jacob, CEO and co-founder at System Initiative, sat down with InfoQ podcast co-host Daniel Bryant and discussed the evolution and potential future directions of DevOps and managing infrastructure. Topics covered included the challenges remaining within the DevOps movement, how to model and manage infrastructure, and how to increase collaboration between developers and operators.
Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/3ZzWCiM
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