Arrested DevOps

Matt chats with Ali Spittel at All Things Open 2019 about all things learning!

Bridget chats with Kelsey Hightower about Kubernetes and the future. Kubernetes the Hard Way If you have an upcoming conference you would like to see promoted on ADO, you can fill out the handy form at arresteddevops.com/conf Open CFPs lots of DevOpsDays Discount codes ADO2019 or ADO2020 for discounts on lots of devopsdays

Bridget chats with Ian Coldwater at the devops Minneapolis meetup about their KubeCon North America 2019 keynote. Video from KubeCon: Hello From the Other Side: Dispatches From a Kubernetes Attacker Art credit: Sarah Becan - original tweet, threadless store, website If you have an upcoming conference you would like to see promoted on ADO, you can fill out the handy form at arresteddevops.com/conf Open CFPs lots of DevOpsDays Discount codes ADO2019 or ADO2020 for discounts on lots of devopsdays

Bridget chats with the authors of Kubernetes Best Practices: Brendan Burns, Eddie Villalba, Dave Strebel, and Lachlan Evenson. (Kindle version available now!) Community & Events & Stuff Dave: All Things Open - Talk on Non-Code Contributions To OSS KubeCon NA - Lightning Talk on Non-Code Contributions to Kubernetes Brendan: K8s meetup in Heidelburg Germany Microsoft Ignite KubeCon North America Eddie: Medium Blog Kubernetes on Azure Best Practices Series KubeCon NA and Contributors Summit in November Austin Kubernetes Meetup Lachie: OSS Unboxing on Youtube At KubeCon and the Kubernetes contributor summit in San Diego in November Bridget: Twin Cities Startup week, devopsdays Philly, devopsdays Ghent, Velocity Berlin, KubeCon Van Moof ebikes! Joe and I just got these. If you have an upcoming conference you would like to see promoted on ADO, you can fill out the handy form at arresteddevops.com/conf Upcoming conferences Open CFPs lots of DevOpsDays Discount codes ADO2019 or ADO2020 for discounts on lots of devopsdays

Bridget chats with guests Peter Shannon, Jocelyn Harper, and Tim Gross in front of a live studio audience at devopsdays Philadelphia 2019. Jocelyn Harper’s keynote at devopsdays Philly 2019: CI/CD (Constantly Ignoring, Constantly Deflecting): A Case Study of Pervasive Indifference in Technology Tim Gross’s talk at devopsdays Minneapolis 2018: They Didn’t Stop to Think if They Should: Machine Learning and the Internet of Unpatched Things Community & Event Stuff If you have an upcoming conference you would like to see promoted on ADO, you can fill out the handy form at arresteddevops.com/conf Upcoming conferences Open CFPs lots of DevOpsDays Discount codes ADO2019 for 20% off lots of devopsdays Velocity Berlin Nov 4-7 2019 - discount code “ADO2019” gives 20% off for Gold, Silver, and Bronze passes

In this episode, host Jessica Kerr is joined by guests Gene Connolly and Joan Freed to discuss DevOpsiCon and their DevOps transformation at Meltwater. DevOps at Meltwater The panel discusses how DevOps has transformed the working environment at Meltwater. When Joan started at Meltwater, engineering and operations were kept entirely separate. Joan: “There was this huge wall because engineering knew how things were built and operations knew the production systems…but there wasn’t any cross-pollination there.” The lack of communication between the teams caused friction and slowed down product delivery. The process could take as long as six months. Joan: “We’re a Software as a Service company so we always want to build products that are sticky and keep our customers around.” Joan discusses how Meltwater began to move to a more agile business model. Getting engineers and operations people in the same physical location to work this out was important. Creating truly cross-functional teams couldn’t happen over Skype alone. DevOpsiCon was born to facilitate this transition. DevOpsiCon! Buy-in wasn’t immediate throughout the firm. Teams were updating legacy systems throughout the company and some were more focused on work than enablement. Joan: “The first one was a little bit sneaky. The next one was in Manchester and that one was a little less sneaky.” The panel discusses the importance of investment in enablement. This allows the feature teams to focus on the features they were actually building instead of all the underlying infrastructure. Joan: “Having them build everything they need is not realistic.” The fact that Meltwater has offices all over the globe makes any wholesale shift of company culture difficult. The panel discusses the need for face-to-face interaction to facilitate change. Gene: “There are these events like DevOpsiCon where we solve the problem by bringing a broad set of people together.” DevOpsiCon has grown beyond just developers. Product, UX, support, and even sales have joined the event to help build relationships and give insight. Jessica: “That is very DevOps in the sense that DevOps says that you need to take these concerns that cannot be separated…and you can’t put those responsibilities on different teams and make them fight.” Unconference The panel discusses the value of DevOpsiCon as an unconference. Attendees collectively set the agenda on each day of the event. Gene: “That format has been so much fun and created so much value.” Gene: “The event becomes the conference you didn’t know you needed at the start. It adapts collectively to what the organization needs at that moment.” Ongoing Transformation Gene discusses how allowing teams the freedom to experiment can yield results that a top-down structure could not provide. The panel talks about the structure of mission, framework and support teams. Joan: “By keeping things loosely coupled, it gives teams a lot more freedom to make the technology choices that are best for them.” Ownership Challenges The panel discusses the ownership challenges of moving from the datacenter to the cloud specifically and large enterprise changes more generally. The investment in enablement is critical. Joan: “There’s very much a not built here mentality that can take place.” Gene: “Software can benefit from being owned by many people.” The panel talks about overhead costs to both software and human changes. Gene talks about the challenges of moving to a full mission responsibility model. Gene: “You need to find efficiencies more effectively than you’ve ever had to find efficiencies before.” So! Has It Worked? Gene: “Oh wait, you’re looking to me for an answer?” The panel discusses the results of the ongoing DevOps transformation at Meltwater. The six month process for production changes has transitioned to a constant stream. Beyond the productivity, it has also been a quality of life improvement for the employees. Gene: “We’ve got a Slack channel for all the production changes and it is constant activity in it all week long of changes going out.” Joan: “We’re now getting hundreds of features out every six months to our customers.” The panel discusses the ways in which transformation is, or should be, a constant process. The change goes on. Find out more about Meltwater, their DevOps transformation, and the process of an unconference on their blog. Episode art by Evelyn Kerr.

Matty Stratton talks with guests Ken Mugrage and Sasha Rosenbaum about their new event DeliveryConf.

Bridget chats with Devi Moodley, Daniel Maher, Adrian Moisey, and Cobus Bernard at devopsdays Cape Town 2019. Devi Moodley’s talk: From Science Experiment to Enterprise Rollout Daniel Maher’s talk: What MMA taught me about working in tech Community & Event Stuff If you have an upcoming conference you would like to see promoted on ADO, you can fill out the handy form at arresteddevops.com/conf Upcoming conferences Open CFPs lots of DevOpsDays Discount codes ADO2019 for 20% off lots of devopsdays Velocity Berlin Nov 4-7 2019 - discount code “ADO2019” gives 20% off for Gold, Silver, and Bronze passes.

In this episode, hosts Jessica Kerr and Matty Stratton are joined by guests Dr. Nicole Forsgren and Mr. Jez Humble, two of the authors of the 2019 Accelerate State of DevOps report. Historical Context The panel discusses the history and purpose of the report. This is the sixth year it has been produced. How did the report start and what questions is it seeking to answer? Nicole: “Once upon a time, kids, making software was sad. Making software used to light people on fire!” Nicole: “So why do we even do this DevOps thing? It’s because we want to make that software process easier and better.” Jez: “These approaches have worked even in highly regulated environments. They’ve worked everywhere.” Nicole explains that capabilities and practices are more important than tools. Nicole: “There’s no such thing as DevOps in a box.” The group discusses the limitations of systems data vs survey data, and the importance of collecting both. Survey data is low resolution but high signal and vice versa. Jez: “Over-precision is something that’s a real problem in our industry.” Nicole: [“How to Measure Anything” - Douglas W. Hubbard] ( https://www.amazon.com/How-Measure-Anything-Intangibles-Business-ebook/dp/B00INUYS2U ) The panel discusses the importance of starting from hypotheses instead of looking for any spurious correlations that exist in highly related systems. What’s New This Year? The panel discusses some of this year’s findings. The “retail apocalypse” over the last decade has had some surprising effects. Regulation has less of an impact than many industries assume. Jez: “We do see high performers in large companies who are highly regulated.” Matt: “People will sit there and say well, I have over 5000 employees and I can’t DevOps so now I have an excuse, and that’s not the case.” Enterprise! Change management processes are one of the key areas of difference between large and small enterprises. Jez discusses how to make that process more lightweight even in a large organization. Jez: “Risk is also about upside risk. If you can’t move fast at delivering software, that’s a risk to your business.” The panel discusses the importance of keeping a holistic view even in a large enterprise with specialized roles. Nicole: “You go from change management theater to strategic change management for a massive organization. It’s scary but it is also dope!” The report has found year after year that a slower change management process can paradoxically result in more instability, not less. The panel discusses the reasons this experiment was not successful and how enterprises can implement more nimble processes going forward. Productivity The panel talks about what productivity actually means. The report uses an interesting definition: “Productivity is the ability to get complex, time-consuming tasks completed with minimal distractions and interruptions.” Nicole: “You may be just closing the tickets that are meaningless but are easy to close.” Research shows that real productivity reduces burnout and improves work-life balance. The group discusses how to separate that real productivity from gamification and busywork. Jez talks about scaling up and how centers of excellence may not be as useful as previously thought. Nicole points out that the report has given a lot of starting points for people to begin making changes in their organization. Remember to read the report!

Matty and Trevor chat with guests Jessie Frazelle, Veronica Hanus, and Jeff Smith in front of a live studio audience at devopsdays Chicago 2019. Community & Event Stuff If you have an upcoming conference you would like to see promoted on ADO, you can fill out the handy form at arresteddevops.com/conf Upcoming conferences Open CFPs lots of DevOpsDays Discount codes ADO2019 for 20% off lots of devopsdays Velocity Berlin Nov 4-7 2019 - discount code “ADO2019” gives 20% off for Gold, Silver, and Bronze passes; early price price ends 20 September.