DevOps is one of the hot topics at CloudConnect here in Santa Clara this week. Short for development and operations, DevOps occurs when organizations move to increasingly automated operational environments (typically when they transition to the Cloud), thus bringing the ops people to work closely with the development teams. However, there’s much more to DevOps than simply moving cubicles around, as speakers from Rackspace explained. In fact, DevOps requires a shift in “skillset and mindset.”
To get an idea of what these shifts entail, consider a typical IT org chart. At the top is the CIO, who has the VP of Development (or engineering) and the VP of Operations as direct reports. The developers, testers, etc., report to the VP of Development, and the operators, admins, and the like report to the VP of Ops.
As organizations move to DevOps, they must revamp this entire chart. Now the VPs might be the VP of Enterprise App Delivery and the VP of Infrastructure & SaaS. Each VP’s teams have Portfolio Managers, each of whom manages Development Managers and DevOps Managers. In other words, each project within the respective portfolios of projects consists of the full lifecycle, from dev to ops and back again in a lightweight, Agile, iterative manner.
Full lifecycle DevOps is a key to The Agile Architecture Revolution. Agile is not just for development any more.
