Devops for Hybrid Cloud: an IBM Point of View
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IBM Cloud July 2017 Thought Leadership White Paper DevOps for hybrid cloud: an IBM point of view How DevOps for hybrid cloud can help organizations succeed with digital reinvention 2 DevOps for hybrid cloud: an IBM point of view Introduction The IBM point of view on DevOps makes the following DevOps started as a culture and set of practices to support assumptions: collaboration and communication across development and oper- ations, and to apply automation to key phases of the software ●● DevOps covers the end-to-end software delivery lifecycle delivery process. It has been popularized by successful new including an expanded set of stakeholders such as business companies developing business models and related applications owners and end users, and practices such as design thinking empowered by the cloud (cloud-native applications). More and user analytics. recently, large, established enterprises have recognized the need ●● DevOps adoption is expanding in large organizations as they to deliver innovation faster to stay relevant and capitalize on enable existing IT applications for cloud (cloud-enabled industry disruption, while also improving operational metrics for applications). New methods enable organizations to success- application quality and cost. DevOps and cloud have emerged as fully implement DevOps as they move to cloud. essential parts of their IT strategy as they improve core compe- ●● Hybrid cloud architecture is becoming the norm for both tency in continuous delivery of software-driven innovation. cloud-enabled and cloud-native applications. Hybrid cloud provides flexibility in deployment, enabling organizations to choose the right platform to run their workloads. ●● DevOps solutions can vary as teams across large organizations Business as usual have different goals, processes, culture and tools. Months/years Production ●● In cases where disparate teams work together on common Line of business DevelopmentQuality assurance Operations Customer experience business objectives, DevOps helps organizations respond Customer feedback to the challenges of multi-speed IT in combination with Back officeFront office methods such as the Scaled Agile Framework environment Weeks/months Customers (SAFe) to facilitate collaboration. Business disruption ●● Application security is essential and needs to be integrated Days/weeks early and throughout the DevOps lifecycle to keep pace Customer with frequent releases and not be a bottleneck. Application experience teams ●● Continuous delivery is the desired future-state achieved Platform team with the application of a DevOps approach. Customer feedback DevOps and cloud help enterprises succeed in digital disruption Figure 1. The ingredients for business disruption: continuous innovation, The business change driven by cloud, analytics, mobile, and fast time-to-market, exceptional user experience, and fast time-to-feedback— social technologies is unprecedented in its speed and scope. pointing to the need for Continuous Delivery. New business models are emerging while others are becoming obsolete; born-on-the-web enterprises such as Uber, Airbnb and Spotify are among the highest-profile examples of how tradi- tional businesses are being disrupted by new market entrants. This disruption is driven primarily by changes in customer behavior, facilitated by new technologies. As customers seek a direct, digital link with the businesses they deal with— increasingly, from their mobile devices—application developers are taking on major responsibility for the customer experience. IBM Cloud 3 No industry today is untouched by this dramatic transformation; software that meets emerging business needs—or even creates more than ever before, innovation and adaptability are critical to those needs in the market. For senior application development the survival and development of both existing businesses and executives, the primary concern is about improving operational startups. metrics around cost, risk, quality, productivity and speed in the development cycle. DevOps practitioners want to work on great In the present business environment, product and service applications, focus on delivering value, eliminating waste, auto- delivery processes must be optimized for innovation and time- mating grunt work, and making release party weekends a thing to-market. Methodologies including Agile, Lean Startup and of the past. Design Thinking are well-suited to supporting the design and build of truly innovative offerings, and cloud is increasingly seen IBM defines DevOps as an “essential enterprise capability for as the best platform for software delivery. the continuous delivery of software-driven innovation that enables organizations to seize market opportunities and reduce Organizations are embracing approaches to software develop- time to customer feedback”. DevOps has three main objectives ment that put the customer front and center. By increasing around business transformation which map to three objectives the frequency of software delivery and reducing the time-to- around IT efficiency, as shown in Table 1: feedback from customers, they can respond faster to shifts in the market and keep customers happy. Naturally, increased release frequency demands tighter align- Transformation and organizational objectives ment and collaboration than are seen traditionally between line of business, development, and IT operations, which drives Business-transformation objectives IT-efficiency objectives the requirement for enhanced collaboration, automation and • To speed continuous innovation • To correct the present information transparency among these groups. To achieve of ideas by enabling collaborative misalignment of people and goals development and testing across the by fostering closer links between this seamless internal cooperation and promote sustained value chain. developers, operations and the business. innovation across the enterprise, IBM recommends the adoption • To enable continuous delivery of of DevOps. these innovations by automating • To accelerate and remove error software delivery processes and from the delivery of changes by eliminating waste—while still helping introducing automation throughout to address regulatory concerns. the development cycle. Defining DevOps • To provide a feedback loop for • To improve insight into the real As an approach that promotes closer collaboration among line of continuous learning from customers value of applications by using by monitoring and optimizing the customer feedback to drive business, development and IT operations, DevOps has an impact software-driven innovation. optimization. across the business. For line of business executives and CIOs, a key concern is the capability of DevOps to enable business transformation through faster development of innovative Table 1. DevOps objectives 4 DevOps for hybrid cloud: an IBM point of view Practicing DevOps Many successful startups naturally apply all of the above Organizations that practice DevOps successfully tend to adopt practices from the outset; particularly in the case of smaller orga- the following processes and technologies: nizations, it is easier for a new company to adopt a whole new approach than for an existing company to change its practices. Design thinking: for a focus on delivering exceptional user Nevertheless, at the enterprise level, traditional IT organizations experience and for increasing user conversion are transforming the way they work to incrementally adopt these processes and technologies. Lean startup: for validating ideas and testing possible solutions before committing significant manpower, helping organizations Digital disruption is also driving associated cultural changes in to stay focused on solving the problems that matter the way software is delivered. The DevOps processes and tech- nologies outlined above require a shift in mindset away from Agile: as the development methodology for fast feedback cycles isolated development teams and rigid silos toward collaborative through early customer involvement best practices. Typically, we see successful DevOps organizations embracing the following: Cloud operations: for fast and flexible management of development and production environments ●● A work environment that welcomes innovation, productivity, satisfaction and continuous improvement. Continuous Security: for eliminating security vulnerabilities ●● Software delivery based on autonomous co-located from applications before they reach production squads—small, cross-functional, self-organizing teams that own end-to-end responsibility. Delivery automation: for removing the silos between ●● A process that delivers transparency with metrics and development and IT operations, and enabling the continuous embraces free and open collaboration to enable visibility, delivery of changes continuous learning, and continuous improvements for all stakeholders. Application Monitoring: for quickly detecting and addressing ●● An environment where developers can fail fast in a software application issues in test and production environments penalty-free environment where individuals are empowered to try something new and different without risk of doing Application and user analytics: for continuous learning used to damage or looking foolish and where they can turn small-scale improve the quality and value of applications. mistakes into productive sources of future creativity. IBM provides process, software and service offerings to enable the implementation of these practices. IBM Cloud 5 IBM DevOps approach