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This week I finished a project that has been in the works for a quite some time. Back before I moved to Detroit but shortly after taking over Triangle DevOps, I was offered (and accepted) a spot as a DevOpsDays Raleigh organizer. I submitted three talks to the event and one was accepted. Today I opened the event with my talk, “The Dark Side of DevOps” and thoroughly enjoyed it as well as all the other talks at the event. Huge shout out to the other organizers, volunteers, and speakers for all their hard work in making the second DevOpsDays Raleigh better than the first one. It was great to catch up with friends while I was in town. Back to Detroit for me but what a week for news in general and DevOps! GoCD — open source continuous delivery server GoCD is a continuous delivery tool specializing in advanced workflow modeling and dependency management. It lets you track a change from commit to deploy at a glance, providing superior visibility into your workflow. It’s open source, free to use and download. SPONSORED ...

Football is back and I couldn’t be happier about it (despite my Gators losing to Michigan). I know that sports and DevOps-types don’t always go together. However, there are a lot of things we tech folks can learn from football. Systems and process are what great football teams are built on. Take a good look at Nick Saban’s process focus at Alabama for an idea of how to build a perennial championship contender (tl;dr: it’s a one step at a time approach). When you take a look at Bill Belichick’s “Do Your Job” mantra, you realize that is what DevOps is all about; owning your assignments and executing them. Many times in DevOps the things that traditional development and operations teams can’t execute well on are done without question and executed quite well. Then they are iterated upon mightily like it’s second nature. Ownership of the pipeline and process is a big deal in DevOps. It’s a truly worthwhile comparison to explore when you have the time. Football and DevOps go together more than you realize. ...

I began thinking about my talk for DevOpsDays Raleigh here in a couple weeks. It’s based off an already written piece from March. But any time I write something, after a few months I think of ways I could have written the piece better. The sane thing to do is not revisit it but to continue iterating on it. One overarching fact of not only DevOps but also business is, resisting change is stupid, successful businesses find a way to eliminate existential threats. Sometimes the problem with DevOps is that it isn’t close enough to the thing making money; the product (and their teams). Unless you work in highly regulated industries there is a huge incentive to getting things done efficiently. Keep in mind, efficiently does not equate to quickly. Getting things done to meet an arbitrary deadline will usually result in shortcuts being taken, technical debt, and often rework (which is awful at deploy time). There is something incredibly refreshing about being able to identify unforeseen issues and adjust the target date accordingly. But, you have to be careful you’re not always aiming for the moon and consistently failing to get to orbit. ...

Being a manager is sometimes quite interesting. You have these odd moments of honesty about things you want and you try to make them happen. Sometimes those things are embraced and sometimes there are probing questions about them. This week I travelled to the Bankrate Florida office in Palm Beach Gardens, FL. While working in a geographically diverse company is cool, it’s sometimes good to meet face-to-face to assist culture changes. I think the biggest challenge in technology heavy fields is communication. It gets even harder when you’re over 1,000 miles away. How does DevOps help us solve that problem? Typically, DevOps manages geographical differences through detailed ticketing and process. But, what if that doesn’t fit with your corporate culture. Work needs to be managed through tickets but discussion of new ways to do things happens organically. Getting DevOps involved earlier in the process is key but how do you continue to iterate and improve? This is difficult when you start talking about many product teams and your need to maintain flexibility with staff working amongst them all. Things to ponder… Feel free to respond with your two cents! ...

This week has been a trying week for me. I’ve touched almost every facet of what is important to me both personally and professionally. One kid having surgery, another kid catching a cold, moving into our new home, dealing with Veteran’s Affairs, addressing long-time struggles, new talent starting at work, getting things done, threats to friends on the west coast, threats to friends in Guam, Nazis on the east coast, and I did a lot of community work. This week was great on some fronts and very challenging on others. By the time 4:30 PM on Friday rolled around I was cooked. Next week, I’ll be in South Florida bringing a heavy dose of DevOps to the Sunshine State. GoCD — open source continuous delivery server GoCD is a continuous delivery tool specializing in advanced workflow modeling and dependency management. It lets you track a change from commit to deploy at a glance, providing superior visibility into your workflow. It’s open source, free to use and download. SPONSORED ...