In 30 seconds
- Development and operations share responsibility for running software.
- Automation, measurement and fast feedback are central.
- Agile ideas extended all the way into production.
Where it came from
Patrick Debois organized the first DevOpsDays in Ghent in 2009, and the name stuck. The movement grew from frustration with developers "throwing code over the wall" to operations.
Core ideas: CALMS
| Letter | Means |
|---|---|
| Culture | Shared ownership, no blame |
| Automation | Builds, tests, deployments, infrastructure |
| Lean | Small batches, flow, cutting waste |
| Measurement | Data on delivery and reliability |
| Sharing | Knowledge and tools across teams |
Key practices
- Continuous integration and delivery
- Infrastructure as code
- Monitoring and blameless incident reviews
- Measuring with DORA metrics
Myth vs reality
Myth · DevOps is a job title.
Reality · It's a way of working; titles vary.
Myth · DevOps means developers do operations alone.
Reality · It means shared responsibility, not dumping work.
Myth · DevOps is just tools.
Reality · Without culture change, tools change little.
FAQ
How does DevOps relate to agile?
It extends agile's fast feedback past development into operations.
What's SRE?
Site Reliability Engineering, Google's approach to running reliable systems, closely related to DevOps.
How do we measure DevOps?
The DORA metrics are the most widely used measures.