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Best of TechBeacon 2017: DevOps crosses over

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Jaikumar Vijayan Freelance writer
 

In 2017, DevOps finally evolved beyond IT to become a cross-functional, enterprise-wide imperative in many organizations. This trend prompted a greater focus on the best tools, approaches, and practices for driving DevOps adoption and deriving more value from it.

TechBeacon's top 10 DevOps stories of 2017 highlight the evolving conversation around DevOps, and identify the topics that mattered most both to practitioners and to managers. The list includes stories on the challenges of DevOps adoption, lessons from the front lines, tips for finding the best skills for the job, advice on how to tell if your DevOps and continuous integration (CI) processes are really working, and guidance on how to secure your DevOps environment.

DevOps Enterprise Summit 2017 top takeaway: Adoption rapidly moving beyond IT

One of the key takeaways from the DevOps Enterprise Summit 2017 conference in San Francisco was DevOps' evolution from something of a curiosity to a mainstream process in most organizations. Adoption of DevOps has moved beyond IT, with people joining the conversation from across the organization, including in finance, HR, and information security functions, says Electric Cloud's vice president of marketing, Sam Fell. Here he lists the key takeaways from the event.

DevOps study finds informal teams perform better

There's clearly something to be said for informality when it comes to DevOps processes. An HPE survey on process maturity among enterprises engaged with DevOps methodologies showed that organizations that enjoy the most success with DevOps have the least formal approaches. Organizations at the lowest levels of process maturity are releasing code the fastest, and with the highest quality. Micro Focus technology evangelist John Jeremiah takes a closer look at research findings, and explains why the results may not be as paradoxical as they appear.

Lessons learned from 6 high-profile DevOps journeys

More companies are turning to DevOps to develop their applications, but not everyone is seeing increased productivity and profitability. So what are the ingredients of truly successful DevOps transformations? Chris Null looks at six high-profile initiatives that succeeded at Target, New Relic, Microsoft’s Visual Studio, Walmart, Netflix, Walt Disney, and Capital One—and what they all have in common.

10 questions to ask every DevOps team candidate

Having a good DevOps team is fundamental to your ability to derive gains such as greater application stability and faster code delivery from your development environment. To succeed at DevOps, you need professionals who can balance coding skills with CI/CD competencies. But do you know how to find them, or what questions to ask to separate the best from the rest? Jennifer Zaino discovers the 10 questions every manager should ask before hiring a DevOps professional.

How value-stream mapping delivers a better DevOps toolchain

Enterprises that use DevOps tools to enable continuous build, test, and delivery environments need a way to measure the effectiveness of those tools in uniting segmented workgroups and disciplines within the organization. For that to happen, you need to integrate DevOps toolchains, gain visibility and traceability across the development lifecycle, and correlate data between existing tools. CollabNet's general manager of DevOps, Eric Robertson, explains the benefits of value-chain mapping.

Are you really doing continuous integration? Here's how to tell

Many organizations think they are practicing CI when actually they're are not. Just because you have a CI server that your developers regularly use to check if their code has passed, or you deploy more than once a quarter, does not mean you are doing CI or CD. Suzie Prince, head of product at ThoughtWorks, explains what good CI really means, and what it looks like.

30 common challenges to DevOps and how to resolve them

DevOps may have become mainstream, but many teams continue to struggle with pretty fundamental questions about where to start, what challenges they are likely to face, and how to address those challenges. A lot of the uncertainty stems from the shift in focus from development to delivery that DevOps entails. IBM's worldwide lead for DevOps adoption, Peter Eeles, walks you through 30 of the most common DevOps challenges teams face, and offers tips on how to address each.

5 soft skills of successful DevOps software engineers

Software engineers need more than just an understanding of programming languages and automation tools to succeed at DevOps. Soft skills such as empathy, integrity, resiliency, and the ability to communicate with others are becoming critical job requirements as well in many organizations. Mike Kail, Cybric's chief technology officer, describes the five soft skills that are critical to success as a DevOps engineer.

30 essential container technology tools and resources

Software containers are a great tool for deploying complete application environments quickly—sometimes in a matter of seconds, depending on the completeness and size of container packages. But do you know what standards to use and how to deploy the images, store old versions, and manage them? Do you have a handle on the combination of products and services you need to build and manage containers optimally in your environment? Excelon Development's managing consultant, Matthew Heusser, reviews the 30 essential container technologies you should consider.

Is your application architecture prepared for microservices?

One goal of DevOps is to enable small, incremental improvements to applications quickly, frequently, and without disruption. A microservices architecture is ideal for supporting this goal, but most organizations are saddled with tightly coupled, monolithic applications that aren't easy to decompose. Technology journalist Ericka Chickowski reports on why that shouldn't stop your organization from starting out on its DevOps journey anyway.

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