Every organization is increasingly reliant upon technology to achieve their goals and remain competitive in the marketplace. As Jeffrey Snover, a distinguished engineer at Microsoft, observed, “In previous economic eras, businesses created value by moving atoms. Now they create value by moving bits.”
The irony is that if there’s any industry that has created (and occasionally destroyed) massive amounts of economic value by moving bits as quickly as possible, it’s financial services (FinServ)— and yet, they have been some of the most conservative adopters of modern software practices such as Agile, Continuous Delivery and DevOps.
Of course, the reasons are well-known: the need to preserve operational reliability and stability; the burdens of operating in a highly regulated industry; the need to secure customer data from unauthorized access; legacy applications that span decades. Indeed, no other industry (save maybe healthcare) is more heavily regulated.
However, at last, financial services is turning into a hotbed of DevOps innovation. And better yet, leaders are seeing DevOps not only as a way to get faster time to market, but as a way to increase quality and improve their postures of security and compliance.
Many of these leaders are presenting their exciting stories of DevOps transformation in FinServe at the 2015 DevOps Enterprise Summit .
Jon Harding is senior VP and the DevOps Engineering Lead for Bank of America . With past work experience with both Wachovia and Wells Fargo Banks, Harding has first-hand experience of the challenges IT professionals in the financial service industry face on a daily basis. But despite the hurdles Harding as inevitably had to cross, his passion for DevOps fuels him to continue innovating. “I love being part of the creative process of software development, ” said Harding. “The process of taking a software feature from an idea into a production system being used by millions of users is exciting. ”
Attend Jon's talk at DOES15: From Idea to Implementation: DevOps Enabled Agile Transformation in the Banking Industry
Charles Nelles is the Director of IT Operational Support for Western Union and a 20-year veteran of IT Operations and Service Management. He has guided multiple IT organizations in transformation from siloed, dysfunctional, finger-pointing death spirals to high-functioning, process-oriented, continuously improving game changers. Nelles is on the frontline of the financial services IT revolution. When asked what three challenges enterprises face in today’s environment, Nelles shared,
- “Understanding the customer - Who are they, who will they be, what do they want, need, how do they react/respond, where are they going, what are they doing, etc.
- Pace of Change - Keeping up and getting in front of customers, competitors market impacts, getting them what they need, what they want and what they don’t yet know they want.
- Culture & Team - Building and maintaining a team that can handle one and two, and maybe make a difference in the world while they do it.”
is the DevOps Technology Leader at Nationwide Insurance. DeArdo is an expert in the implementation of DevOps and Agile practices. DeArdo has spent years with Bell Laboratories and CMHC Systems Inc., and he certainly has his eye on the future of DevOps. When asked about what DevOps should focus on in the next year, DeArdo said the following:
“There's a lot of focus on the technology that can be applied to the downstream delivery and infrastructure processes (Docker, Cloud, Virtualization, etc.) which are all important. However, work begins with the business and how they feed it into the delivery pipeline. Having the ability to prioritize and feed work continuously into the IT pipeline is one of the cultural challenges that also needs addressed. ”
Attend Carmen's talk at DOES15: How DevOps is Enabling Lean Application Development
Dr. Tapabrata (Topo) Pal is Director and Platform Engineering Fellow at Capital One . Topo has 20 years of IT experience in various technology roles (Developer, Operations Engineer and Architect) in the retail, healthcare and finance industries. Over the last three years, he has served as Director of Capital One’s Enterprise Architecture group and led the company’s DevOpsSec initiatives. Previously, Topo spent some time in academics doing doctoral and post-doctoral research in the field of solid state physics.
One idea of Topo’s that will hold true for years to come is that “DevOps does not equal one size fits all.” If you are an enterprise IT leader, you may also be thinking of how this applies to you ." Topo also says that “one of the most overlooked aspects of DevOps in large, complex organizations is the change in mindset. ” He emphasizes that change does not happen overnight, so expect it to take a while with a concerted effort by all in the organization to make small steps gradually.
Attend Topo's talk at DOES15: Shortening the Feedback Loop: DevOps Dashboard
Manuel Edwards , systems engineering manager at E*TRADE proves that even the most risk conscious and regulated industries can implement Continuous Delivery. He is speaking on "How Wall Street Does Continuous Delivery" and will cover some of the patterns used by E*TRADE to speed up the build, test and deploy cycle by 1,200.
Attend Manuel's talk at DOES15: How Wall Street Does Continuous Delivery
Jan-Joost Bouwman , Enterprise Process Owner Change Management at financial institution ING , along with Ingrid Algra IT Chapter Lead at ING would share the adaptations they have made to their ITSM processes to accommodate the requirements of an Agile/Scrum way of work.
Attend Jan-Joost and Ingrid's talk at DOES15: ITIL and DevOps Can Be Friends
Chris Sandico , Manager at Deloitte , would share the story of a risk-adverse Canadian Insurance company that has gone through a DevOps transformation enabling them to realize customer value a lot sooner. The talk will include key practices such as Application Portability, Dynamic Environments and On-the-fly testing techniques.
Attend Chris' talk at DOES15: Play to the Enterprise, Not the Geeks
Jason Gray , Head of Service Delivery at Bankwest will be discussing the journey Bankwest (Bank in Perth, Western Australia) has been on as it introduced Agile, Continuous Delivery and DevOps to increase the speed of delivery of value and innovation to their business.
Attend Jason's talk at DOES15: Agile, CD and DevOps: Transforming Service Delivery
To learn more from these fascinating DevOps practitioners – as well as other real-world stories of how large enterprises are transforming their business with DevOps – we invite you to join us at the 2015 DevOps Enterprise Summit .
DOES15 is only a week away!
Don’t miss THE DevOps event of the year:
