Weekly Top 10: Advancing IT in the Enterprise

It was a jam-packed week of DevOps news for the enterprise IT community. Gartner discussed pointers on how our community can help push DevOps practices into the mainstream, BizTech Magazine and InformationManagement.com highlighted several ideas and opportunities to drive DevOps success in the enterprise, and our 2014 DevOps Enterprise Summit was named a finalist as one of the “Best Live Events” by the American Business Awards. Woohoo!
Unlike the Agile movement – fueled by startups and small development teams – innovations in DevOps practices have also been developing in large organizations that historically are more conservative and vested in legacy procedures and infrastructure. This is true in industries such as financial services and government IT, and especially in areas where security matters are becoming a concern. As our community continues to push enterprise IT innovation forward, here are some key takeaways to consider regarding the conversations around DevOps:

• Culture Beats Process Every Time : You can’t buy DevOps transformation, and 'DevOps' will never come in a box. It all starts with the people you hire and the policies you promote.

• The Tools Do Matter : Yes, you must invest in people before process, but if you stop your investment in DevOps, Agile, Continuous Delivery or other software delivery practices, you’re ultimately wasting your efforts. You cannot “automate all the things” without automation tools.

• Sharing Failures is as Important as Sharing Successes: An enterprise cannot immediately become Agile, or DevOps-capable, over night. It takes time, effort, and trial-and-error. Learning from failures to advanced our DevOps transformation is as important as sharing our successes.

• DevOps is a Forcing Function for all Organizations: Agility is required in every enterprise to keep up with the data and demands that software and technology face these days. In today’s fast-paced world it’s sink or swim, and DevOps is indeed a factor for an enterprise’s buoyancy.

With all this in mind, here are the top 10 news posts shared by @DOESsummit & @ElectricCloud this week:
1.5 Secrets to DevOps Success
http://www.information-management.com/news/DevOps-Success-Tips-Guide-Moogsoft-10026939-1.html
Achieving the right, healthy balance in life can be similar to achieving the right balance in your IT organization. There are multiple variables that make both a challenge. In life, it’s about the right mix of nutrition, fitness and healthy choices, not to mention family, finances and personal goals. In IT, the mix starts with people, process, and tools, but also includes costs, time and business alignment.
2. Continuous Delivery & DevOps at Scale: Going from 2,000 to 40,000 developers worldwide
https://electric-cloud.com/blog/2015/05/scaling-continuous-delivery-to-40k-developers-worldwide/
In his recent article on SD Times, Anders Wallgren – CloudBees’s CTO – walks us through Huawei’s DevOps and CD implementation journey, and how they scaled their software delivery infrastructure to support more than 40,000 developers worldwide , servicing more than 1,000 applications. By implementing DevOps and Continuous Delivery to streamline, scale and transform its software delivery processes, Huawei was able to achieve significant growth, reduce the cost of delivering software, increase resource utilization and productivity and achieve faster time to market with higher quality..

What does it take to get to #DevOps & #ContinuousDelivery at scale? http://t.co/l6kfZZxXfF @sdtimes @anders_wallgren pic.twitter.com/rwxMRzg119

— CloudBees (@electriccloud) May 13, 2015

3. DevOps Opportunities – Where Does Your Organization Fit In?
https://electric-cloud.com/blog/2015/05/devops-opportunities/
The promise of delivering innovative software more quickly and with fewer errors is reshaping how IT departments create new business services. High-performing IT organizations deploy code 30 times more frequently with 50 fewer failures, …CEO of CloudBees, Steve Brodie, shares his thoughts on DevOps. “In many organizations, software has increasingly become the foundation of the business, so they’re adopting DevOps practices to deliver better software faster without sacrificing quality.”

What are the #DevOps Opportunities & Where Does Your Organization Fit In? http://t.co/9K2mfIVhmK @stbrodie @CDWCorp pic.twitter.com/NIIfSlqn7D — CloudBees (@electriccloud) May 12, 2015

4. DevOps Enterprise Summit Announces First Keynotes For 2015 Conference, Named A Finalist For American Business Awards
https://electric-cloud.com/company/news/press-releases/item/devops-enterprise-summit-announces-first-keynotes-for-2015-conference-named-a-finalist-for-american-business-awards/
"What sets the DevOps Enterprise Summit apart from other events is the caliber of software executives that openly share their journey to successful Agile, DevOps and Continuous Delivery adoption," explained Steve Brodie, CEO of CloudBees. "It has been a privilege to gather such an incredible community of innovators all working to speed the delivery of quality software through predictable processes and automation. The recognition of being named a finalist for an American Business Award after our first year demonstrates how truly impactful the event has been."
5. 5 Ways to Keep DevOps from Becoming Dev-Oops
http://www.biztechmagazine.com/article/2015/05/5-ways-keep-devops-becoming-dev-oops
The potential of DevOps is clear, according to proponents who say it helps dedicated teams of development and operations staff quickly deliver innovative software with a minimum of errors. But few experts say implementing DevOps is easy, especially for large and established enterprises that must manage fundamental cultural changes and reformulate legacy programming practices.
6. As the IoT expands, agile is the way forward
http://www.techbeacon.com/iot-expands-agile-way-forward
From smart homes and smarter appliances to automobiles and wearable technology, the Internet of Things (IoT) has gone from a tech buzzword to a tangible and quickly advancing everyday reality. What we used to call "embedded" software—software integrated with physical devices—is now expanding to a myriad of connected products. The depth and richness of the connections that are now possible has changed the market, and the development process, in sweeping and powerful ways.
7. Are you really agile? Probably not. Here's why.
http://www.techbeacon.com/are-you-really-agile-probably-not-heres-why
How can you tell if your organization is really walking the walk and not just talking the talk? It all comes back to the Agile Manifesto. Using eight of the 12 principles, let's look at how well other organizations measure up, and you can compare it to what's happening in your own organization to see where you stand.
8. How digital leaders outperform their peers
https://agenda.weforum.org/2015/05/how-digital-leaders-outperform-their-peers/
One of the big global technology stories this year is the expanding divide between the digital haves and have-nots. As the World Economic Forum’s new Global Information Technology Report 2015 highlights, the full benefits of technology are only available in countries that have embraced digital technology for the vast majority of their citizens. There’s a similar digital dichotomy playing out in the corporate world too.

How digital leaders outperform their peers: https://t.co/kAxxl9EKOD @wef @PwC_LLP pic.twitter.com/Wl9PQiCnTm

— DOES Summit (@DOESsummit) May 10, 2015

9. Scaling Dilemmas and How to Deal with Them
http://www.infoq.com/news/2015/05/scaling-dilemmas
InfoQ interviewed Mary & Tom Poppendieck about balancing cooperation and autonomy in agile teams, doing experiments to deal with complexity, how a product mindset can give better results than a project mindset and how you can focus on the business impact.
10. Here's how we can help push DevOps into the mainstream
http://www.fiercedevops.com/story/heres-how-we-can-help-push-devops-mainstream/2015-05-14
Can DevOps declare victory yet? Not quite, but soon. Figuring out when a technology inflection point happens is always hard, if not impossible, in real time. It's easy to point backwards and say when ERP, agile software development, the Web, business intelligence, mobile or cloud suddenly became "normal." I think DevOps is right at the door of that point, and as some recent Gartner predictions have proffered , we could see something like a quarter of all large enterprises using DevOps next year.