Weekly Top 10: First Ten of ‘16

Welcome to the first top DevOps news roundup of 2016! At the end of last year, we saw some great predictions for 2016. While we’re excited to kick off the new year, this week’s top posts reminded us to take a second to slow down and really understand the current state of affairs. For example, do you actually know what microservices are – or aren’t? What about DevOps? Does the emphasis still fall mostly on the development side? This week’s top news definitely got the wheels turning and just might get you thinking differently about the hot topics of 2016 as well. Read on for more insights, predictions, and tips from our fellow industry influencers. As always, stay tuned to all the news coming from @ElectricCloud on DevOps and Continuous Delivery throughout the week and retweet/favorite to get your favorite pieces featured in our weekly recap!

1Microservices are Not the Same Thing as Components

By @ABridgwater | Published on @TheRegister http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/06/inside_microservices/ Mention cloud, mention DevOps and it won’t be long before microservices enters the discussion. But what is, or are, microservices? The name implies something small – but what? Is it a part of a bigger thing or a piece of discrete functionality? And how are microservices different to application components? And why should we care? An application component is a small part of an application, obviously. It is a function, a sub-element, sometimes an extension or a plug-in extra, but sometimes a more fundamental core "thing" that exists as a feature of what a bigger application does.

What are #microservices exactly? @ABridgwater explains: https://t.co/pvDZHOIFVy @TheRegister pic.twitter.com/PibEvG15b6

— CloudBees (@electriccloud) January 6, 2016

2Devops — Developers Doing Ops, or Ops Doing Development?

By @mcasperson | Published on @DZone It is no longer feasible for projects to be stalled for weeks or even months while tasks like installing servers, provisioning VMs and configuring new services are undertaken. New techniques and ideas need to be brainstormed, tested and proved or disproved in days or hours. When implemented in conjunction with IaaS or PaaS, DevOps can effectively remove the roadblocks to a speedy delivery of a project. The elephant in the room is the question of who is upskilling to deliver these efficiencies? Are developers expected to perform the role of ops, or are ops employees expected to learn how to write code?

#Devops — Developers Doing Ops, or Ops Doing Development?https://t.co/mKn1TJFxcY @DZone @mcasperson — CloudBees (@electriccloud) January 8, 2016

3Why Ignoring Market Responsiveness Paves the Way for Enterprise DevOps 2.0

By @PhilAbdoulaye | Published on @CIOonline http://www.cio.com/article/3013780/business-alignment/why-ignoring-market-responsiveness-paves-the-way-for-enterprise-devops-20.html DevOps is the IT approach businesses need to meet the digital economy challenges. Incredible, a close look at how it's implemented shows that businesswise it's missing the point; its practitioners are still mired in the old IT thinking which erroneously restricts business growth to improving communication within IT, using agile methodologies and automating application deployment. Automated deployment is essential there's no question about it, yet it's a small part of the story.

Why ignoring market responsiveness paves the way for Enterprise DevOps 2.0 https://t.co/9sX3nNOWQe @PhilAbdoulaye @CIOonline #devops

— CloudBees (@electriccloud) January 11, 2016

4Predictions for DevOps in 2016

By Ken O’Hagan| Published on @ITProPortal http://www.itproportal.com/2016/01/11/predictions-for-devops-in-2016/ It has long been clichéd to say we’re living in a digital revolution, but with every day it becomes clearer. We can order taxis from our phones, deposit cheques and lock our front door via apps, buy anything from any device. This is made possible by software that can be changed quickly and often – one of the most important tools for businesses to find, capture, and retain customers.

More #DevOps predictions for 2016 per Ken O'Hagan: https://t.co/FHBBZwGsPP @ITProPortal @HPE pic.twitter.com/TMFtTKKWtK — CloudBees (@electriccloud) January 11, 2016

5DevOps Stalls Despite Agile Business Benefits of Continuous Integration

By Alexander Sword | Published on @cbronline http://www.cbronline.com/news/enterprise-it/software/devops-stalls-despite-agile-business-benefits-of-continuous-integration-4773539 DevOps success is falling by the wayside in the UK as businesses neglect the key main areas that drive it. While 67 percent of organisations have implemented DevOps, either broadly or in selected areas of the business, only 11 percent have done so across at least six different business areas, according to a study sponsored by CA Technologies. This compares to 23 percent in Switzerland, 13 percent in Spain, 12 percent in France and Italy but only 10 percent in Germany. The study also found that 84 percent of UK organisations agree on the importance of IT and business alignment in relation to DevOps-related activities, with only 36 percent having this in place. Similarly, 85 percent agree it is important to deal with security and compliance challenges of DevOps but only 20 percent have done so.

#DevOps stalls despite #Agile business benefits of #ContinuousIntegration : https://t.co/WlEU8uRJYQ @cbronline pic.twitter.com/kHOGG5aolQ

— CloudBees (@electriccloud) January 12, 2016

6How to Improve Productivity with Agile

By @PMPhacks | Published on @CIOonline http://www.cio.com/article/3021336/leadership-management/how-to-improve-productivity-with-agile.html Adopting new technology is one way to improve productivity. Another approach is to simply cut expenses. A better way is to improve the methodology and skills that IT staff use to complete their work. The agile approach achieves productivity gains through more effective communication and being highly responsive to customer demands.

How to improve productivity with #agile : https://t.co/P4dCLrhkCv @CIOonline @PMPhacks pic.twitter.com/hZiOAXu3OC — CloudBees (@electriccloud) January 12, 2016

7No, Agile Does Not 'Equal' DevOps: Examining Complexity and the Long Haul

By Andrew Cobley | Published on @TheRegister http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/14/long_haul_to_devops/ Two of the hottest buzzwords in the industry at the moment are DevOps and microservices – both are riding high on the hype cycle and we're starting to see gurus emerge telling us that they will save the IT industry (or at least save the industry a great deal of money). One of the ideas of DevOps is that software deployment becomes so easy it can be done many times a day, almost without thought, removing one of the most stressful moments of the software cycle and hopefully making long deployment weekends a thing of the past. Through automation deployment can be achieved through the press of a button, if you do that every day to systems very similar to the production environment, then an actual deployment to production is no big thing.

#Agile does not equal #DevOps : https://t.co/p2gOhrYfyw @TheRegister pic.twitter.com/gVLkX20zyB

— CloudBees (@electriccloud) January 14, 2016

8Delivering Safer Cars Faster with Continuous Delivery

By @andreas_dharma | Published by @DZone https://dzone.com/articles/delivering-safer-cars-faster-with-continuous-deliv As smart cars, pre-loaded with millions of lines of code, are becoming the norm in the automotive industry, the topic of safety has come to the forefront of the conversation in a big way. The automotive industry has always been bound by strict safety regulatory certifications and compliance rules, designed to ensure the safety of the vehicle and the software embedded in it. In his recent article for Automotive World, Andreas Dharmawan discusses the key regulations and compliance guidelines that the automotive industry is required to meet.

Delivering Safer Cars Faster with #ContinuousDelivery : https://t.co/hftVtOp4mx @DZone @andreas_dharma pic.twitter.com/pMdEM7oN3u — CloudBees (@electriccloud) January 14, 2016

9The State of Testing in 2016

By @BenLinders | Published on @InfoQ http://www.infoq.com/news/2016/01/state-of-testing The state of testing survey aims to provide insights on a number of aspects of the testing profession. Reviewing things like the adoption of test techniques and practices, test automation, and many of the other challenges that testers are facing today. The survey, made by testers for testers, is organized by Joel Montvelisky from PractiTest together with Lalit Bhamare from Tea-Time with Testers. 2016 will be the third time that this survey is done.

Interesting takes on "The State of Testing in 2016" https://t.co/aBjvfvoHOB @BenLinders @InfoQ

— CloudBees (@electriccloud) January 8, 2016

10Role of APM in Continuous Integration and Continuous Release

By @JKowall | Published on @SYSCONmedia http://news.sys-con.com/node/3623162 Today’s software defined and driven business requires fast changes in business models, this permeates successful businesses. What this means is that almost every company is learning how to make small rapid changes and adjustments within their business, especially within software systems. The result of this is that IT is feeling immense pressure to evolve, the net result is a major uptick of private cloud (especially Apprenda, Pivotal Cloud Foundry, RedHat OpenShift) and public clouds (especially Amazon and Microsoft) within our install base of large enterprises. These new platforms enable faster development, testing, and releasing of software.

Role of #APM in Continuous Integration and Continuous Release: https://t.co/9bAjmiCmc5 @JKowall #DevOps @SYSCONmedia

— CloudBees (@electriccloud) January 7, 2016