What Happens at DOES Vegas Doesn’t Stay at DOES Vegas!

The XebiaLabs team is in Sin City this week exploring the DevOps Enterprise Summit. Yesterday was the opening day of the conference, and we have some highlights from the shiniest place on earth.

DOES Vegas 2019 Keynote

Gene Kim kicked off the conference with his killer keynote, reminding us of what truly makes DOES a unique event–every speaker presents not only their successes, but also their failures, what they would do differently, and which areas of their organization need help. It’s not often that we get to hear directly from some of the biggest organizations in the world about their DevOps challenges!

Optum

We loved the session by XebiaLabs’ customer Optum, part of United Health Group and the largest insurance company in the U.S. During their presentation, “Health Care Modernization at Scale,” Heather Mickman, VP Platform Engineering & Practices, focused on how to unlock DevOps data. She talked extensively about the importance of data, and that “accessing data is the #1 developer challenge.” David Cherryhomes, Optum’s VP IT, discussed the importance of having engineers rotate through the support team, so they gain instant feedback on quality, performance, and features.

Adidas

During the session by Adidas, “Where Cloud Native Meets the Sporting Goods Industry,” Fernando Cornago, Senior Director, Platform Engineering, and Benjamin Grimm, Senior Director, .COM, talked about the importance of data, but with a different spin. According to Fernando, the Adidas teams sees data as the baton in a relay race. It’s not always the fastest who wins; the smoothest handoff is what really makes the difference.

One thing that stood out to us was that both Optum and Adidas acknowledged the importance of getting a handle on the amount of data that DevOps practices generate. Leveraging this data is critical for success moving forward. Both teams also have built out a common DevOps Platform that provides a service to their development teams–a trend we’ve been hearing about and seeing more and more. (To learn more about the importance of a DevOps Platform, check out this webinar with Gene Kim and Amy Johnston.)

Toyota

XebiaLabs own Dan Beauregard, VP, Cloud & DevOps Evangelist, teamed up with Kishore Jonnalagedda, Application Architect for Emerging Technologies at Toyota Motor North America, to present: “Toyota—Guiding Self-driven Innovation through DevOps and Kaizen.” This session was jam packed with great information about how Toyota successfully implemented DevOps and Release Orchestration across multiple tech stack and public clouds. Kishore also shared his experiences about how the XebiaLabs DevOps Platform helped them improve their software delivery processes and culture. View the slides here and stay tuned for a link to the recorded session.

CSG

Scott Prugh, Chief Architect & SVP, Software Engineering presented “DevOps & Modernization: An Engineering Excellence Story.” This session focused on CSG’s efforts to improve their legacy infrastructure. Scott went deep into the idea of “Don’t be legacy. Be heritage. Modernize.” Just because you have legacy dependencies doesn’t mean you cannot make improvements. Modernization is vital.

Duke Energy

Our last highlight of the day comes from Duke Energy. Sal Padilla, Senior IT DevOps Architect, presented “Duke Energy: Managing Open Source Security at DevOps Scale.” Enterprises download thousands of open source applications, but fail to scrutinize whether these applications are secure. In fact, 51% of open source applications in use by companies right now have known security vulnerabilities. The current focus in the industry tends to be adding new features, while security takes a back seat. If security isn’t a top priority in your organization, it’s impossible to meet compliance and security requirements as you develop and deliver software at scale. Read this white paper to learn the four key ingredients that can help organizations in all industries bake security and compliance into their software processes without compromising delivery speed.

It’s a Wrap!

That’s it for our DOES Day 1 highlights. If you’re at the show, make sure to stop by our booth (#503) and say hi! We’ve got loads of swag for you including copies of the Periodic Table of DevOps Tools! And if you stick around for a demo, you’ll get a Yeti Colster, too.

Learn More

• Follow @XebiaLabs, @dbeau72, @serlanger, and @DOES_USA on Twitter for your real-time #DOES19 updates
• Learn why a DevOps Platform is critical for your organization’s DevOps success
• Get access to all of the DOES Vegas presentations here
• Get 100% visibility into your complete software delivery lifecycle with the Software Chain of Custody