What is DevOps, Anyway?

We just got done moderating the latest webinar in the AgileLIVE series… “The Challenges and Rewards of DevOps.” The series started last week with Damon Poole, chief agilist at Eliassen Group. Damon did a really good deep-dive into What is DevOps? and we wrapped up today in Part 2 with Andy Powell and Ian Culling of VersionOne.

Here are some of the comments in my notes:

• DevOps is inextricably linked to Continuous Deployment/Delivery/Everything.
• DevOps automates and accelerates the build-test-deploy infrastructure.
• DevOps reinforces that “working software in customers’ hands is the measure of DONE, not features that made it into the release.”
• DevOps is a goal. You can’t just leap into it. It requires trust, people working closely together.
• Ops often hears: “’Those dev cowboys’ want to deploy every minute of every day.” Ops is here to make sure nothing breaks in production. DevOps aligns ’em.
• For DevOps to work, it is critical to have really good collaboration and trust between development and operations teams.

But the most interesting comment I heard came over the Q&A panel from an attendee:

“Is DevOps infecting Dev people with Ops thinking, or is it the other way around?”

What do you think? Whether you are already rolling with DevOps at your organization, or just trying to learn  what is DevOps… we’d like to hear your opinions.  If you want a copy of the recordings for AgileLIVE: The Challenges and Rewards of DevOps, simply post a comment here and we’ll send them.