DEVOPSdigest

DEVOPSdigest asked experts from across the IT industry — from analysts and consultants to users and the top vendors — for their opinions on the top tools to support DevSecOps. Part 5, the last installment, offers some final thoughts about "tools" that are not necessarily technology.

Start with The Top Tools to Support DevSecOps - Part 1

Start with The Top Tools to Support DevSecOps - Part 2

Start with The Top Tools to Support DevSecOps - Part 3

Start with The Top Tools to Support DevSecOps - Part 4

THE RIGHT PEOPLE

Investment in quality people is the single best investment in tooling an organization can make to support DevSecOps. From the executives that need to make the command decisions that weigh risk versus business goal, to the developers writing the applications, to the security teams that are trying to implement "Security at the Speed of Code." Without an investment in quality people, you end up with a hamstrung environment where even the most modest security practices are overlooked in favor of doing what is "easy" or "nimble." The "fail fast" mantra of DevOps should not be applied to a security program wherein the consumer bears all the weight of an unfortunate event.
John Stauffacher
Director - Offensive Security, Trace3(link is external)

DEVSECOPS CULTURE

Your most important tool needed for DevSecOps isn't a actually tool, or even a process: it's culture. You can influence culture — having support from the top is vital — but you can't prescribe it. Instead, you'll need to build a multi-disciplinary team of enthusiasts: not just security experts, but auditors, docs, ops and testing people and beyond. You'll help them through failures and successes, and then encourage them to spread the word across your organization: they become your most important tool for success.
Mike Bursell
Chief Security Architect, Red Hat(link is external)

DevSecOps is a culture and hence implementing it is mainly a mindset change. The tools will only drive the change, but the most important part is to go from having separate teams with siloed responsibilities in the software development lifecycle to having teams that are fully responsible for implementing, testing and running their code in production.
Isa Vilacides
Quality Engineering Manager, CloudBees(link is external)

COLLABORATION

Probably the most critical tool when trying to bring security colleagues along on your DevOps transformation is a whiteboard and a stack of post-it notes. Fundamentally the collaboration will rise or fall based on how well people from different teams and with different skills work together. Getting everyone physically together upfront, taking people away from how things work day-to-day, and holding a well organized and well run set of workshops is a great first step on your DevOps journey.
Gareth Rushgrove
Product Manager, Docker(link is external)

EMPATHY

Simply putting developers and security people into the same cube farm and telling them to work together won't work, of course — and will likely be counterproductive. Collaboration is key — but even the best collaboration tool in the world won't facilitate cooperation among people who feel they are in an adversarial relationship with each other. Just as with DevOps itself, therefore, the most important tool for DevSecOps is empathy — the ability to put yourself into the other person's shoes and see the problem space from their point of view. Once the team has sufficient empathy for each other, collaboration tooling is important to be sure — but tools don't make high-performance teams.
Jason Bloomberg
President, Intellyx(link is external)