DEVOPSdigest

DevOps practices enable organizations to move faster without sacrificing reliability and stability, according to the Puppet Labs 2015 State of DevOps Report. The report shows that high-performing IT organizations are more agile: They deploy 30 times more frequently and 200 times faster than their lower-performing peers. They are also more reliable: They have 60 percent fewer service disruptions due to change failures, and recover 168 times faster when they do experience failure.

“This year’s State of DevOps Report underscores the importance of making IT a strategic business priority. The best part is, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Lean management has evolved over 100 years, and when you apply those practices to software delivery, you get the same results — faster cycle times, higher quality, and lower costs,” said Nigel Kersten, CIO at Puppet Labs. “DevOps practices such as infrastructure as code and continuous delivery enable organizations to achieve higher levels of speed and reliability, and help build a more sustainable work environment.”

The 2015 State of DevOps Report also reveals that continuous delivery and lean management practices have a significant effect on IT performance, which in turn affects organizational performance, as measured by productivity, market share and profitability. Lean principles are as relevant to software delivery today as they were to manufacturing in the 1980s.

The report also sheds light on the critical role IT leaders play in an organization’s DevOps transformation. For a DevOps initiative to thrive, it must receive buy-in from the entire organization; DevOps initiatives launched solely by C-level executives or from the grassroots are less likely to succeed. Thus, IT managers who can tie business goals to on-the-ground execution are a critical component of DevOps success.

“IT is increasingly how all businesses acquire customers and deliver value to them — now more than ever, we see how critical IT is for any business to achieve its goals,” said Gene Kim, an award-winning CTO, researcher and co-author of The Phoenix Project and the forthcoming DevOps Cookbook. “This study shows how DevOps transformations are happening in large, complex organizations in almost every industry vertical. The reason is simple: DevOps is helping organizations win in the marketplace.”

Among other findings in the 2015 State of DevOps Report:

■ Deployment pain can tell you a lot about your IT performance. The more painful code deployments are, the poorer the organization's IT performance, overall performance and culture.

■ When it comes to high IT performance, it doesn’t matter if your apps are greenfield, brownfield or legacy. As long as applications are architected with testability and deployability in mind, high performance can be achieved.

■ Diversity matters. More than half of respondents report working on teams that are less than 10 percent female. Because organizations with more women have been shown to have higher collective intelligence and create greater enterprise value, we recommend IT teams proactively improve their recruiting efforts and workplace culture to create an environment that attracts and retains female employees.

■ Burnout can be prevented, and DevOps can help. DevOps practices are not only more productive, they create a saner, more sustainable work environment for employees.

Tim Zonca is Director of Product Marketing for Puppet Labs.