In the previous step, we discovered the importance of DevOps by understanding the value it brings to the organisation. In this step, we learn about the State of DevOps from Puppet Labs’ perspective.

The State of DevOps Report

Puppet Labs publishes the State of DevOps Report based on responses from more than 20,000 tech professionals worldwide. The report authors conclude that organisations that embrace DevOps practices consistently outperform their peers. For example:

• Companies with high-performing IT organisations are twice as likely to exceed their profitability, market share, and productivity goals
• High-performing IT organisations experience three times lower change failure rates and recover 24 times faster than their lower-performing peers. They also deploy 200 times more frequently, with 2,555 times faster lead times.

Key Findings

Over the years of publishing the State of DevOps Report, two key findings that have surfaced from these reports include:

1. DevOps goes against the notion that you achieve stability and reliability if you move slower. In fact, the research shows us that if you want to move faster, you have to build resilience into your systems. You need to get used to making changes more frequently.
2. Traditionally DevOps was seen as a grassroots movement but is now moving up the chain and horizontally through the organisation. For a DevOps initiative to succeed, there has to be alignment between all the layers in the organisation to see true DevOps transformation.

The DevOps Transformation

DevOps requires big changes across the organisation. It requires changes in culture, process and tools. There are also many challenges and roadblocks along the way:

• Legacy systems, tools and processes
• A mindset of accepting the status quo
• Politics
• Misaligned incentives

To achieve a successful transformation, you have to start with the business case. It is important to get your organisation aligned around the business goal.

Configuration Management

Configuration Management is one of the DevOps practices. Configuration Management tools allow you to define your infrastructure as code. It enables teams to start adopting Agile development best practices and it makes things such as version control, peer review, automated testing, automated deployment, continuous integration and continuous delivery possible.

In the next step, we will explore fast delivery cycles.

Join the discussion

What part, if any, of the report & discussion surprised you?

Use the discussion section below and let us know your thoughts. Try to respond to at least one other post and once you’re happy with your contribution, click the Mark as complete button to check the step off, then you can move to the next step.