Cloud Computing, DevOps and Speed of Business

Who said that cloud computing should be adopted like a fashion company? Here is an interesting reflection of DevOps on Cloud Computing Business. Theory around Cloud Computing and Cloud Computing Service Models has been discussed in details.

Cloud computing is the best form of consolidation among the computing resources within a data center and the use of applications and infrastructure that they can be put outside the data center. Similarly, the concept of DevOps transforms the process of delivery of data and applications to users through a new level of automation and collaboration among the parties responsible for the development and deployment.

Cloud Computing and DevOps

Companies with very frequent releases may require a DevOps awareness or orientation program. Flickr developed a DevOps approach to support a business requirement of ten deployments per day, this daily deployment cycle would be much higher at organizations producing multi-focus or multi-function applications. This is referred to as continuous deployment or continuous delivery and is frequently associated with the lean startup methodology.

DevOps is a software development method that stresses communication, collaboration and integration between software developers and information technology (IT) operations professionals. DevOps is a response to the interdependence of software development and IT operations. It aims to help an organization rapidly produce software products and services.

The adoption of DevOps is being driven by factors such as:

1. Use of agile and other development processes and methodologies
2. Demand for an increased rate of production releases from application and business unit stakeholders
3. Wide availability of virtualized and cloud infrastructure from internal and external providers
4. Increased usage of data center automation and configuration management tools

Cloud Computing, DevOps and Speed of Business

When the two concepts are combined together, the business can be implemented, designed, constructed and tested successfully, including through the implementation of operational processes that can be used on various types of infrastructure and application platforms, allowing even more easy to implement systems disaster recovery, HA and high scalability.

As a counterpoint to all these benefits raises the speed at which cloud computing and the concept of DevOps are able to penetrate the IT industry. The discrepancy between the benefits and absorption time creates gaps that must be filled with accurate information, which may not leave room for unnecessary enthusiasm and especially counterproductive.

The speed at which a business is able to understand the changes introduced by cloud computing technologies and the concept of DevOps depends basically three different factors, that Morgenthal summed up in this list:

1. The desire of the business to change for IT;
2. The amount of time needed to embrace change;
3. The time dictated by the competition in the business sector.

While the application of cloud computing and the concept of DevOps may theoretically beneficial, it is not always feasible for pragmatic business issues and this is that any changes could only come after a number of cycles. The rate of application depends on and is therefore bound by the operational needs of the business. For example, we can not imagine that a retailer can absorb the significant changes introduced by the cloud and the DevOps three months before the holiday shopping season.

Every business has its own nature and therefore must be respected and investigated to better understand the timing of the application of the cloud.

At the same time, however, the time required are not always feasible, as the business and its evolutions must deal with the evolution of IT competition. To return to the example of retailers, it is impossible to think that retailers can implement changes for better inventory control and inventory, for a better customer experience and agility to win in more than two business cycles, as would become uncompetitive against retailers and online giants such as Amazon. For these companies, the time necessary to implement the changes introduced by cloud and DevOps are dictated by competition rather than by their natural needs.

Despite all this, many companies do not look at these times and undertake projects in the cloud and DevOps, whose “results are far from stellar,” because there are a whole host of factors (lack of adequate time and resources, for example) which act as a barrier. So cloud and DevOps become a way for people to keep up with the times, worrying more “of their role that the real needs of business.”