DevOps is speeding towards the IT world like a freight train and the hype around it is deafening. There is no reason to be afraid of this change as it is the natural reaction to the agile movement that revolutionized development just a few years ago. By definition, DevOps is the natural alignment of IT performance to business profitability. The relevance of this has yet to be quantified but it has been suggested that the route to the CEO's chair will come from the IT leaders that successfully make the transition to a DevOps model. If this still seems foreign to you, I recommend reading up on DevOps Blog from IT Revolution, the OpsCode Blog, and check out The Phoenix Project.

Despite all the talk around simple monitoring tools, breaking through the walls between Dev and Ops still poses a real challenge. This is because of a misunderstanding around Operations real purpose - extracting real value from its resources. According to Kevin Behr the definition of Operations is the act of harvesting value from IT resources. Anything that prevents this from happening is a detriment to the business. This means that firefighting and war room sessions are a hindrance to the DevOps model. The following screenshots are good examples of a war room scenario.

Unexpected crashes of websites upon new rollouts still lead to "War Room" situations - despite all the good efforts of DevOps and Agile Delivery/Deployment

Successfully riding the DevOps train: Many of our production customers that made it through the firefighting mode applied the principals of DevOps with a special focus on Application Performance. In this article we describe the steps and milestones companies need to go through in order to level-up their Operations and Engineering Teams to provide more value out of the existing resources.

The Foundation of DevOps
CAMS (Culture, Automation, Measurement, Sharing) are four key areas that are core to the DevOps movement. Culture is the hardest to change but is also the most important because it means a change in the way in which the different teams work together and share the responsibility for the end users of their application. It promotes the usage of development practices in operations to automate deployment. It also allows developers to learn from "the real world" Ops experience and with that mutual exchange it breaks down the walls.

The Lack of Performance Focus
An interesting fact based on the feedback we get from operation teams worldwide: The root cause for about 80% of site crashes or performance problems is related to only about 20% of problem patterns. Want to learn more? Check out blogs such as Top Performance Landmines in Production and I am sure you'll find some issues you already ran into yourself.

Looking at these common problem patterns it is clear that despite all the DevOps efforts lots of performance and scalability-related problems still make it into a release deployment. Why is that? Because our organizations are still very much driven by business requirements that need numerous new features being pushed in ever shorter release cycles. Teams keep growing and are being spread around the world. In order to keep up with the pace, third-party components are included in the code in place of in-house innovation. This "natural" evolution however is also the root cause for firefights and limiting the benefits of DevOps because there is too much focus on pushing functionality through the Deployment Pipeline but not enough focus on Performance.

More developers across more locations including more untested 3rd party code with less time to focus on performance

Plugging Performance into DevOps
In order to focus developers on performance to avoid War Room scenarios you must plug performance into the four pillars of CAMS:

• Culture: Performance as Key Requirement in Dev, Test and Ops
• Automation: Automated Performance Tests already in Continuous Integration
• Measurement: Measure Key Performance Metrics in CI, Test and Ops
• Sharing: Share the same tools and same performance data across Dev, Test and Ops

There are several key milestones to consider:

Milestone 1: Level-Up Performance to Increase Feedback Between Ops and Development
The first step in any DevOps initiative is to get the Ops teams and the Dev teams talking in order to relieve constraints on the business. This might be easy for small teams to accomplish but the larger the organization, the more difficult it becomes as constraints are greater in larger organizations. Operations has to diminish these constraints on the business. This is where APM solutions can help. Beware as not all solutions are created equal. As mentioned in the previous DevOps blog the drive to diminish constraint needs to be applied across the delivery chain. Monitoring just does not cut it here. There needs to be something that not only starts the process but allows the teams to continue to mature and grow. Simple monitoring tools fall short because they only help extinguish fires in operations. How does this continue to drive down constraints? Remember, firefighting is not a part of operations, which means operations should not be looking at fire extinguishers for their DevOps strategies.

Milestone 2: Level-Up Performance Thinking of Engineering
Both Operations and Test Teams have a good understanding of Performance as they deal with it every day. These teams need to educate engineering on the importance of performance as it is a key requirement to software engineering and how it plays a role in large-scale environments under heavy load.

The Ops team shares data with engineering to highlight the performance behavior of their applications under real production load. This helps engineers to prevent these top performance problems from entering production and with that eliminating the need for firefights.

The test teams do their share by providing automated performance test frameworks and educating engineering on how to automate testing for these performance problem patterns.

Milestone 3: Level-Up Load and Capacity Testing
With development executing its own performance tests it's time to level up the test team as well. On one side there is more time to focus on large-scale load tests that need to be executed in a production- like environment. This helps to find any "data-driven", scalability, and "third-party impacted" performance problems. Close collaboration with Ops ensures that tests can be executed either in the prod environment or in a staged environment that mirrors production. Executing these tests in collaboration with Ops allows the teams to become more confident when releasing a new version and also helps with proper capacity planning steps.

Running tests against the production system gives better input for capacity planning and uncovers heavy load application issues

Milestone 4: Level-Up Performance Test Automation
The "traditional" testing teams are used to execute performance and scalability tests in their own environments at the end of a milestone. The goal is to provide these test frameworks and environments to engineering so that these basic performance tests can be executed automatically in the CI environment. In order for this to work you need to make sure that:

1. These test frameworks are easy to use and accepted by developers
2. Deliver performance metrics to detect the common problem patterns
3. These are fully integrated into continuous integration

Automatic Integration Tests run in C/I to detect performance regressions on metrics such as # of SQL Calls, Page Load Time, # of JS files or Images ...

What's Next? Build a Performance Center of Excellence
Many of our customers who jumped on the DevOps train a while back are now promoting a performance culture in their organizations. In the next few blogs we will cover their best practices and tips on either building a separate "Performance Center of Excellence" Team or up-leveling the existing DevOps teams to deliver software with high confidence and fewer War Room weekends.

Cloud-Native thinking and Serverless Computing are now the norm in financial services, manufacturing, telco, healthcare, transportation, energy, media, entertainment, retail and other consumer industries, as well as the public sector.

The widespread success of cloud computing is driving the DevOps revolution in enterprise IT. Now as never before, development teams must communicate and collaborate in a dynamic, 24/7/365 environment. There is no time to wait for long development cycles that produce software that is obsolete at launch. DevOps may be disruptive, but it is essential.

DevOpsSUMMIT at CloudEXPO expands the DevOps community, enable a wide sharing of knowledge, and educate delegates and technology providers alike. Recent research has shown that DevOps dramatically reduces development time, the amount of enterprise IT professionals put out fires, and support time generally. Time spent on infrastructure development is significantly increased, and DevOps practitioners report more software releases and higher quality. Sponsors of DevOpsSUMMIT at CloudEXPO will benefit from unmatched branding, profile building and lead generation opportunities.

Sponsorship & Exhibit Opportunities ▸ Here

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Silicon Valley Schedule ▸ Here

At CloudEXPO Silicon Valley, June 24-26, 2019, Digital Transformation (DX) is a major focus with expanded DevOpsSUMMIT and FinTechEXPO programs within the DXWorldEXPO agenda. Successful transformation requires a laser focus on being data-driven and on using all the tools available that enable transformation if they plan to survive over the long term. A total of 88% of Fortune 500 companies from a generation ago are now out of business. Only 12% still survive. Similar percentages are found throughout enterprises of all sizes.

ServerlessSUMMIT at CloudEXPO to Present 50 Rockstar Speakers and 60 Serverless and Kubernetes Sessions in Three Simultaneous Tracks

Register Today and SAVE ▸ Here

Speaking Opportunities ▸ Here

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This month @nodexl announced that ServerlessSUMMIT & DevOpsSUMMIT own the world's top three most influential Kubernetes domains which are more influential than LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Medium, Infoworld and Microsoft combined.

ServerlessSUMMIT at CloudEXPO to present 50 rockstar speakers, 60 sessions in three simultaneous tracks. Call for Papers Here.

The three-day event will take place June 24-26, 2019 at the Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, CA and will be colocated with CloudEXPO Silicon Valley!

Today we have announced our first 12 sessions. We are accepting speaking submissions for ServerlessSUMMIT through Friday, February 8th.

Our CloudEXPO Silicon Valley 2019 schedule showcases 200 presentations, including keynotes, technical sessions, general sessions, power panels, and hands-on tutorials presented by 150 rockstar speakers in the 10 hottest conference tracks of 2019. We are excited to add the ServerlessSUMMIT to this lineup!

Cloud-Native thinking and Serverless Computing are now the norm in financial services, manufacturing, telco, healthcare, transportation, energy, media, entertainment, retail and other consumer industries, as well as the public sector.

The widespread success of cloud computing is driving the DevOps revolution in enterprise IT. Now as never before, development teams must communicate and collaborate in a dynamic, 24/7/365 environment. There is no time to wait for long development cycles that produce software that is obsolete at launch. DevOps may be disruptive, but it is essential.

As they do so, IT professionals are also embracing the reality of Serverless architectures, which are critical to developing and operating real-time applications and services. Serverless is particularly important as enterprises of all sizes develop and deploy Internet of Things (IoT) initiatives.

Serverless and Kubernetes are great examples of continuous, rapid pace of change in enterprise IT. They also raise a number of critical issues and questions about employee training, development processes, and operational metrics.

The Most Popular 20 Cloud-Native, Serverless and Kubernetes Speakers and Sessions at ServerlessSUMMIT Silicon Valley

Monta Vista Ventures Presentation:

AIOps Disruption for Cloud, IT and SaaS - Muddu Sudhakar

Red Hat Kubernetes Track:

Securing Applications and Pipelines on a Container Platform - Veer Muchandi

Red Hat Kubernetes Track:

Service Mesh with Enhanced Observability and Traceability - Veer Muchandi

Red Hat Kubernetes Track:

Container Technologies - Impact on Enterprises - Veer Muchand

IBM Kubernetes Presentation:

Hybrid Container Serverless Mobile Backend - Marek Sadowski

Rapidvalue Solutions Session:

Serverless Architecture on AWS - Avinash Thakur

Red Hat Kubernetes Track:

Continuous Security with Kubernetes - Chris Van Tuin

Intel Kubernetes Session:

How to Better Manage Your Cloud Infrastructure - Rami Radi

Microsoft Azure Track:

Docker on Azure Hands-On Lab - Docker to Helm - Rags Srinivas

Microsoft Azure Track:

Policy Driven Enterprise Security For Kubernetes - Dave Strebel

jFrog Kubernetes Session:

Building a Kubernetes Powered Central Go Modules Repository - Leon Stigter

Platform9 Kubernetes Session:

Serverless Applications You Can Implement Today: 3 Key Use Cases and Design Patterns - Vamsi Chemitiganti

Data Theorem Session:

Serverless Applications vs Apps Built in Docker Containers - Doug Dooley

SUSE Serverless Track:

OpenStack and Kubernetes Get the Heat Treatment - Cameron Seader

Capgemini Serverless Session:

Microservices Implementation at Scale - Rishi Singh

Red Hat Kubernetes Track:

Containers: Don't Skeu Them Up. Use Microservices Instead - Gordon Haff

WSO2 Kubernetes Session:

Cloud Native Programming with Docker, Kubernetes, and Ballerina - Lakmal Warusawithana

Buoyant Linkerd Session:

Microservice Forensics: Investigating Problems in Production - Thomas Rampelberg

Palo Alto Networks Containers Session:

Shift Left Security In a Containerized World - Gunjan Patel

Palo Alto Networks Containers Session:

Container Security Best Practices - Gunjan Patel

DevOpsSUMMIT at CloudEXPO Celebrates Its 12th Event in Six Years

ServerlessSUMMIT and DevOpsSUMMIT at CloudEXPO expands the DevOps community, enable a wide sharing of knowledge, and educate delegates and technology providers alike.

There's a real need for serious conversations about Serverless and Kubernetes among the people who are doing this work and managing it.

So we are very pleased today to announce the ServerlessSUMMIT at CloudEXPO.

At CloudEXPO Silicon Valley, June 24-26, 2019, Digital Transformation (DX) is a major focus with expanded DevOpsSUMMIT and FinTechEXPO programs within the DXWorldEXPO agenda. Successful transformation requires a laser focus on being data-driven and on using all the tools available that enable transformation if they plan to survive over the long term. A total of 88% of Fortune 500 companies from a generation ago are now out of business. Only 12% still survive. Similar percentages are found throughout enterprises of all sizes.

CloudEXPO Has Been the M&A Capital For Cloud Companies For More Than a Decade

CloudEXPO has been the M&A capital for Cloud companies for more than a decade with memorable acquisition news stories which came out of CloudEXPO expo floor. DevOpsSUMMIT New York faculty member Greg Bledsoe shared his views on IBM's Red Hat acquisition live from NASDAQ floor. Acquisition news was announced during CloudEXPO New York which took place November 12-13, 2019 in New York City.

Our Silicon Valley 2019 schedule will showcase 200 keynotes, sessions, general sessions, power panels, and hands on tutorials presented by 150 rockstar speakers in 10 hottest conference tracks of 2019:

» CloudEXPO
» DevOpsSUMMIT
» ServerlessSUMMIT
» Kubernetes at CloudEXPO
» FinTechEXPO Blockchain
» DXWorldEXPO Digital Transformation
» AI | ML | DL | Artificial Intelligence
» Big Data | Analytics
» IoT | IIoT | Smart Cities
» Mobility | Security
» Enterprise Cloud Hot Topics

Sponsorship and Exhibit Opportunities at CloudEXPO Silicon Valley, June 24-26, 2019, Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, CA

CloudEXPO Silicon Valley 2019 Show Prospectus ▸ HERE

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Keynote Opportunities ▸ HERE
General Session Opportunities ▸ HERE
Diamond Sponsorship Opportunity ▸ HERE
Platinum Sponsorship Opportunity ▸ HERE
Gold and Silver Sponsorship Opportunities ▸ HERE
Bronze Sponsorship and Exhibitor Packages ▸ HERE
Benefits of Exhibiting at CloudEXPO 2019 ▸ HERE

CloudEXPO is the single event where technology buyers and vendors meet to experience and discus cloud computing and all that it entails. For more than a decade, sponsors and exhibitors of CloudEXPO benefit from unmatched branding, profile building and lead generation opportunities through our following unique tools. For more information on sponsorship, exhibit, and keynote opportunities call us at 954 242-0444 or contact us ▸ Here

• Featured on-site presentation and ongoing on-demand webcast exposure to a captive audience of industry decision-makers
• Showcase exhibition during our new extended dedicated expo hours
• Breakout Session Priority scheduling for Sponsors that have been guaranteed a 40-minute technical session
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About DXWorldEXPO LLC

DXWorldEXPO LLC is a Lighthouse Point, Florida-based trade show company and the creator of DXWorldEXPO - Digital Transformation Conference & Expo. The company produces and presents the world's most influential technology events including CloudEXPO, DevOpsSUMMIT, and FinTechEXPO.