Arthur Cole

There is growing talk these days that as DevOps becomes the norm for enterprise service and application support, the need for a formal Quality Assurance (QA) program will fade. This is not entirely untrue, but it is important to remember that quality never goes out of style. So even as QA’s role changes in the […]

One of the main challenges with DevOps is that the term itself does not adequately describe the functional integration taking place in the enterprise. If it was just a matter of combining development and operations, things would be a lot simpler. But the fact is that a number of processes need to gain equal footing […]

DevOps is aimed at converting the distinct steps of application development and support into a continuous workflow, which in turn should make the enterprise itself more agile in an increasingly fast-paced digital economy. One of the most fundamental aspects of this process is quality assurance, which, arguably, has long been the bane of development because […]

One of the crucial aspects of establishing an effective CI/CD (continuous integration/continuous delivery) environment is Application Lifecycle Management (ALM). Far from simply tracking development changes and release management tasks like traditional software development lifecycle management programs, ALM strives to cover a given app’s entire existence – from initial design to decommissioning. As such, it encompasses […]

Like most advanced data architectures these days, DevOps poses a dilemma for the enterprise: Do you build it from within, leveraging your already considerable investment in IT technology, or do you outsource it to the cloud, retaining only the barest infrastructure for your critical needs? This dichotomy is growing even wider now that third-party cloud […]

In an ideal DevOps environment, there is little or no distinction between the development and operations of applications and services. Most platforms, in fact, strive to blend these two functions into a cohesive process so that Dev and Ops can move in tandem, significantly enhancing the app lifecycle and providing a far less error-prone product […]

One of the chief challenges in monitoring DevOps projects is the fact that the resulting application or service is usually pushed out to the cloud or a mobile platform. In many cases, this involves third-party infrastructure and/or monitoring solutions, which can leave the enterprise blind to key performance data. To accommodate this, DevOps teams will […]

DevOps is not merely a technology upgrade but a change to business cultures, processes and models. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that few organizations have a handle as to exactly what makes a successful transition. One of the biggest mistakes is thinking that traditional performance metrics can give you an idea of what […]

DevOps is all about getting agile, but in order to do that, the enterprise needs an infrastructure that is agile as well. Simple virtualization is certainly better than bare-metal resources, but to really kick things into high gear, you’ll need to supports apps within environments that are portable and easily managed. Enter containers, and their […]

DevOps works best in agile, automated and largely software-defined infrastructure. This puts most enterprises in a bind because even now, nearly two decades into the modern virtualization era, much of IT is still steeped in legacy systems that are anything but agile and automated. So before an organization even begins experimenting with DevOps, it helps […]

DevOps may be the hot new trend in enterprise circles these days, but the fact remains that it is not likely to completely transform IT any time soon. Certainly at the outset, DevOps will affect only a small portion of the overall enterprise workload, primarily the piece that supports emerging mobile and IoT operations. The […]

The enterprise wants to do DevOps these days, and that means hiring and retaining the right people. But where are these people to be found and perhaps more importantly, how much will you have to pay them? The skillsets for effective DevOps work are numerous, ranging from hard coding and project management experience to softer […]