Hello, Habr! I present to your attention the translation of the article. by Steve Mezak.
Depending on your perspective, DevOps will celebrate its ninth or tenth anniversary this year. In 2016, RightScale's State of the Cloud report noted that 70 percent of small and medium businesses were adopting DevOps practices. Every indicator contributing to that assessment has increased since then. As DevOps prepares to enter its second decade, it would be great to stroll through the alleys of the past and return to the origins of DevOps — and even to the origin of the very name itself.
Before 2007: The Perfect Chain of Events
Before 2007, a series of circumstances ultimately gave birth to what we now know as DevOps.
Lean Manufacturing had already established itself as best practice. Also known as the Toyota Production System, lean manufacturing aims to optimize processes on the shop floor. (By the way, Toyota's management was originally inspired by the original assembly line methods presented by Ford Motor Company). Continuous Improvement is the mantra of lean manufacturing. In practice, the following paths are constantly evaluated:
- Maintaining inventory levels of raw materials and finished goods at a minimum.Lean manufacturing means minimal raw material stock for producing goods and minimal finished products waiting for order distribution or shipping.
- Minimizing order queues.Ideally, received orders move immediately to a completed state. A key metric of lean manufacturing has always been the time from order receipt to delivery.
- Maximizing production process efficiency.Process reorganization and improved automation come together to produce goods as quickly as possible. Each production segment along the way (cutting, welding, assembly, testing, etc.) is assessed for inefficiencies.
In the IT world, traditional methods of the waterfall model of software development have given way to rapid iterative methods, such as AgileSpeed was a battle cry, even if quality sometimes suffered in the pursuit of rapid development and deployment. Similarly, cloud computing, particularly Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) have established themselves as mature solutions in IT processes and infrastructure.
Finally, toolsets for Continuous Integration. (CI) have recently begun to emerge. The concept of CI tools was born and introduced by Grady Booch back in 1991 with his Booch Method.
2007-2008: The Disappointed Belgian
Belgian consultant, project manager, and Agile practitioner Patrick Debois was appointed by the Belgian government to assist with data center migration. Specifically, he was involved in certification and readiness assessment. His responsibilities required him to coordinate actions and build relationships between software development teams and operations serversteams, database, and network groups. His frustration with the lack of cohesion and the walls separating development and operations methods sowed seeds of discontent. The desire for better soon led Debois to take action.
In 2008, at the Agile conference in Toronto, Andrew Shafer proposed moderating a specially arranged informal meeting to discuss the topic "Agile Infrastructure". And only one person came to discuss the topic: Patrick Debois. Their discussion and exchange of ideas advanced the concept of systems administration through Agile. That same year, Debois and Shafer created a moderately successful Agile Systems Administrator group on Google.
2009: The Matter of Dev and Ops Collaboration
At the O'Reilly Velocity conference, two Flickr employees, Senior Vice President of Technical Operations John Allspaw and Chief Technology Officer Paul Hammond, presented the now-famous presentation "10 Deployments a Day: Dev and Ops Collaboration at Flickr".
The presentation was dramatic in style, with Allspaw and Hammond acting out the complex interactions between Development and Operations during software deployment, accompanied by blame-shifting and mutual accusations in the spirit of 'It's not my code, it's all your computers!' Their presentation confirmed that the only reasonable way forward is for software development and deployment activities to be smooth, transparent, and fully integrated. Over time, this presentation became legendary and is now historically viewed as a landmark moment when the demand for the methodology known today as DevOps emerged in the IT industry.
2010: DevOps in the United States of America
With the rising number of supporters, the first DevOpsDays conference was held in the United States in Mountain View, California, right after the annual Velocity conference. Fast forward to 2018: over 30 DevOpsDays conferences are scheduled, including dozens in the United States.
2013: The Phoenix Project
For many of us, another significant moment in the history of DevOps was the publication of the book 'The Phoenix Project' by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford. This novel tells the story of an IT manager who finds himself in a dire situation: he is tasked with saving a critical e-commerce development project that has gone awry. A mysterious mentor of the manager—a board member captivated by lean methodologies—guides the protagonist with new ways of thinking about IT and application development, anticipating the concept of DevOps. Interestingly, 'The Phoenix Project' inspired us to write the book 'Outsource or Else...' about a similar business story where a Vice President of Software applies DevOps while developing a new major product through outsourcing.
DevOps for the Future
DevOps is better described as a journey or perhaps an aspiration rather than a final destination. Like lean manufacturing, DevOps strives for continuous improvement, increased productivity and efficiency, and even constant deployment. Automated tools to support DevOps continue to evolve.
Much has been achieved since the creation of DevOps in the last decade, and we expect to see even more in 2018 and beyond.
Source: habr.com
