The DevOps Movement and What it Means for Data Centers

DevOps: it is the newest buzzword in IT, promises a lot of advancement and comes with warning if misused or misinterpreted.  Some people call it a movement or a revolution, while others like to think of it as a role, a team, a department or a function. However, the most accurate definition of “DevOps” can be found when looking at it as a culture that binds together technology, people and process. On a more technical viewpoint, it is an environment where application development and systems operations are combined into one, with the promise of a highly productive, smoother and cost-effective IT delivery.

Some of the primary principles of the DevOps movement philosophy are as follows:

• Automate Everything: In an ideal world, 100% automation would be the standard for any DevOps-based organization. However, the reality is most organizations today can only automate a certain amount of tasks, ranging from upgrades, deployments, testing, monitoring, patching and security policy management.
• Team Formations: Flexibility is the key for employees to be successful in a DevOps operation. Rewards are given to the team as a whole and the entire team is responsible for failure. When hiring for a DevOps team, look for team players who can help create this environment.
• Use Tools: There needs to be a tool to aid every task in a DevOps data center environment. Some of the more popular DevOps tools are:
  • Chef: An automated configuration tool, which can also multitask in areas related to disaster recovery and continuous application delivery.
  • Puppet: An IT automation tool that holds the organization’s system policies and then automates the audit and compliance procedures against the predefined policies.
  • Git and GitHub: A revision control system, and its shared and hosted counterpart.
  • Jenkins: A continuous code integration server.
  • LogStash: A log parsing utility.

Even though organizations and data centers are taking their time to jump on to the DevOps bandwagon, and rightly so, there are still a few selected best practices and tools that one can adopt and make the move a more gradual one. For the best guidance on how to bridge the gap between the traditional and the modern in data center environments, get in touch with us at Lifeline Data Centers today.

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.