Why are over 90% of enterprises leveraging at least one public cloud service like AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure?(1)
Because the public cloud is the path for companies that need to become as agile as today’s leading software companies in order to execute a digital strategy.
As the pace of disruption accelerates, enterprises are looking for ways to shorten cycles, speed up delivery frequency, and adopt a mode of continual experimentation.
Do you need to speed up your software delivery to be closer to today’s successful software and web companies? DevOps is the key!
Why do you need DevOps to be successful in the public cloud?
The following picture can be helpful in illustrating how the on-premises and public cloud are different and why DevOps is necessary for success in public cloud.
On-premises organizations are setup in silos with each silo using trouble-ticket-driven processes and systems. Handoffs (and delays) occur between teams when new capacity or environments are built, provisioned, configured or debugged.
For example, a developer requests a large scale test environment for scale testing. The Ops team creates a trouble-ticket requesting the infrastructure teams to create the VMs. The Ops team then needs to prep the VM with the right apps and configuration, and then the development team configures the resources.
The Public cloud is API driven, eliminating silos
Public cloud transforms the infrastructure layer into a set of APIs that can be programmed to achieve a high degree of automation, enabling flexible resource consumption. Operations teams are relieved from procuring, provisioning, and maintaining hardware and VMs. Here is a high-level summary of the differences.
Pubic Cloud |
On-Premises Private Cloud |
Infrastructure is a set programmable APIs, enabling complete automation. |
Infrastructure revolves around VMs. Automation of other system components is limited. |
Resources are elastic to meet changing consumption without advance planning. |
Fixed resources require frequent analysis and planning. |
Developers drive cloud with software or applications themselves. |
Operators drive servers with commands in scripts or plug-ins. |
DevOps practices are expressed in software logic. |
DevOps practices are expressed in manual processes. |
In the public cloud, Dev and Ops teams must be joined at the hip
When infrastructure is a set of APIs, the remaining two layers – development and operations – must work more closely together. Successful DevOps organizations in the public cloud merge these organizational layers and simplify roles. Development and operations teams act more like peers and are tightly coupled in developing, delivering and running applications.
Any tools or technology you consider for the public cloud must provide a unified view of the end-to-end process so that everyone is aligned with the business objectives in building, testing, deploying, and running software in the cloud.
In summary, public cloud enables agility and enables enterprises to execute a digital strategy. Enterprises must eliminate traditional organizational silos and adopt DevOps to shorten cycles, speed up the frequency of software delivery in order to effectively leverage public cloud for competitive advantage.
At Applatix, we believe that DevOps is an end-to-end product that automates and streamlines processes to eliminate organizational silos. It should provide a unified view from development to production and all the stages in between. This creates a culture that facilitates collaboration, automation, measuring, learning, and sharing in order to achieve a common business objective.
If public cloud is an orchestra with dozens of instruments, then DevOps is the conductor that directs it to produce beautiful music.
Next, we’ll look at why you need purpose built DevOps for public cloud.