Opinion

Opinion

• The secret to DevOps test automation? Pick your battles

  The pain of software test automation is real, particularly in a DevOps environment. But what if it was possible to approach it all differently? App maker Airtasker has a plan.  Continue Reading

• The growing ties between networking roles and automation

  Network automation is here, bringing with it new demands for network professionals. But these changes should go beyond shifting networking roles, responsibilities and skills.  Continue Reading

• Forget the DevOps mindset, and change habits and behaviors instead

  DevOps is not a state of mind, but rather a series of behaviors and practices. Expert Rob Lambert explains how a focus on habits can be a DevOps game-changer.  Continue Reading

• Breaking down the Exchange Online vs. on-premises choice

  The continuous feature release model of Exchange Online might be a boon for some, but others might consider the need for constant training to be a detriment.  Continue Reading

• DevOps goes to Washington: How DevOps in government works

  From procurement to compliance and security, the federal government will face enormous challenges as it brings DevOps on board. Here's how what to expect.  Continue Reading

• Not sure how to start with DevOps? Here's one option

  A new consulting firm with roots in Netflix and Amazon aims to help even legacy-heavy companies ship software faster. It starts with 15 metrics and small wins.  Continue Reading

• Will Exchange Server 2019 address admin issues?

  As Exchange Server 2019 draws closer, one administrator hopes Microsoft will incorporate some of the feature requests from the Exchange technicians in the field.  Continue Reading

• Why personal alignment is the secret sauce in top DevOps teams

  It's not magic, exactly, but there is a little-known secret at the heart of successful DevOps teams. Try personal alignment to improve team performance.  Continue Reading

• DevOps is a culture, but here's why it's actually not

  What DevOps needs today isn't more culture or more technology. It needs standards to help companies do a better job with implementation. Expert Aymen El Amri explains.  Continue Reading

• Use event-driven architecture to design for DevOps 2.0

  Collaboration is key to DevOps, but it will be even more important to DevOps 2.0. Expert Bob Reselman explains how event-driven architecture will help us build the next-gen DevOps.  Continue Reading

• Find a way forward in the cloud vs. virtualization debate

  IT admins weighing the options available for cloud and virtualization services against use cases and economics must navigate a complex market with an uncertain future.  Continue Reading

• Salary snapshot: Test automation engineer salaries in four cities

  It seems nearly any job related to DevOps carries a higher salary, and test automation is no exception. Here's our salary snapshot of test automation engineers in four U.S. cities.  Continue Reading

• Why new feature testing should be at the heart of DevOps

  Continuous testing is a good idea, but if used as a Band-Aid, it will miss things. Expert Matt Heusser explains why the focus should be on new feature testing.  Continue Reading

• Why management thinks your DevOps implementation is great

  Tech choices and testing are hard in DevOps, according to GitLab's 2018 Global Developer Report. But it turns out DevOps makes management happy. Here's why.  Continue Reading

• IoT initiatives and other emerging workloads force data center change

  Internet of things projects and other new technology, such as analytics and machine learning, are tied to software-defined storage and public cloud use, changing the face of IT.  Continue Reading

• Cohesity's hyper-converged secondary storage takes on data growth

  An out-of-the-box secondary storage strategy to deal with the coming deluge of file and object data promises to overcome scalability, management and capacity limits of NAS.  Continue Reading

• NVMe technology is but a first step toward bigger things

  NVMe is an inevitable move forward for flash technology that begins the transition to storage-class memory and will lead to even more significant storage advances.  Continue Reading

• It's past time to revisit Agile's definition of 'done'

  The definition of 'done' only covers what happens on the dev side. So, it's not very useful in a DevOps shop. Expert Theresa Neate explains what needs to change.  Continue Reading

• Native, third-party tools boost interoperability in cloud

  AWS exposes APIs and provides container services for portability, but does it go far enough? Some IT pros still find themselves leaning on third-party tools to fill critical gaps.  Continue Reading

• The best multi-cloud strategy is to just ignore the hype

  Vague vendor and analyst definitions for multi-cloud only confuse business leaders and put IT professionals in a precarious position.  Continue Reading

• Salary snapshot: What is a lead DevOps engineer paid today?

  Our monthly salary snapshot looks at lead DevOps engineer salaries, which are high and getting higher due to the worsening developer shortage. Here's how the paychecks stack up.  Continue Reading

• DevOps and security can coexist with a little planning

  If you want to bring the complicated-sounding DevSecOps into your organization, start with these three easy steps from Akamai's Ari Weil. Start where you are and ask a lot of questions.  Continue Reading

• Why software resilience should be the real goal of DevOps

  To improve your software development process, use DevOps to create a resilient system. Expert Matthew Heusser explains why reliability is no longer the goal.  Continue Reading

• It's time to convey the value of DevOps to your CFO

  Take the DevOps lead and turn your CFO into your organization's strongest DevOps supporter. It's not as daunting as you think. DevOps aligns with business interests.  Continue Reading

• Embrace change to make the DevOps operating model succeed

  Operations pros have more to gain and less to lose from DevOps than they understand. Brian Kirsch offers the reasons why ops needs to get on board with DevOps.  Continue Reading

• Serverless technology obfuscates workflows, performance data

  Serverless and microservices reshape the application stack into something that looks like a swath of stars in the sky. How do you find a slow, misconfigured component in this interconnected galaxy?  Continue Reading

• Why DevOps? The simple answer is it creates safer processes

  Is it possible to take an old-fashioned organization actually hostile to technology and move it into the 21st-century DevOps world? Expert David Savage says it is.  Continue Reading

• Bots know better: Maybe AIOps tools should drive your stack

  As more IT tool vendors add AI capabilities, organizations are speeding up delivery and cutting waste, but a lack of integration and trust is holding back the intelligent stack.  Continue Reading

• The DevOps process is hard. But here are seven ways it's easy

  Attend a DevOps conference and it seems every company struggles with the methodology. We asked seven experts to tell us how DevOps is easy. Hint: It's not the people.  Continue Reading

• How a DevSecOps process gives security a voice

  Security teams have worked quietly in the background of software quality projects for years. The DevSecOps process puts the long-lost co-worker, security, front and center.  Continue Reading

• Seven steps to move a DevOps team into the ML and AI world

  Artificial intelligence and machine learning can bring a lot to the software development and deployment table. But patience and experimentation will be key to make it work in an enterprise.  Continue Reading

• How to get the full benefits from NVMe flash storage

  Consolidate and increase the density of your organization's workloads in a flash storage system to take full advantage of NVMe's parallelism and reduced latency.  Continue Reading

• A multi-cloud strategy provides more options and headaches

  The days of the cloud as a single, homogenous entity are long gone. Going forward, you'll likely have a multi-cloud storage strategy and work with multiple service providers.  Continue Reading

• Network data analytics must work alongside human ingenuity

  Network data analytics offer a key tool in the arsenal of monitoring and understanding network behavior. But network professionals can't forget another crucial element -- themselves.  Continue Reading

• Don't quit your day job to build smart-home applications

  Plenty of effort goes into the creation of Alexa skills and Google actions, but the market for those smart-home apps has yet to fully materialize for developers.  Continue Reading

• Azure Migrate aims to attract VMware workloads to the cloud

  A new Azure service removes a lot of the guesswork for IT teams that want to move VMs to Microsoft's public cloud. But will a lack of early support from VMware hurt its appeal?  Continue Reading

• The end of Moore's law for SSD performance

  SSDs are seeing diminishing returns as Moore's law ends and quantum effects set in. Multilayers and more bits per cell are temporary fixes, but both have drawbacks.  Continue Reading

• Organizations don't have to pick private or public cloud

  Organizations don't necessarily have to decide between using a public or private cloud. For some companies, the answer is both. For others, it's neither.  Continue Reading

• Salary snapshot: Which city has the highest DevOps pay scale?

  Salary data from Glassdoor shows DevOps experience continues to give paychecks a substantial advantage over other developer roles. If you want to make the most money, move to San Francisco.  Continue Reading

• 'Accelerate' with the DevOps Research and Assessment team

  DevOps success will require a focus on learning and an expectation of high-performance. The DORA team explains in its new book, 'Accelerate: The Science of DevOps.'  Continue Reading

• Database virtualization lets developers code with confidence

  For the longest time, sharing a database has meant long nights for developers. But as more and more organizations adopt virtualized databases, those days are numbered.  Continue Reading

• DevOps Research and Assessment team dispels maturity model myths

  'Accelerate: The Science of DevOps' examines the hard data to see how current development methodology is really performing. In this excerpt, the focus is on capabilities, not maturity.  Continue Reading

• Use the right DevSecOps tools for more secure development

  Making applications safer requires more than just new tools; it also requires a cultural shift. DevSecOps is an effort to shift security left. Here's how to get started.  Continue Reading

• Want to be the best at DevOps? You need a DevOps bot

  A DevOps bot with access to all business, technical and customer profile information would make software development and deployment a breeze. Expert Torsten Volk introduces DOBO.  Continue Reading

• Alibaba Cloud services become strong IaaS contender

  Alibaba continues to gain traction in the IaaS market, and despite not having the same breadth of services as some of its rivals, it could lure some smaller shops away from AWS.  Continue Reading

• Use tried-and-true DevOps practices to beat analysis paralysis

  If your company feels stuck, the principles behind DevOps can help. Expert David Savage explains why companies need to roll out DevOps ideas everywhere.  Continue Reading

• The danger of ageism in the tech industry and ignoring the past

  Monolithic storage rules the day in spite of the advent of software-defined storage, because vendors and enterprises ignore data storage history and discount experience.  Continue Reading

• Is demand for data storage or supply driving increased storage?

  Figuring out whether we're storing more data than ever because we're producing more data or because constantly evolving storage technology lets us store more of it isn't easy.  Continue Reading

• Embrace IT digital transformation and the new tech landscape

  The digital economy is increasingly defining business, and IT's relationship to business and the bottom line is becoming tied together more tightly.  Continue Reading

• Why do Azure Stack appliances have to be certified?

  Azure MVP Marius Sandbu gives us a lesson on Azure Stack.  Continue Reading

• Why operations metrics and telemetry matter in DevOps too

  The earlier developers think about what operations pros need, the tighter the feedback loop will become. Expert Theresa Neate explains how metrics are key to shifting ops left.  Continue Reading

• SDN marketplace sows confusion on network infrastructure upgrades

  The ever-evolving SDN marketplace continues to confuse IT departments as they determine what steps they should take with their network infrastructure upgrades.  Continue Reading

• Ceph vs. Swift: Two object storage systems for different needs

  Some cloud object storage experts think that Ceph is better than Swift, but that isn't true. The fact is that both options can work, but your workload needs matter.  Continue Reading

• Keep DevOps operations relevant in the age of code

  The operations role isn't going away in DevOps, but it is going to change -- in some cases, dramatically. Expert Matthew Heusser explains what you need to do to be prepared.  Continue Reading

• Millimeter wave spectrum has key role in 802.11ay wireless

  IEEE 802.11ay Wi-Fi is getting closer to final ratification. The new standard relies on millimeter wave spectrum to deliver stronger and more robust services.  Continue Reading

• How DevOps operations teams can prepare for the next stage

  A move to DevOps has implications for everyone on the team, but especially for operations professionals. Get ready to learn new skills and be flexible.  Continue Reading

• Want a true DevOps culture change? Start with innovation

  The more you fail, the more you learn. That's the secret of really innovative companies and it's the secret to DevOps, too. Expert David Savage explains.  Continue Reading

• Compare AWS container services for your cloud needs

  Amazon EKS meets user demand for Kubernetes support on AWS, but ECS is still an intriguing option for some use cases. See which offering best fits your needs.  Continue Reading

• Can container tools box out configuration management?

  What will happen to your infrastructure programming skills when containers take over?  Continue Reading

• No roadmap? Become your team's DevOps specialist

  DevOps should boost delivery and stability. Without a clear roadmap and strategic deployment of DevOps tools though, your organization won't enable continuous delivery.  Continue Reading

• Look beyond public cloud giants for the right PaaS offering

  While the leading public cloud vendors remain a popular choice for PaaS, there are other offerings, ranging from Heroku to Engine Yard, that might be worth a closer look.  Continue Reading

• Are you using the right DevOps metrics in your organization?

  It's tempting to think it's all about how fast you can deploy in DevOps, but the reality is, it's just one of the factors to consider. Mainline branch stability matters the most.  Continue Reading

• What's our future if we don't secure IoT devices?

  When everything from the coffee maker to the manufacturing plant's robots to the electric grid is connected, shouldn't security be IT's primary concern?  Continue Reading

• Rely on the DevOps methodology to avoid disaster

  DevOps concepts rely on both developers and operations to uphold the stability of applications in production. One side can't do it alone.  Continue Reading

• Could the DevOps process work better under a different name?

  Intent-based DevOps is a small name change designed to bring development and deployment back to basics. Two industry experts offer their interpretations and suggestions.  Continue Reading

• What developers must know about supervised machine learning

  Humans play a vital role in training an ML/AI system. Expert Torsten Volk explains what software developers need to understand about machine learning education.  Continue Reading

• The promise of ML/AI is real -- so are the challenges

  Machine learning and artificial intelligence will make the impossible happen, if developers can understand the what-ifs involved. Expert Torsten Volk unpacks it all.  Continue Reading

• Why not every DevOps strategy is worthy of your attention

  DevOps advice is plentiful today. Some, like Cameron McKenzie, would say it is too plentiful. Here's his advice for weeding out the unworkable from the sensible.  Continue Reading

• Consider the Ethernet option for primary SD-WAN connectivity

  SD-WAN connectivity offers the ability to use a variety of links. While most enterprises opt to use cable or DSL as the primary link, Ethernet could be the better option.  Continue Reading

• Wide area Ethernet can fuel digital network transformation

  Wide area Ethernet might be just what the doctor ordered to help enterprises propel their digital network transformation efforts.  Continue Reading

• Violin Systems and StorOne lead way to shared storage

  Two companies head toward a future of shared enterprise storage resources, moving away from siloed software-defined and hyper-converged approaches.  Continue Reading

• Market for software-defined systems due for a correction

  Software-defined storage seems to relegate hardware to the sidelines, but that may change as hardware-centric offerings become attractive alternatives to software-on-COTS options.  Continue Reading

• What's the future of data storage technology and the IT pro?

  Several enterprise data storage trends are all about getting rid of storage as an IT silo. That will have consequences for both the industry and IT pros who work in it.  Continue Reading

• Time for a flash storage system refresh: What's next?

  The second wave of flash storage systems in the enterprise must be about optimizing flash performance and density, not just IOPS, and being faster than its hard disk predecessor.  Continue Reading

• Salary snapshot: It's a very good time to be a DevOps pro

  In 2017, the number of job postings for DevOps jumped 15% over the previous year, and salaries increased, too. Do you have today's most in-demand skills?  Continue Reading

• Forget grassroots: Why the CIO must be today's DevOps leader

  DevOps from the ground up sounds like a great idea. Too bad it won't work, at least in an enterprise. David Savage explains why the CIO must lead the DevOps journey.  Continue Reading

• How developers can use SageMaker for DevOps machine learning

  SageMaker from AWS gives software developers a way to tackle AI and machine learning. But expert Torsten Volk said it will also require lots of experimenting.  Continue Reading

• The sky's the limit with 5G wireless communication

  As the reality of 5G wireless communications builds, enterprises are looking toward new ways of doing business with higher speed and increased capacity.  Continue Reading

• Want a DevOps success story? Try employee net promoter score

  The more likely an employee is to recommend an employer to a friend, the more likely the company is healthy and successful. Here's how to apply that practice to DevOps.  Continue Reading

• Serverless cloud providers aim to ease adoption in 2018

  As the buzz around serverless computing carries over into 2018, providers will look to simplify adoption in several ways, including more support for hybrid cloud.  Continue Reading

• Why the promise of low-code software platforms is deceiving

  Low-code/no-code platforms mean anyone can code, right? Wrong. Columnist Bob Reselman explains why this is a dangerous thought for enterprises.  Continue Reading

• Is there a software developer age limit? Apparently, it's 45

  Software development is a young person's purview, according to a Harvey Nash Technology Survey. Expert David Savage explains how over-45s can stay in the game.  Continue Reading

• How the Testing Manifesto is going to change development

  Thinking about software quality and testing is happening too late in the process. The antidote is a new set of guidelines that will change how everyone thinks about testing.  Continue Reading

• An IT automation strategy wilts under cloud's shadow

  Organizations have been striving to keep abreast of IT automation trends, but with the ongoing cloud takeover, operations must consider new skill requirements instead.  Continue Reading

• IaaS providers weigh new tech against core offerings

  Like its rivals, AWS continues to push itself up the stack -- and capture headlines in the process. But user demand still revolves around core infrastructure features.  Continue Reading

• It's tough to explain DevOps, that nebulous IT concept

  DevOps is more about goals and aspirations than any set of practices or tools. Right? Or is it just about collaboration and culture? Either way, it's tough to define DevOps.  Continue Reading

• Serverless, containers shape future of cloud computing

  Experts seem to agree that serverless platforms, containers and the eventual merging of the two will be the biggest cloud trends to follow this year.  Continue Reading

• App development teams brace for big change in 2018

  Multi-cloud, blockchain and more sophisticated PaaS tools are three trends expected to reshape app development practices in 2018. Is your team ready for the change?  Continue Reading

• It's critical to create the correct DevOps team structure

  With new-to-DevOps enthusiasm, some companies go too far when it comes to creating teams or dividing responsibilities. Chris Tozzi outlines the warning signs of too much DevOps.  Continue Reading

• AWS-VMware partnership remains a win-win -- for now

  When AWS and VMware partnered up, it opened new revenue streams for each company. But does the deal mark a one-off collaboration or a long-term team-up?  Continue Reading

• Providers continue to push hybrid cloud technologies in 2018

  The hybrid cloud market changes rapidly, as major cloud providers release new services to bridge private and public platforms, but for now, management challenges remain.  Continue Reading

• The ITIL 2018 update better catch up to modern IT

  When ITIL last updated, DevOps was in its infancy. In the face of rapidly evolving IT practices and technologies, ITIL 2018 must be powerful and usable for diverse IT organizations.  Continue Reading

• Future of data storage technology: Transformational trends for 2018

  Risk-averse enterprises finally accepted the cloud in 2017, and we didn't even notice. Expect the same for these data storage technology trends in the new year.  Continue Reading

• IT infrastructure automation boosts digital initiatives

  Embracing automation through concepts like composable infrastructure cuts back on the use of manual IT tasks, which inhibit the success of digital business.  Continue Reading

• NVMe flash storage doesn't mean tape and disk are dying

  The advent of NVMe, software-defined storage and other newer storage technologies doesn't mean we'll be looking at all-silicon-based storage any time soon.  Continue Reading

• SDS, HCI and CDP are key to dream enterprise storage system

  Easy to implement and manage may be the buzzwords of the day for enterprise data storage systems, but too often daily experiences of IT professionals belie that rosy scenario.  Continue Reading

• Master the seven key DevOps engineer skills for 2018

  We all know DevOps is hard, but complex new technologies are going to make the development methodology even more challenging. Expert Bob Reselman outlines the skills you'll need.  Continue Reading

• Error budget instills reckless IT project management mindset

  Just how many errors is the IT operations team allowed to make? Trendy organizations are answering this question with a budget, but it possesses some admins to push the envelope.  Continue Reading

• The future of DevOps in 2018? More people, more integration

  From DataOps to function as a service, DevOps adoption is going to mean acquiring some new skills in 2018. Contributor George Lawton asks the experts.  Continue Reading

• Four ways the container ecosystem will evolve in 2018

  The container market constantly evolves, as new technologies and uses emerge. See what the new year will bring with these four container predictions around IoT, Windows and more.  Continue Reading