DevOps Enterprise Review #11

Gene’s links, DevOps resources, industry musings, & more

Hello, DevOps Enterprise Summit (DOES) Community!

In the 11th edition of the DevOps Enterprise Review, we share even more insights from many of the leading IT practitioners and DevOps subject matter experts who are pioneering the philosophies and practices that we think will someday soon be commonplace in businesses across the globe.

If this is your first time reading the DevOps Enterprise Review (otherwise known as the “DOER”) this periodical aims to serve our community by identifying and amplifying helpful information. More specifically, the kind of information that intersects continual learning and data to help advance the principles and patterns for all to benefit — not just developers and IT operations.

In this edition of the DOER, you’ll discover more in-depth information on how to learn curl, insights into creating full-stack teams for engineering organizations, how a museum is using augmented reality to simulate an encounter with King Kong, tips for growing your DevOps practice, and much more.

Below, you will also find some news on AI, how CEOs are upskilling employees in the world of tech, and ways for controlling cloud costs. All stories are worth a quick read. We’ve also highlighted new books available this fall and a new book club with access to a private Slack channel and discussion threads with authors. Last but not least, we’ve also highlighted the most recently announced speakers for the DevOps Enterprise Summit Las Vegas 2019 event this October (hope to see you there!).

If there was anything we missed or that you want to call out for the next edition of the DOER, please send us your ideas in the comments section below.

Enjoy reading and we look forward to hearing from you!

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Gene’s Links

(Note: all posts sourced from Gene’s Twitter feed, @RealGeneKim)

• There are multiple legitimate, free tunneling services that are routinely used by attackers to evade defenses: ngrok[.](com|io), portmap[.](com|io), serveo[.]net, localtunnel[.]me, pagekite[.]net. Hunt for these domains. Also hunt for long-running TCP connections with dstport>10000. Reshared from Paul Melson.
• Exercises to help you learn curl. Reshared from Julia Evans.
• Microsoft gets some Clarity on Azure Java workloads, swallows London-based firm via The Register. Lots of interesting tidbits in here, especially about how Microsoft has chosen Azul/Zulu JVM for Azure workloads.
• Tweeting this so I can find it next time I look for it: “What people think programming is vs. how it actually is”. So funny! Only 30 seconds.
• Fascinating read, describing the world before git, and its unlikely route to success; I loved the part about the effort to extend/improve Visual SourceSafe at Microsoft, before TFS! Cc @SamGuckenheimer
• Reshared from François Chollet: “If we keep building markets & algorithms that reward raw popularity & virality, over the long run, we’re indirectly selecting for the traits that bring it about: outrageousness, addictiveness, appeal to the lowest common denominator.”
• Reshared from @KelseyHightower: “You can’t solve business problems you don’t understand.”
• A museum within the Empire State Building is taking center stage with an exhibition including an augmented reality encounter with “King Kong”. Reshared from Massimo.

DevOps Resources — Learn and Grow, Together

Want more frequent updates on DevOps Resources? Be sure to check the IT Revolution DevOps Blog for regular updates!

Fireside Chat with Compuware CEO Chris O’Malley

This post is an excerpt from a presentation with Gene Kim and Chris O’Malley at the 2018 DevOps Enterprise Summit in Las Vegas. They discuss business leadership, communicating with CEO’s and more.

You can watch the video of the presentation here.

Full Stack Teams, Not Engineers

More and more, job postings are seeking the elusive full-stack engineer. But this person is more myth than reality. Instead of hunting and waiting on the perfect full-stack engineer, a more sustainable paradigm would be for organizations to create full-stack teams. This balanced team is filled with people possessing a core set of skills plus different specialties.

This paper demonstrates to organizations that there is an alternative to the full-stack engineer and provides guidance on how to create a full-stack team.

Authors: Jason Cox, Christian Posta, Cornelia Davis, Dominica DeGrandis, Jim Stoneham, and Thomas A. Limoncelli

Team Topologies

IT consultants Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais share secrets of the four successful team patterns and three interaction modes to ensure success for IT organizations. The book provides a step-by-step, adaptive model for organizational design and teams.

Team Topologies will also be the first installment in the first-ever IT Revolution book club. In the book club, the authors will be guiding a two-week read-along with the book. You’ll also gain access to a private Slack channel where you can discuss the book, ask questions, and gain insights from the authors themselves.

As an added bonus, you’ll receive an Amazon discount coupon to purchase the book.

The book is available for preorder and will be released September 17!

Written by: Matthew Skelton and Manual Pais

Industry News — Read All About It!

5 ways AI will change software testing — The surface area for testing software has never been so broad. Applications today interact with other applications through APIs, they leverage legacy systems, and they grow in complexity from one day to the next in a nonlinear fashion. What does that mean for testers? (Source: Paul Merrill, TechBeacon)

How to grow a DevOps practice — What is the best approach for creating a culture and installing processes that orchestrate technology development and operations?

It’s a trick question: There isn’t one.

Many in the industry are after a silver bullet for making technology practices more efficient and weave in a DevOps mindset, but none exists. And those experts who could build a five-step, how-to guide for DevOps know it will not take effect. (Source: Naomi Eide, CIO Dive)

Digital Transformation Success Depends on Agile Approach to Change — The principles and practices of the agile movement are quickly moving beyond the IT department and into how firms run their day-to-day business. This new way of organizing and running business gains further impetus by the headlong rush to use digital transformation to gain competitive advantage, which often requires changing a company’s operating model through many iterative steps known as a journey. Using the agile approach, they minimize risks and can validate that their efforts are meeting the desired outcome as they move forward on their journey. Unfortunately, many companies see these benefits of an agile approach, but they struggle to do that. What are they missing? (Source: Peter Bendor-Samuel, Forbes)

Controlling Cloud Costs with Corey Quinn: RunAs Radio #650 — How much is the cloud costing you? Richard chats with Corey Quinn about his work as a consultant for cloud billing — finding ways to reduce the cost of the cloud while maintaining the quality of service. Corey talks about his focus on AWS, but every cloud has similar problems — instances that aren’t turned off, over-provisioning and more. In the end, you have to take the time to understand what your organization really needs from the cloud to optimize, but it is worth it! (Source: Richard Campbell, RunAs Radio Podcast)

CEO commitment to upskilling employees may boost HR tech — The CEO pledge Monday to “deliver value” to all stakeholders includes a call for upskilling employees. Nearly 200 CEOs at some of the largest firms in the U.S. said they are committed to investing in their employees and will help them “develop new skills for a rapidly changing world.” (Source: Patrick Thibodeau, TechTarget)

Reminders and Updates — Mark Your Calendars

Agenda Released for DOES19 Las Vegas with New Speakers Added

The programming committee for DevOps Enterprise Summit Las Vegas has released its full conference agenda and added new speakers! We are thrilled to have this renowned group of people joining us from ING Bank, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Ticketmaster and more:

• Matthew Acors, Lead Consultant/Associate Engagement Manager, Excella
• Joe Aho, CFO, Compuware
• Shaaron Alvares, Senior Agile Transformation Coach & Trainer, T-Mobile
• Zack Ayers, Scrum Master, Excella
• Chris Bergh, CEO and Head Chef, DataKitchen
• Ross Clanton, Executive Director, Arunya Technologies LLC
• Jordan Edwards, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft
• Jeffrey Fredrick, co-author of Agile Conversations
• Sam Guckenheimer, Product Owner, Azure DevOps, Microsoft
• Daniel Koo, Senior Director, DevOps Products & Engineering, FINRA
• BMK Lakshminarayanan, Solutions Architect, DevOps Advocate, Bank of New Zealand
• Yosef Levine, Managing Director, Global Technology Controls, Confidentiality & Privacy, Deloitte
• Dapeng Liu, Senior Vice President, Development, DBS Bank
• Shaun Norris, Field CIO, Asia-Pacific and Japan, Pivotal
• Chris O’Malley, CEO, Compuware
• Shivani Patel, Program Manager, Microsoft
• Stacie Peterson, Senior Vice President, Agile Product Acceleration, US Bank
• Mihai Popa, Head of Continuous IT Operations, Belgium and Netherlands, ING Bank
• George Proorocu, OPS Chapter Lead — Cybersecurity & Fraud, ING Bank
• Caleb Queern, Director, Advisory Practice, KPMG
• Jeff Roberts, Senior Manager, Advisory Services, Ernst & Young
• Mihai Roman, DEV Chapter Lead — Cybersecurity & Fraud, ING Bank
• Douglas Squirrel, co-author of Agile Conversations
• Cat Swetel, Senior Engineering Manager, Ticketmaster
• Wayne Wang, Senior Manager, DevOps, JB Hunt Transport, Inc.
• John Willis, Founder, Botchagalupe Technologies
• Michael J. Wolf, Managing Director- Modern Delivery Lead, KPMG

If you want to join the technology leaders listed above and attend the event, you can register here before the event sells out. DOES19 takes place at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas from October 28–30.

2019 Book Publishing Update

Here at IT Revolution, we get excited when a new book hits the shelves. Keep in mind, we are book publishers. It’s our right to do a little happy dance every time we find a book we can’t put down. For us, it’s hard to stop reading, writing and listening to anything we can get our hands on.

If you’re like us, then you may be looking for a good book to curl up with as the cold weather starts to roll in this fall. Check out Jeremy Morgan’s, a Silicon Forest Software Developer, list on the top 10 books on DevOps. Some are books he’s read once, others are books he’s read through and through multiple times and found something new during each read. Either way, each book has provided him with a new perspective on all things DevOps.

We’d also like to share that IT Revolution is publishing a couple of new books this fall. Not only are we publishing Team Topologies by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais, but the highly anticipated follow-up to the bestselling title The Phoenix Project is coming as well. The Unicorn Project by Gene Kim takes a new look at Parts Unlimited. Readers are immersed through the perspective of a senior developer, Maxine, when she is sent to the Phoenix Project. The book is about developers and business leaders working together to innovate, survive, and thrive in the world of DevOps, IT and business.

The Unicorn Project was recently sent to the publisher, with some valuable feedback from several of you within the DOES community, and has been generating a lot of buzz on Twitter.

Yasmary Diaz shared her excitement on Twitter: “Humbled & honored to review @RealGeneKim‘s unproofed manuscript of the Unicorn Project! Loved the Phoenix Project but Unicorn Project takes it to another level. DevOps nightmares guaranteed!”

Dave Mangot also shared his thoughts: “During travels, got to read a copy of The Unicorn Project. Think that @RealGeneKim couldn’t come up with another instant classic? Think again. Maxine navigates not only the technical waters, but the survival of Parts Unlimited itself!”

The book is available to pre-order and will hit the shelves on November 26!

Last but not least, if you have some book recommendations that you think we should check out, comment below. We’re always looking for new books to dig in to so we can continue to learn, grow and evolve!

Thank you for reading the 11th edition of the DevOps Enterprise Review (DOER)! Keep reading and keep sharing, so we can all Get Together and Go Faster!

Don’t want to miss any conference or publishing updates from IT Revolution? Subscribe to the newsletter here>>>