For a while now, there has been a buzz around the IT industry about something called continuous delivery and DevOps. Strictly speaking that should be "some things" as continuous delivery and DevOps are actually two separate things.
Continuous delivery, as the name suggests, is a way of working whereby quality products, normally software assets, can be built, tested, and shipped in quick succession
Continuous delivery is not a methodology you can use to speed up large releases which happen every few months
DevOps is another way of working whereby developers and system operators work in harmony with little or no organizational barriers between them towards a common goal
DevOps is not a way to get developers doing operational tasks so that you can get rid of the operations team and vice versa
Just like any other agile methodology, tool, or way of working you are not forced to use everything you read or hear concerning continuous delivery and DevOps. You simply need to understand what bits they are made up of and which of these bits would bring most value to you and your organization.
This book will provide you with some background information into these two new kids on the block and how they can help you to optimize, streamline, and improve the way you work and ultimately how you ship quality software. Included within are some tricks and tips based upon real-world experiences, which may help you reduce the time and effort needed if you were to do it alone.
Chapter1, Evolution of a Software House introduces you to ACME systems and the evolution of the business, from fledgling start-up through the growing pains following acquisition by a global corporate, to get the best of both worlds.
Chapter 2, No Pain, No Gainintroduces some of the introspective techniques that can be used to determine what the current pain points are within the software delivery process and try to understand where they stem from.
Chapter3, Plan of Attackgives you some pointers into how the success of implementing continuous delivery and DevOps can be defined and success measured.
Chapter 4, Tools and Technical Approacheswill give you some options around the tooling that can help with the implementation of continuous delivery and DevOps—right from basic engineering best practices to advanced, fully automated solutions.
Chapter 5, Culture and Behaviorshighlights the importance of the human factors that must be taken into account.
Chapter 6, Hurdles to Look Out Forwill give the reader some useful tips and tricks for overcoming or avoiding the bumps in the road as they go through their evolution.
Chapter 7, Measuring Success and Remaining Successfulfocuses on the various key performance indicators and measures that can be used to monitor and communicate the relative success of continuous delivery and DevOps adoption. We also look at what to do when it's all working.
Appendix, Some Useful Info provides you with some more detailed information about the tools referenced within the book and some useful contacts within the global continuous delivery and DevOps community.
This appendix is only available as a free download at http://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/down0loads/Some_Useful_Info.pdf.
There are many tools mentioned in this book that will help you no end. These include technical tools, such as Jenkins, GIT, Sonar, and graphite and non-technical tools and techniques, such as Scrum, Kanban, agile, and TDD.
You may have some of these (or similar) tools in place or are looking at implementing them, which will help. However, the only things you'll really need to enjoy and appreciate this book is the ability to read and an open mind.
Whether you are a freelance software developer, a system administrator working within a corporate business, an IT project manager, or a CTO in a startup, you will have a common problem: regularly shipping quality software is painful. It needn't be.
This book is not focused on a specific demographic or specific type of person. If you've never heard of continuous delivery or DevOps, this book should give you an insight into what all the fuss is about. If you have already set out to adopt continuous delivery and/or DevOps, then this book may help provide some useful tips and tricks. If you know everything there is to know about both/either of the subjects, then this book will help reaffirm your choices and may provide some additional things to chew over.
All in all the target audience is quite broad; it includes anyone who wants to understand how to ship quality software regularly without the pain.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
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