DevOps Goes Mainstream

The combination of rapid innovation in service provider networks and increased new service demands by customers is driving the change to a DevOps approach for developing new products, creating unified company cultures and prioritizing operational processes. A new report finds DevOps practices are now widely understood within telecom.

Instead of development and operational teams operating in their own fiefdoms, DevOps creates cross-disciplinary groups that work together from the inception of a new product or service all the way through its lifecycle. (See DevOps: AT&T's Saxena on Building a 'One-Team Culture'.)

DevOps speeds up the delivery of the entire product cycle while also improving quality, security, profitability and measurable outcomes, according to the recent DevOps report by Puppet and DORA. For this year's report, Puppet Labs and DORA surveyed more than 4600 technical professionals from around the world.

"DevOps is no longer a mere fad or buzzword, but an understood set of practices and cultural patterns," was one of the main conclusions reached in the report.

Other DevOps benefits in the report included 22% less time spent on unplanned work and "rework" by "high performing" organizations, which then had 29% more time for new tasks. Those same organizations spent 50% less time fixing security issues than the low performers.

— Mike Robuck, Editor, Telco Transformation