devops, microservices and platforms, oh my!Andrew Clay ShaferSenior Director of Techology

systems thinking is the new black

a stone cutter’s quest for nice things

Andrew Clay Shafer

Andrew Clay Shafer

@littleidea

Three Stone Cutters walk into a Pareto Inefficient Nash Equilibrium

start with the conclusion

devops, platforms, continuous delivery, microservices…

These things are all one…

In the beginning…

not the beginning beginning

I got a job as a developer…

I was smart…

I had no idea what I was doing…

I was left to my own devices…

• no experience • no mentors • no testing • no backups • no version control • no automation

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

a boy, a server and force of will

it mostly worked

next stop… grad school

Computational Science

• model bioelectric fields• solve for measurements• visualize• rinse and repeat

learned a few things

• technical debt•Conway’s Law• subversion• little to no testing

Venture Funded Solutionsin search of problems

Linux ‘server’ in your Pocket

• custom board• 400 MHz PowerPC• 64 MB SDR SDRAM• 512 MB NAND FLASH• USB Powered• biometric auth

Big Vision

• Identity Solution• Policy Based Provisioning• Citrix Desktop• On demand ‘deb’ package• Poison Pill• Mostly Worked

Learned More Things

• Formative• Learned to Computer• Introduced to Agile™• Testing• Project Management• Lord Conway Reigns• Disassociated Identity

The next chapter

• eCommerce 2.0• J2EE• DIY Square Wheels• Outsourced Ops• Brittle• Expensive

very clever solutions

Automation…

• write a script for common tasks

• share the scripts around office

• modify the scripts for new task

• hope things works

Typical Day at Work

the mission begins

to change the relationship between people and computers

actually, needed to change the relationship between people and people

Velocity 2009

Amazon, a bookstore in Seattle, deploys code to production every 11 seconds…

–Werner Vogels, CTO Amazon

“The traditional model is that you take your software to the wall that separates development and operations, and throw it over

and then forget about it. Not at Amazon. You build it, you run it. This brings developers into contact with the day-to-day

operation of their software. It also brings them into day-to-day contact with the customer. This customer feedback loop is

essential for improving the quality of the service.”

everybody looks at Amazon and rushes to copy features

but the features are superficial

the Amazon advantage is the process and culture

Operations is the secret sauce configuration

Day 2 matters

Principles > Practices >Tools

let’s rewind that

Software in the beginning

• shipped on physical media

• hard to change after release

• runs on other peoples computers

• have to worry about bugs

• process doesn’t run very long

• no worries about uptime

Software Developer

changes ideas into code

The Process

• have a good idea!

• request a server

• get a purchase order from supervisor

• wait

• wait

• server arrives

• server gets power and network

• server gets operating system

• start to configure for deploy

Traditional IT

The System Admin

• keeps systems running

• don’t care about your application

• not paid to care

• other people waiting for their servers

• might have to worry about many other servers

• and email

• and printers

The shift to services

• the internet changes everything

• runs on other your computers

• can change your computers

• still have to worry about bugs

• process run a long time

• uptime is everything

bigger, faster, stronger

But we are an enterprise, we are different, we cannot do this, we have our ways.

service management? ITIL

seemed like a good idea

slow everything down

Is moving slow an advantage?

dev ops

are misaligned incentives an advantage?

not how the web was built

competitivedisadvantage

The Stories We Tell

configuration management for the masses

The Process

• have a good idea!

• request a server

• get a server in minutes

• run configuration tools

• everything is up in minutes

Principles > Practices >Tools

Adrian Cockroft - ex-Netflix

What I learned from my time at Netflix.

Netflix Lessons

• Speed wins in the marketplace

• Remove friction from product development

• High trust, low process, no hand-offs between teams

• Freedom and responsibility culture

• Don’t do your own undifferentiated heavy lifting

• use simple patterns automated by tooling

• self service cloud makes impossible things instant

But we are an enterprise, we do not have the talent to do this.

“But Netflix has a superstar development team, we don’t”

“Netflix hired them from you, and got out of their way.”

Time

Risk

the impact of batch size

both faster and safer

–W Edwards Deming

“It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.”

Netflix built a platform to enable self service deployment

Netflix built a platform to deploy and operate microservices

Netflix built a platform to continuously deliver software

Netflix built a platform that could protect itself from failure

What Netflix did not do is build a platform for general ad-hoc automation…

A platform makes promises.

Constraints are the contract that allows the platform to keep promises.

Principles > Practices >Tools

devops refers to the practices and tools that emerge from high performing organizations

continuous delivery results as a consequence of devops practice

continuous delivery is not possible with gating and handoffs

continuous delivery is untenable, if the fixed cost of deployment is high

microservices describes the first post-cloud, post-devops, post- continuous delivery architecture

microservices leverage baseline operational capabilities and team dynamics to isolate failure and maximize velocity

continuously delivered microservices are the natural evolution for services that need to run at scale and be changed frequently

Amazon, Google, Netflix, Flickr, Etsy, WealthFront, Lyft, Uber, Shopzilla, Pied Piper, all built one off platforms to do this

continous delivery - why devops - how microservices - what

the solution: a platform

Do you want to build one?

maybe we can build one together

The Process

• have a good idea!

• push code to platform

• code is running in seconds

• self service

• self healing

• and they all lived happily ever after

no one originally set out to do devops, continuous delivery, microservices, or platforms these were natural consequences

don’t fixate on the words, fixate on the outcomes

This is not the end…

mobile, internet of things, big dataeverything is getting bigger and faster