DevOps Blog
Interested in how DevOps, IT Modernization and Agile practices can positively impact customer experience?
Four Recommendations to Boost Test Automation
According to DZone news, “Forrester recommends test automation rates of over 80% to meet the demands of two-week Agile sprints. However, only 12% of surveyed reference clients achieved that level of test automation.” While this gap may seem insurmountable, in today’s article we’ll share several approaches to boost the amount of automated testing you’re doing, and how to focus where it counts most.
IT Modernization and DevOps News Week in Review 7.6.2020
In this week’s DevOps news, new research by VMware shows how enterprises benefit from modern applications during COVID-19. The study, conducted in March and April 2020, reveals that modern applications have multiple benefits including enabling remote workforces (54%); pushing quick updates in response to changing landscape (42%); and, maintaining reliable uptime (41%). Importantly, only 2% reported unsuccessful digital transformation efforts.
Cloud Maturity Assessment: An Empirical Approach
Assessing an organization’s preparedness and cloud maturity provides an important foundation to build a roadmap. An assessment gives IT leaders much-needed insight into both gaps and what their team does well, so they can capitalize on team strengths, plan for training, and proactively approach speed bumps. Yet, it is difficult to measure where your organization is compared to other organizations. How do you measure where you are, where you could improve and how you benchmark against others? A cloud maturity assessment helps answer these questions and more. In today’s article, I will share through the case study of a Fortune real estate firm how you, too, can build a roadmap for greater maturity with a Cloud Maturity Assessment.
IT Modernization and DevOps News Week in Review 6.29.2020
In this week’s DevOps news, JFrog makes two announcements at its JFrog swampUP Conference. First, it introduces CDN-based and Peer-to-Peer software package distribution mechanisms. Designed to help users tackle the challenge associated with frequently delivering large volumes of artifacts internally and externally, the two new mechanisms accelerate download speeds and grow resilience by expanding beyond a single point of failure. The company also launched at the conference ChartCenter. The free, central repository of Helm charts contains immutable versions making it a single source of truth.
A Case Study On How Investing In Agility Can Lead To Shareholder Value
According to an old saying, “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” And while no one likes to think of a pandemic as an opportunity, one company, Zoom, appears to have prepared for a moment like this where it has the opportunity to scale to meet the demand of a user base that grew 67% in Q1 2020, according to the New Statesman. In fact, Zoom’s preparation has positioned it to become the second-most downloaded app in the world, with more than 50 million downloads from the Google Store alone.
Grow Flexibility, Agility with Amazon Connect
Many businesses are discovering the benefits of employees who are able to work from home. Yet, not all employees are able to work from a home office as easily as others. Traditionally, organizations find it more difficult to facilitate work-at-home environments for call center employees as they have been tied to legacy on-premises telecommunications infrastructure and applications. Amazon Connect seeks to upend this paradigm, giving businesses the flexibility to operate virtual call centers, with agents and managers who are able to work anywhere at any time.
IT Modernization and DevOps News Week in Review 6.22.2020
In this week’s IT Modernization news, Google announces the beta launch of Filestore High Scale. Called the next step in the evolution of Google’s file storage product, Filestore High Scale is inspired by researchers using HPC to discover a solution to COVID-19. The new tier adds the ability to easily deploy shared file systems that can scale extensively.
A Research-Based Approach to Measuring DevOps Metrics That Matter
As the old adage goes, what gets measured gets done. Measurement is the key enabler to any DevOps transformation and yet it’s an oft-neglected aspect of projects. Organizations struggle to get beyond the starting blocks when learning how to measure DevOps. As a result, in today’s article, I will share important DevOps metrics your team can use to get started on your journey to measuring positive change.
A Cloud Cost Optimization Checklist
It’s easy to go overboard on cloud use if you’re not paying attention. Just ask any of the respondents to the Flexera 2020 State of the Cloud Report who reported they are over budget for cloud spend by an average of 23 percent. Estimating that they waste 30 percent of cloud spend, it’s little surprise that 73 percent have made managing cloud costs their top initiative this year. If your organization is in this boat and you’ve been surprised by a recent cloud bill or are just looking to proactively avoid such surprises, this checklist is for you. Read on as we share our tips for managing cloud costs for optimum results.
IT Modernization and DevOps News Week in Review 6.15.2020
In this week’s IT Modernization news, analyst group Gartner provides CIOs with a six step framework for cost optimization during the Coronavirus pandemic. Specifically, Chris Ganly, senior research director at the group notes that “Organizations should approach cost management as an expansive effort that can have immediate and long-term significance to business performance.” To help guide IT leaders, Gartner unveils the six areas to focus to achieve this outcome as, potential financial benefit, business impact, time requirement, degree of organizational risk, degree of technical risk and investment requirement.
Ready, Fire, Aim: A Retroactive Cloud Migration Strategy
Many organizations have a forcing function that moves them to the cloud. Research into our customer base shows that these events tend to be things like expiring data center and MSP contracts, upcoming audits, large equipment refresh cycles and an impending need to react to a market opportunity. While a forcing function is helpful to get buy-in across teams for the move, it can result in a less than ideal transition to the cloud. Anxious about running out of time to migrate, organizations in these cases often lift-and-shift to the cloud, hoping to sort it all out later. However, once the cloud migration is complete, a question looms: Now that you are there, how shall you optimize your already migrated assets for the cloud?
A Tale of Two Container Migrations and the Lessons Learned
Containers offer a wide variety of benefits. They are immutable, portable, lightweight, and efficient. At the TechStrong Conference, our very own Lead Solution Architect, Matt Buchner, shared the story of two organizations’ journeys to cloud containerization. Through a narrative of our projects with them, he shares several lessons learned from their container migrations, including the importance of standardization and a culture of continuous evolution.