DevOps and Agile - are these just fads or real movements?
I think it is pretty clear that Agile is not a passing fad in application development. Every enterprise CIO and CTO, I speak with is either fully embracing Agile or is seriously experimenting with it as a way to drive more incremental change and faster application delivery. So from my point of view, we are well into the early majority for adoption of Agile development methodologies.
Just as Agile has driven a closer relationship between business and development - DevOps is about a closer relationship between development and operations. Whether we will see the emergence of the DevOps analog for scrum-masters or pair-programming - I am not sure. But I believe we are well on the way to seeing DevOps as the emerging moniker for a new methodology of application transition and release management.
Some people will continue to doubt and call these movements fads. Hey, I still run into the occasional IT manager that thinks "Agile" is just an excuse for an undisciplined development effort - and clearly it can be. But to ignore the possible value of a closer relationship between Development and Operations - seems like a risk that may CIOs will soon not be willing to take. Especially when the negative impacts on performance - in terms of productivity and outages - can be very high.
Clyde Logue is co-founder of, and Vice President of Product Management for, StreamStep. Prior to co-founding StreamStep, Clyde was Director of Release
Management at Liberty Mutual, where he oversaw and lived the challenges of release management
firsthand. At Bottomline Technologies, Clyde led product management for enterprise and banking industry customers. Previously, he co-founded
mValent (acquired by Oracle)