DevOps - what the hell is it?

The guys at Urbancode[1], Accurev and Rally kindly asked me to do a talk on DevOps for their Agile Comes to You seminar. It felt like it needed to be a little different from usual. So I broke it up into 5 minute chunks and launched into each topic.

I covered 3 conflicting ideas about DevOps:

  • Devops is Systems Administration, but better
  • 'Devop' is a new role
  • DevOps is all about collaboration.

I was particularly happy with the slides.


The iterative approach to presenting worked quite well. We demonstrated this with my daughter breaking her collarbone the evening before the talk. Pro tip: a Paediatric Accident and Emergency department is no place to work on your presentations, unless you're OK with the sound of screaming children). The next day I was a wreck and I think I would have fluffed it if it wasn't for the chance to pause and take a one-minute break for questions after each 'iteration'.

[1] They sponsor this blog.


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