How AI is revolutionising DevOps
In theme with The National DevOps Conference and Awards, we collaborated with Matt Healy, Director of Intelligent Automation Strategy at Pegasystems. In this article he explores how Artificial Intelligence is revolutionising DevOps. The National DevOps Conference & Awards takes place in London on the 22nd and 23rd of October 2024. To exhibit your products at the event, please get in touch here. Is AI the end of never ending DevOps transformations? For almost a decade, I was a release manager for large scale development teams –supporting 1000’s of developers across 100’s of teams working on 10’s of products and initiatives. For that whole decade, my focuses were two-fold, managing the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and improving the SDLC. Managing and improving the SDLC The management part consisted of making sure that we were getting secure, high quality, releases out the door on time. In order to support developers, teams, and the overall programme with better and better tools, practices, and processes, the SDLC had to be improved, so the second part of the role. It was in the ‘improving the SDLC’ aspect which highlighted how DevOps could transform and create a place where big initiatives were planned early and often, enabling teams with full backlogs. User stories could be quickly elaborated on, to ensure that teams cover all considerations, acceptance criteria, standards, and unhappy paths as they plan without taking weeks. As well as ensuring that developers had the tools and knowledge they needed at their fingertips to surface best practices, how-to’s and suggestions for both new and experienced developers. Further, it is key to make sure that there was healthy automated test coverage, in which developers had the test frameworks and starting points they needed to quickly generate automated tests at every level. Merges and deployments also need to be fully automated. This would enable change to be pushed from a developer’s system through to a pre-production or even production environment with confidence in automated controls around quality, security, and performance. Finally, an aggregated and actionable feedback loop is important across sources like usage analysis, user interviews, and market data, so teams could have insights into how they could improve features and drive adoption. AI in DevOps: Automating repetitive tasks for efficiency While we made significant progress against all of these goals, it never felt like we were ‘done’, and we probably never will be. But artificial intelligence (AI) will bring us closer to the DevOps promise land at every stage across the SDLC. The opportunity for AI to help large scale development teams is clear. AI will offload repetitive manual development tasks, which has already been seen with development efficiency gains in copilot capabilities with AI being able to take a first pass at workflows, integration mapping, user experience components, and more – and this is expected to become even more omnipresent. For developers, AI will put knowledge at their fingertips. There has already been a rise of AI-driven search, and even now personalised AI tutors who can help developers of all levels get up to productivity fast. Looking at operations more generally, AI will be able to synthesise product optimisation opportunities through analysing historical process mining data to uncover and prioritise the biggest inefficiencies and opportunities for product teams to go after. Planning with AI: Transforming large-scale initiatives Working on large-scale initiatives, which involved dozens of teams, and required buy-in from multiple leaders, it felt impossible to get ahead in the planning stage and for this to be optimised. With weeks of meetings, workshops, documents, spreadsheets, roadmaps, architecture diagrams, all to get to a list of user stories which teams could actually start developing, but AI has even started to transform how we plan. With generative AI, IT teams now have a discovery and planning assistant, which can aid them in evolving legacy assets into future-ready workflows. AI can help across planning stages looking at: Level setting: analysing historical analyses and legacy assets like workflow diagrams and user manuals to understand the current state. Research: combing through industry expertise to understand the best practices and possible approaches. Alignment: capturing all business goals and considerations from across stakeholders and synthesising them into a coherent, all-encompassing vision. Essentially, generative AI can be the spark to get started. Setting a foundational design for new initiatives which lets teams hit the ground running and collaborate on, fast. Over the past 12 months, great progress has been made with tangible value in some of the toughest-to-manage areas across the SDLC, so we are on the way to the AI promise land – this is just the beginning. Explore AI and automation at the National DevOps Conference in London Join us for an in-depth discussion on the scope and future of AI and automation at The National DevOps Conference and Awards, happening in London on October 22nd and 23rd, 2024. This premier event will feature expert insights into how AI is transforming DevOps practices and the broader tech industry. View the Full Agenda: The National DevOps Conference and Awards Agenda Exclusive Offer: Gain free entry to the conference by submitting your project to the DevOps Awards before the September 16th deadline. Don’t miss this opportunity to showcase your innovation and network with industry leaders. For exhibit at the conference, please contact calum.budge@31media.co.uk Foe media enquiries, please contact vaishnavi.nashte@31media.co.uk
Embracing CI/CD for Improved Software Deployment and Developer Health
This article is published in collaboration with The National DevOps Conference and Awards.To be a speaker at the conference or to exhibit your solutions to our delegates, please get in touch here. As part of the #LeadersInTech series, we collaborated with Rob Reid, Technical Evangelist at Cockroach Labs on how developers can embrace CI/CD for improves software deployment and developer health. I’ve never been woken up at 2 a.m. by a company that uses CI/CD. Put another way, for software developers, the use of Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD), or CI/CD, for software development, testing and deployment is a game changer for maintaining code quality, smooth processes, and ensuring reliable releases. It transforms the development lifecycle, allowing teams to focus more on innovation rather than firefighting issues. And for preventing those 2 a.m. fire drills. Continuous Integration involves the integration of code changes into a shared repository multiple times a day. Automated tests are run to detect errors early, ensuring that the codebase remains stable. This continuous integration supports a proactive approach to problem-solving, substantially decreasing the likelihood of disruptive, last-minute discoveries. Continuous Deployment, on the other hand, focuses on automating the release of validated code to production environments, streamlining the entire deployment process. This tightly integrated testing and deployment process ensures high compatibility and operational reliability, which are critical for our users’ success. This approach also ensures that every version of the application works harmoniously with CockroachDB before reaching production. Benefits of CI/CD The primary benefit of CI/CD is maintaining a clean main branch of code, ready for release at any moment. This practice instills confidence in developers, knowing that their code is always in a releasable state. Additionally, CI/CD ensures reproducibility, allowing the deployment process to be consistent across different environments. The importance of automated testing in CI/CD cannot be overstated. Automated regression tests catch bugs early, enabling developers to make bold changes without fear of breaking the codebase. This leads to a more dynamic and innovative development environment. Best Practices for CI/CD: Treat Infrastructure as Disposable: Adopt the mindset of treating infrastructure like “cattle, not pets.” For example, use automated scripts for provisioning that quickly replace faulty instances without manual intervention, enhancing scalability and reliability. Automate Everything: From testing to deployment, automate as many processes as possible. This reduces the risk of human error and ensures consistency across deployments. Comprehensive Testing: Ensure that tests are integral to the process. Proper test coverage provides confidence in the codebase, allowing for more significant changes and refactoring. Feature Flags: Use feature flags to safely release new features. This allows for “dark releases”, where features are deployed but not activated until needed, providing a quick rollback mechanism if issues arise. Eliminate Bureaucracy: Avoid unnecessary release reviews and approval processes. Focus on building a robust CI/CD pipeline that allows for high-velocity development and deployment. The impact of CI/CD on developer health The adoption of CI/CD not only improves technical operations but also has a profound impact on developer well-being: no more fear that you will bring your company’s IT to a grinding halt because of a “fix” or addition that broke the codebase! Automated processes and the ability to trust the tools rather than relying solely on personal interventions leads to a more balanced work-life experience and better overall results. I have also found that when the CI/CD mindset gets set from the top, at the executive level, there is a healthier work balance for the developer. Counter to this are companies that reward the “hero culture” of software releases which start at 2 a.m.. A culture of being rewarded for fixing production issues rather than preventing them not only increases stress but also slows down development as manual interventions become the norm. CI/CD processes are not just technical practices; they represent a shift towards a healthier and more efficient development culture. By automating processes, ensuring comprehensive testing, and eliminating bureaucratic hurdles, companies can create a more dynamic and innovative environment. For organisations still on the fence about adopting CI/CD, it’s crucial to understand that the initial investment in building a robust CI/CD pipeline pays off significantly in the long run. The result is not only a more reliable and scalable codebase but also a happier, healthier team ready to tackle the challenges of modern software development. Learn more about CI/CD practices at the National DevOps Conference 2024 Join us for an in-depth presentation on CI/CD practices at The National DevOps Conference and Awards, happening in London on October 22nd and 23rd, 2024. This premier event will feature expert insights into how AI is transforming DevOps practices and the broader tech industry. View the Full Agenda: The National DevOps Conference and Awards Agenda Exclusive Offer: Gain free entry to the conference by submitting your project to the DevOps Awards before the September 16th deadline. Don’t miss this opportunity to showcase your innovation and network with industry leaders. For exhibit at the conference, please contact calum.budge@31media.co.uk Foe media enquiries, please contact vaishnavi.nashte@31media.co.uk
Advanced Cloud Strategies for Privacy and Security
#NDCA2024 Speaker Edition With less than 2 months until The National DevOps Conference and Awards, we interviewed #NDCA speaker, Harbinder Singh. The conference & Awards takes place in London on the 22nd and 23rd of October 2024. To exhibit your products at the event, please get in touch here. Author: Harbinder Singh, Head of Cloud and Security and a speaker at the National DevOps Conference and Awards In today’s digital age, where cloud computing drives business innovation, protecting sensitive data has never been more critical. While the cloud offers unparalleled scalability and flexibility, it also presents significant privacy and security challenges. Organisations must balance the openness and accessibility of cloud environments with stringent privacy controls to safeguard their most valuable assets. My upcoming conference presentation will explore strategies to achieve this balance, focusing on tools and practices like IAM policies, Alerts and AWS capabilities to make it difficult for malicious actors. Enforcing Security with IAM Policies and HTTPS A fundamental aspect of securing your cloud environment is the implementation of robust Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies. These policies allow you to control who can access your resources and under what conditions. A critical strategy is enforcing HTTPS for all communications with your cloud services, ensuring that data in transit is encrypted and protected from eavesdropping or man-in-the-middle attacks. For example, you can create an IAM policy to deny non-HTTPS requests to S3 buckets, ensuring all data exchanges are secure. This policy can be extended to other AWS services, providing comprehensive encryption across your cloud infrastructure. Securing Communication with VPC Endpoints, Cloud Map and Service Discovery Maintaining privacy within your cloud environment requires securing the flow of data. Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) endpoints and endpoint services enable private communication between resources within a VPC and AWS services without exposing data to the public internet. VPC endpoints allow you to create a private connection between your VPC and services like S3 or DynamoDB, ensuring that data remains within your VPC’s secure boundaries. VPC endpoint services, on the other hand, allow you to create private endpoints for custom applications, securely sharing services within your infrastructure or with partners. In dynamic cloud environments, where resources frequently scale and move, keeping track of service locations can be challenging. AWS Cloud Map provides service discovery by dynamically managing the location of cloud resources and ensuring secure communication between services. By integrating AWS Cloud Map with IAM policies and VPC endpoints, you can ensure that service discovery within your cloud environment is both secure and private. This integration is particularly useful in micro-services architectures, where services need to discover and interact with each other efficiently without exposure to public networks. Continuous monitoring for security Continuous monitoring and timely alerting are essential for maintaining the security and privacy of your cloud environment. AWS CloudWatch provides robust tools to monitor the health and security of your resources, offering insights into metrics such as traffic patterns, access logs, and error rates. CloudWatch Alarms can notify you of unusual activity, such as traffic spikes or unauthorised access attempts. CloudTrail adds another layer of security by recording all API calls made within your AWS account, providing a detailed audit trail. This helps you track user activity, detect suspicious behaviour, and ensure compliance with internal and external regulations. Security threats are constantly evolving, making continuous monitoring and response crucial. Tools like alert logic provide managed detection and response services that offer real-time visibility into security threats across your cloud environment. Combining machine learning with human expertise, Alert Logic helps detect and respond to incidents before they can cause significant damage, ensuring that your private data remains secure. Vulnerability assessment for cloud environment Regularly conduct penetration tests of the application. Tools like Github code Scanning, Dependabot, OWASP Zap, AWS Inspector are some automated security assessment tools and services that scans your code, cloud infrastructure for vulnerabilities, most important can be integrated in your CI/CD. These tools help identify potential security issues, such as misconfigured security groups or unpatched software vulnerabilities, and provide detailed reports so you can address them proactively. Regular use of AWS Inspector helps ensure that your cloud environment remains secure against evolving threats. Strengthening perimeter protection with IDP, WAF, security groups, and NACLs Perimeter protection is a critical aspect of cloud security, defending your environment from external threats. Identify provider, Web Application Firewall (WAF), Security Groups, and Network Access Control Lists (NACLs) form the backbone of this protection. Identity Providers (IdPs) enable secure authentication and authorisation by integrating with services to enforce who can access your cloud resources. By using identity federation, you can allow users from different domains or external identity providers (like Okta, Google, or Active Directory) to access your AWS environment without needing to create separate IAM users. This enhances security by centralising access management and ensuring that only authenticated and authorised users can access sensitive resources. WAF protects web applications from common threats such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting by filtering and monitoring incoming traffic, ensuring only legitimate traffic reaches your applications. Security Groups act as virtual firewalls for your EC2 instances, controlling inbound and outbound traffic based on defined rules, allowing only authorised traffic to access your resources. NACLs provide an additional layer of security by controlling traffic at the subnet level, offering stateless filtering to allow or deny traffic based on specific rules. These tools work together to form a robust perimeter defence, minimising the risk of unauthorised access and safeguarding your data. Optimising data retention to manage privacy risks Managing the volume of data stored in the cloud is crucial for reducing privacy risks. Over time, data accumulation can increase storage costs and make securing all information effectively more challenging. Implementing data retention policies helps mitigate this risk by automatically archiving or deleting data that is no longer needed. There are lifecycle management policies for services like S3, allowing you to define rules for transitioning data to lower-cost storage or for permanent deletion after a certain period. This not
How Automation is Transforming DevOps
In collaboration with The National DevOps Conference and Awards, we interviewed Michael Sagalovich, QA and DevOps Practice Lead at Coherent Solutions. In this article he lists out the key trends within DevOps and how automation is transforming and driving digital transformation. The National DevOps Conference & Awards takes place in London on the 22nd and 23rd of October 2024. To exhibit your products at the event, please get in touch here. The critical force driving digital transformation Although automation is currently emerging as a trend in the IT community, the basic idea of automating tasks throughout the software development lifecycle has been around for decades. In its essence, we cannot talk about DevOps without talking about automation. But what we’re seeing now is more and more different industries finding benefits in automation beyond just the IT and software development industries. As cloud environments become ever more complex, automation is becoming imperative to digital transformations and business continuity for organisations across the map. How automation and CI/CD pipelines are transforming DevOps Automation is increasingly being integrated into various stages of the DevOps pipeline, from code integration to testing, ensuring rapid and reliable delivery of applications. The current and most prevalent trend in automation, aside from AI, is moving towards ‘automate everything’. As infrastructures become more complex, this is becoming all the more critical particularly in the processes that occur after developers commit their code. Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) methodologies are integral to modern DevOps practices. These approaches involve the seamless integration of code into a shared repository and the automated deployment of applications to production environments. CI/CD pipelines are instrumental in reducing manual errors, improving code quality, and accelerating the delivery of applications to end-users. Furthermore, infrastructure as code (IaC) remains crucial. Tools like TerraForm, and cloud-specific tools are allowing organisations to manage their cloud infrastructure through code. Additionally, Kubernetes, which automates managing Docker images, has been a staple in DevOps for over a decade. While there are always new libraries and tools emerging, these foundational tools continue to play a significant role in automation for DevOps. From IT to Financial Services: How Automation is Driving Innovation Automation is transforming industries by streamlining processes, reducing manual labour, and enabling faster delivery of services. For instance, in the IT sector, automation is applied to every step that occurs after a developer commits their code, reducing errors and handling complex infrastructures. It’s a crucial and unavoidable process for any organisations hoping to do anything at scale. Taking the UK’s 2022 mortgage meltdown as an example, a lack of automation lead to banks not being able to cope with the rapidly changing market conditions and falling behind on updating their interest rates and mortgage programs. Contrasting this, companies like Netflix have successfully used automation to deliver new features extremely fast to the market. This rapid delivery, sometimes as quick as 15 minutes from idea to production, would be impossible without automation. Regardless of the industry, if there’s an IT component, automation is likely to enhance its operations by streamlining processes and enabling faster decision-making. The key to an effective digital strategy Automation’s role in a company’s digital strategy is vital. It underpins digital transformation efforts, with a focus on automating workflows to demonstrate tangible benefits to end-users. As industries continue to evolve, automation will remain a key driver in shaping digital landscapes and ensuring competitive advantage. Beyond enhancing testing and reducing human error, automating routine tasks enables teams to focus on the bigger picture, collaborate effectively, and design better solutions. In today’s competitive landscape, this is critical. While AI and other technologies can contribute, human expertise remains essential, especially in addressing security concerns. Automation ultimately allows organisations to reduce silos creating a collaborative environment for transformation and future business growth. Addressing security in DevOps While the integration of automation has been a game-changer in DevOps, significantly enhancing the speed and efficiency of development and operations, the importance of security cannot be overstated. While DevOps tools have streamlined the code release process, security challenges persist. Automation and artificial intelligence offer substantial support, yet they cannot entirely replace the need for manual oversight in security protocols. In the balance between rapid delivery and robust security is delicate; speed-to-market should rarely ever take precedence over security, especially in organisations releasing products on a large scale. Ultimately, security may vary in priority depending on the industry and the audience size, so it is imperative that organisations take a tailored approach when addressing security in their DevOps practices. Maintaining a competitive edge in the current digital landscape comes down to companies embracing automation as a strategic imperative. By integrating automated processes into their operations, businesses can enhance their operational efficiency, foster collaboration, and in turn, deliver superior products and services to their customers. Explore AI and automation at the National DevOps Conference in London Join us for an in-depth discussion on the scope and future of AI and automation at The National DevOps Conference and Awards, happening in London on October 22nd and 23rd, 2024. This premier event will feature expert insights into how AI is transforming DevOps practices and the broader tech industry. View the Full Agenda: The National DevOps Conference and Awards Agenda Exclusive Offer: Gain free entry to the conference by submitting your project to the DevOps Awards before the September 16th deadline. Don’t miss this opportunity to showcase your innovation and network with industry leaders. For exhibit at the conference, please contact calum.budge@31media.co.uk Foe media enquiries, please contact vaishnavi.nashte@31media.co.uk
