DevOps Tools for Java Developers

Chapter 1. DevOps for (or Possibly Against) Developers

Baruch Sadogursky

While you here do snoring lie, Open-eyed conspiracy His time doth take. If of life you keep a care, Shake off slumber, and beware: Awake, awake!

William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Some might ask if the DevOps movement is simply an ops-inspired plot against developers. Most (if not all) who would do so wouldn’t expect a serious response, not least because they intend the question as tongue-in-cheek teasing. It’s also because—and regardless of whether your origins are on the development or the operations side of the equation—when anyone strikes up a conversation about DevOps, it will take approximately 60 seconds before someone inquires, “But what is DevOps really?”

And you’d think, 11 years after the coining of the term (a decade within which industry professionals have spoken, debated, and shouted about it), that we’d all have arrived at a standard, no-nonsense, commonly understood definition. But this simply isn’t the case. In fact, despite an exponentially increasing corporate demand for DevOps personnel, it’s highly doubtful that any five DevOps-titled employees, chosen at random, could tell you precisely what DevOps is.

So, don’t be embarrassed if you still find yourself scratching your head when the subject comes up. Conceptually, DevOps may not be easy to grok, but it’s not impossible either.

But regardless of how we discuss the term or what definition(s) we might agree upon, there’s one thing, ...