Python for DevOps

Preface

One time Noah was in the ocean, and a wave crashed on top of him and took his breath away as it pulled him deeper into the sea. Just as he started to recover his breath, another wave dropped on top. It extracted much of his remaining energy. It pulled him even deeper into the ocean. Just as he started to recover, yet another wave crashed down on top. The more he would fight the waves and the sea, the more energy was drained. He seriously wondered if he would die at that moment. He couldn’t breathe, his body ached, and he was terrified he was going to drown. Being close to death helped him focus on the only thing that could save him, which was conserving his energy and using the waves—not fighting them.

Being in a startup that doesn’t practice DevOps is a lot like that day at the beach. There are production fires that burn for months; everything is manual, alerts wake you up for days on end damaging your health. The only escape from this death spiral is the DevOps way.

Do one right thing, then another, until you find clarity. First, set up a build server, start testing your code, and automate manual tasks. Do something; it can be anything, but have a “bias for action.” Do that first thing right and make sure it is automated.

A common trap in startups or any company is the search for superheroes. “We need a performance engineer” because they will fix our performance problems. “We need a Chief Revenue Officer” because they will fix all sales problems. “We need DevOps engineers” ...