DevOps principles are great, but when introduced into a legacy development process, this change can be tough. However when working on projects with tight timelines or trying to catch up to a rapidly advancing market, it’s important that these processes are put in place. It’s important that everyone is on the same page with these changes, and for non-technical team members, it can be difficult to quantify the benefits of DevOps culture. This can be frustrating for someone who’s heard success stories and wants to implement it at their company. This talk will be a look at how we introduced a build system, updated version control practices and changed communication standards at a company with a previously-decade old toolset and mindset. We’ll also examine how a fragile server provisioning and rigid deploys were transitioned to a more fluid DevOps model. This resulted in consistent environments and a modern developer toolset. Together, these changes resulted in greater development velocity and a much smoother process from ticket to deploy.

1. Selling devops to
non-technicalmanagement
Keanan Koppenhaver
CTO, Alpha Particle
keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver

2. @kkoppenhaver
keanan@alphaparticle.com
alphaparticle.com/dddsm

3. Devops before I knewwhat
devopswas
keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver

4. keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver
Where Our storybegins
Large LegacyOrganization
Large .NETCodebaseand DevTeam
OPs team separated from DEVteam (potentiallyacross company
borders)
Rigidworkflow, jiraallthe things
Fridaydeploys, every~2wks - 1 month

5. keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver

6. keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver

7. “Whatgotyou herewon’t
getyou there”
keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver
Ifwe onlyget 6-12 deploys,we won’tmake it

8. Howare we going to do
this?
keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver

9. Answer: Small ProjectFirst
keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver

10. keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver
Smallproject First
Assembledateam: Editorial, Dev, Ops, ProjectManagersand US
Wewere going to do everything “the rightway”
Solidified our processand showeda“quickwin”
Gave credence to ourapproach for the bigger project

11. So…whatwas the process?
keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver

12. keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver

13. Four Pillars of Devops
keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver

14. keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver
Four Pillars of Devops
Collaboration
Affinity
Tools
Scaling

15. keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver
Collaboration
Slack(notwellreceived)
Standups
EditorialRepatdevmeetings, Ops repatdev
meetings, PM Repatdevmeetings

16. keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver
Affinity
Differentcompanies ≠ DifferentGoals
Ops Teamand DevTeamand USallhad
differentstrengths
Let people do thejob theyare goodat

17. keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver
Tools
TFS -> GIT(Protip: DOn’toverwritework)
Jenkins
Ansible for in-house services (shoutoutops team)
More meetings (?!?)
CloudCraft

18. keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver

19. keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver

20. keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver
Scale
We knewthe process worked, nowjustbring in
more people
More people = More convincing (Butwe had proof
now)
More people = More .net developerswho didn’t
know the “newway”
More people = More QA

21. Finally: Demo day
keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver

22. “you’ve shown us things our
developers saidwere impossible”
- Editorwho didn’tbelieve in us
andallthis “Newness”
keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver

23. keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver

24. keanan@alphaparticle.com
AlphaParticle
@kkoppenhaver

25. Questions?
@kkoppenhaver
keanan@alphaparticle.com
https://alphaparticle.com/dddsm