Comments on: From Operations to Aperations? http://blogs.gartner.com/cameron_haight/2009/10/25/from-operations-to-aperations/ A member of the Gartner Blog Network Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:13:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 By: Greg http://blogs.gartner.com/cameron_haight/2009/10/25/from-operations-to-aperations/comment-page-1/#comment-203 Greg Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:02:46 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/cameron_haight/2009/10/25/from-operations-to-aperations/#comment-203 It will be interesting to see if developers ever actually choose to support and manage the application in production--which is precisely George's point (many of them simply don't want to). But perhaps there is an opportunity for vendors that support IT operations to simplify the tools they make and actually give ops the power to manage developer-created application more effectively. Is that fighting natural selection, or a possible new market opportunity? It remains to be seen, but in the meantime, thanks for a thought-provoking post. It will be interesting to see if developers ever actually choose to support and manage the application in production–which is precisely George’s point (many of them simply don’t want to). But perhaps there is an opportunity for vendors that support IT operations to simplify the tools they make and actually give ops the power to manage developer-created application more effectively. Is that fighting natural selection, or a possible new market opportunity? It remains to be seen, but in the meantime, thanks for a thought-provoking post.

]]> By: Cameron Haight http://blogs.gartner.com/cameron_haight/2009/10/25/from-operations-to-aperations/comment-page-1/#comment-193 Cameron Haight Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:18:43 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/cameron_haight/2009/10/25/from-operations-to-aperations/#comment-193 Many thanks for the links, Damon. As to the the source of my inspiration - it's years of being on two (of the 3) sides of the technology equation (tools provider and analyst) and seeing that fundamentally, IT operations in spite of the best efforts of new tools, best practices (ITIL) and even new roles seems almost hopelessly broken (I should also mention that I don't blame the admins - many that I interact with daily are working heroically to manage the ever increasing and complex operational workflow). And with respect to the new management tools, I think that in many cases they're adding more complexity to the environment than that which they aim to remove. I've been looking over the past few months to the results of the large cloud SPs (i.e., Google, Amazon, etc.) where in many cases people costs are minimal yet they still get the job done efficiently. I know it's an apples to oranges comparison in relation to traditional enterprise IT ops because the SPs don't have 40 years of legacy to deal with, but the question that I have (and that I plan to work on in 2010) is can we learn anything from them to make the enterprise more efficient? So far I've learned that the processes that they focus on are different (ITIL is rarely to be found), the tools are different (in-house and open source) and the organization is different (i.e., Amazon's famous "two-pizza" teams). More on this in 2010 ... and again, many thanks for taking time to post a comment! Many thanks for the links, Damon. As to the the source of my inspiration – it’s years of being on two (of the 3) sides of the technology equation (tools provider and analyst) and seeing that fundamentally, IT operations in spite of the best efforts of new tools, best practices (ITIL) and even new roles seems almost hopelessly broken (I should also mention that I don’t blame the admins – many that I interact with daily are working heroically to manage the ever increasing and complex operational workflow). And with respect to the new management tools, I think that in many cases they’re adding more complexity to the environment than that which they aim to remove. I’ve been looking over the past few months to the results of the large cloud SPs (i.e., Google, Amazon, etc.) where in many cases people costs are minimal yet they still get the job done efficiently. I know it’s an apples to oranges comparison in relation to traditional enterprise IT ops because the SPs don’t have 40 years of legacy to deal with, but the question that I have (and that I plan to work on in 2010) is can we learn anything from them to make the enterprise more efficient? So far I’ve learned that the processes that they focus on are different (ITIL is rarely to be found), the tools are different (in-house and open source) and the organization is different (i.e., Amazon’s famous “two-pizza” teams). More on this in 2010 … and again, many thanks for taking time to post a comment!

]]> By: Damon Edwards http://blogs.gartner.com/cameron_haight/2009/10/25/from-operations-to-aperations/comment-page-1/#comment-187 Damon Edwards Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:20:14 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/cameron_haight/2009/10/25/from-operations-to-aperations/#comment-187 Hi Cameron, Great post. Not sure where you're getting your inspiration. But in case you haven't seen it, you should check out these ongoing discussions on this topic: #devops on twitter #agileoperations on twitter This topic was a central theme throughout the Velocity Conference last year (and will be again this year) http://en.oreilly.com/velocity2010 The new Devopsdays unconference just had their first successful edition in Europe and will have a US version this summer. http://www.devopsdays.org/ Andrew Shafer (of the Puppet project) champions this problems space: http://www.slideshare.net/littleidea/agile-infrastructure-agile-2009 ... and of course (shameless plug): http://dev2ops.org Hi Cameron,

Great post. Not sure where you’re getting your inspiration. But in case you haven’t seen it, you should check out these ongoing discussions on this topic:

#devops on twitter

#agileoperations on twitter

This topic was a central theme throughout the Velocity Conference last year (and will be again this year)
http://en.oreilly.com/velocity2010

The new Devopsdays unconference just had their first successful edition in Europe and will have a US version this summer.
http://www.devopsdays.org/

Andrew Shafer (of the Puppet project) champions this problems space:
http://www.slideshare.net/littleidea/agile-infrastructure-agile-2009

… and of course (shameless plug):
http://dev2ops.org

]]> By: uberVU - social comments http://blogs.gartner.com/cameron_haight/2009/10/25/from-operations-to-aperations/comment-page-1/#comment-183 uberVU - social comments Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:00:49 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/cameron_haight/2009/10/25/from-operations-to-aperations/#comment-183 <strong>Social comments and analytics for this post...</strong> This post was mentioned on Twitter by sweetlew: Awesome Gartner article on the future of managing apps. http://bit.ly/4MJm9... Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by sweetlew: Awesome Gartner article on the future of managing apps. http://bit.ly/4MJm9...

]]> By: Cameron Haight http://blogs.gartner.com/cameron_haight/2009/10/25/from-operations-to-aperations/comment-page-1/#comment-181 Cameron Haight Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:00:44 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/cameron_haight/2009/10/25/from-operations-to-aperations/#comment-181 George - thanks for your post. I think what you suggest is in fact often the traditional approach (it certainly was in the Java world). Still, it didn't solve the problem. The way you do less operational drudgery is by putting more thought into how the application will be managed during design and development. The better the documentation, instrumentation and run-books (automation) the less time application development (and operations) will spend dealing with production stage problems. George – thanks for your post. I think what you suggest is in fact often the traditional approach (it certainly was in the Java world). Still, it didn’t solve the problem. The way you do less operational drudgery is by putting more thought into how the application will be managed during design and development. The better the documentation, instrumentation and run-books (automation) the less time application development (and operations) will spend dealing with production stage problems.

]]> By: George F. Black http://blogs.gartner.com/cameron_haight/2009/10/25/from-operations-to-aperations/comment-page-1/#comment-179 George F. Black Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:45:58 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/cameron_haight/2009/10/25/from-operations-to-aperations/#comment-179 Cameron, your points are well taken. Lew, you make a great point on accountability. I would counter, however, that application developers find operations to be drudgery, and I wonder if they could ever truly settle down into the humdrum 8 to 5 of daily operations (or 24x7x365). Perhaps there is a compromise that would look like this: Application Management in full charge of implementation planning, execution, training and operation management for the first 12 months (or some time frame). This couples the accountability that Lew describes with the acknowledgement that sooner or later the work is going to become routine and bore the hell out of application developer types. Yes, and I mean even management types. Could there be something here. Perhaps Aperations is the glue between development and operations? Cameron, your points are well taken. Lew, you make a great point on accountability.

I would counter, however, that application developers find operations to be drudgery, and I wonder if they could ever truly settle down into the humdrum 8 to 5 of daily operations (or 24x7x365). Perhaps there is a compromise that would look like this:

Application Management in full charge of implementation planning, execution, training and operation management for the first 12 months (or some time frame). This couples the accountability that Lew describes with the acknowledgement that sooner or later the work is going to become routine and bore the hell out of application developer types. Yes, and I mean even management types.

Could there be something here. Perhaps Aperations is the glue between development and operations?

]]> By: Cameron Haight http://blogs.gartner.com/cameron_haight/2009/10/25/from-operations-to-aperations/comment-page-1/#comment-177 Cameron Haight Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:50:56 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/cameron_haight/2009/10/25/from-operations-to-aperations/#comment-177 Thanks Javier. I thought of App-erations as well ... but initially elected to go with the single "p" since it mapped more closely to Op-erations. But point made - I may need to go back! Thanks ... Thanks Javier. I thought of App-erations as well … but initially elected to go with the single “p” since it mapped more closely to Op-erations. But point made – I may need to go back! Thanks …

]]> By: Javier Soltero http://blogs.gartner.com/cameron_haight/2009/10/25/from-operations-to-aperations/comment-page-1/#comment-176 Javier Soltero Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:55:22 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/cameron_haight/2009/10/25/from-operations-to-aperations/#comment-176 Completely agree, Cameron. Building manageable apps and having management tooling that can at least provide common context for ops and developers will definitely help. One thing though, perhaps you should add another P and make it App-erations. Completely agree, Cameron. Building manageable apps and having management tooling that can at least provide common context for ops and developers will definitely help.

One thing though, perhaps you should add another P and make it App-erations.

]]> By: Cameron Haight http://blogs.gartner.com/cameron_haight/2009/10/25/from-operations-to-aperations/comment-page-1/#comment-175 Cameron Haight Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:27:49 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/cameron_haight/2009/10/25/from-operations-to-aperations/#comment-175 Many thanks for the feedback, Lew. It's great to see this concept working in real life - not just in the minds of an analyst! Thanks again for taking the time to comment. Many thanks for the feedback, Lew. It’s great to see this concept working in real life – not just in the minds of an analyst! Thanks again for taking the time to comment.

]]> By: Lew Cirne http://blogs.gartner.com/cameron_haight/2009/10/25/from-operations-to-aperations/comment-page-1/#comment-174 Lew Cirne Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:12:27 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/cameron_haight/2009/10/25/from-operations-to-aperations/#comment-174 Amen, Cameron! I think you are totally dead on. If the team that built the application has to support it, it's amazing how much care and thought goes into making that application successful in production. When management is "somebody else's problem", then manageability predictably becomes a lower priority - which hurts the business. Early on at New Relic when I hired my VP Engineering, I decided to give him ownership and responsibility for production management and support, and it has resulted in a big win for us. Our app collects and writes 70 Billion rows of data a month (up from 40 Billion just 5 months ago). This kind of growth and scale must be managed with precision. As you can imagine we eat our own dogfood and use our app management tool to manage itself, but more importantly, we've structured the team organizationally so that development has responsibility for the success of the app in production. We are very happy with the results. Amen, Cameron!

I think you are totally dead on. If the team that built the application has to support it, it’s amazing how much care and thought goes into making that application successful in production. When management is “somebody else’s problem”, then manageability predictably becomes a lower priority – which hurts the business.

Early on at New Relic when I hired my VP Engineering, I decided to give him ownership and responsibility for production management and support, and it has resulted in a big win for us. Our app collects and writes 70 Billion rows of data a month (up from 40 Billion just 5 months ago). This kind of growth and scale must be managed with precision. As you can imagine we eat our own dogfood and use our app management tool to manage itself, but more importantly, we’ve structured the team organizationally so that development has responsibility for the success of the app in production. We are very happy with the results.

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