This manager/practitioner-oriented book is a quick, concise introduction to DevOps and offers practical insights into real-world case studies of DevOps adoption. With software technology now fundamental to all parts of an organization, the seamless collaboration across the various parts of an organization to rapidly deliver innovative new solutions to the market becomes a key business advantage and market differentiator. Hence, the book is timely and relevant for its intended audience. The book is organized in ten chapters categorized under three parts.

Part 1 consists of three chapters to introduce the concept of DevOps and its motivations. The first chapter quickly summarizes the increasing relevance of DevOps in complex modern organizations and the various motivating factors such as agile, lean, and so on. It refers to the rapid shifting of developmental units from a model based on the systems development life cycle (SDLC) to a more agile model. It also highlights the need for cross-functional teams to be able to flexibly shift from development to operations, so as to improve business agility. The second chapter addresses the various issues that afflict current models of software development and delivery in organizations, from project execution to architectural considerations, so as to motivate the need for a more robust, flexible, and collaborative approach. The third chapter presents some of the foundational concepts for DevOps such as lean, agile, thinking, and key performance indicators (KPIs)/metrics. It emphasizes cultural issues such as trust, respect, focus on products over politics, empathic interactions, and open and transparent communications. It also focuses on lean principles, strategies for identifying and eliminating waste, constraints management, data-driven insights, reducing waits, automating deployments, and so on. Furthermore, it addresses some metrics, such as efficiency, quality and velocity, and so on, and identifies some anti-patterns for metrics that often stifle organizations.

Part 2 focuses on tooling and goes from building and testing to deployment and managing. Chapter 4 is quite interesting from a development organization’s perspective, and it focuses on build techniques, specifically application programming interfaces (APIs). Using some case studies it discusses ways to better develop, test, categorize, and manage APIs. Chapter 5 is dedicated to testing, and the focus is on enabling quality testing, not just as a “book-end” to development, but rather as a continuous, ongoing process that significantly improves quality. The next chapter focuses on deployment/release strategies that enable organizations to transition from long-cycle periodic releases to short-cycle continuous delivery cycles. It discusses three ways to attain maturity and strongly puts forth the need for a dynamic, well-integrated tool chain for release automation. The last chapter in this part, chapter 7, focuses on managing the DevOps organization and details agile as a core DevOps enabler.

Part 3 is comprised of three chapters, focused on tuning and continuous improvement. The eighth chapter emphasizes adjusting and adapting existing methods, including the need for a good architecture and enterprise security. Chapter 9 deals with return on investment (ROI) measurement and related concepts. The final chapter aggregates the remaining topics such as quality, talent management, governance, and so on.

In summary, in addition to being a quick summary for practitioners, this book is also a succinct read for leaders who want get case-based insights on DevOps adoption and its use in modern software-intensive development organizations.

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