Improving on IT operation processes

Agile software engineering has fundamentally changed service delivery. There are no more release cycles, new features are delivered immediately after completion. Several deployments on test and QA environments are carried out per day.

Again and again, IT operations seems to be the limiting factor, not without good reason. Over the years, administrators have learned what is necessary for the secure operation of services:

• Data Classification - Data Protection and Recovery Needs,
• Service Description - Definition of SLAs,
• Operating Manual - Handling configuration changes and message chains,
• Monitoring and BackUp Concept.

Insisting on these definitions before go live and operation of the service repeatedly delays the schedules of agile projects.

Many DevOps engineers, who want to take over these challenges themselves, with the aim to be faster, understand the operations part as pure deployment and configuration of the service or application. They get into massive difficulties with error detection (incident management) and service recovery (business continuity).

Agile Methods for IT Operations

It is not necessary to put the classic IT operation on ice, rather it should be further developed analogously to software development and its experience should be used.

The following optimizations are possible:

• Kanban & StandUp: There are various electronic Kanban boards. However, we recommend the classic PostIt-version. In a daily StandUp, the current status is discussed and, if necessary, changes to the prioritization are agreed on together.

  • Advantage: Everyone has a common understanding of the current situation.
  • Implementation: very simple
    
    

• ChatOps: Modern development teams like to use communication platforms like Slack, Mattermost or Hipchat. ChatOps can use intelligent agents to transfer status queries as well as rudimentary operational tasks to these chats.

  • Advantage: Fewer requests for IT Ops,
  • Implementation: simple, but requires programming,
    
    

• AgileOps: Acceleration of any IT operation process through automation, all tasks are analyzed according to frequency and effort and automated by appropriate tools (-> Automation, -> IAC), Automation

  • Advantage: Resources are better utilized, change processes are drastically accelerated,
  • Implementation: time-consuming, employees have to familiarize themselves, various IT processes have to be changed,
    
    

• DevOps: Form cross-section teams in which architecture, development and operations are merged on a service-related basis, supported by a tool chain that implements CI/CD,

  • Advantage: extremely fast customer reaction, no knowledge gap between the areas,
  • Implementation: very complex, adaptation of the organisational structure and the communication matrix.
    
    

• Lean IT: Lean is more than just a simple reorganization, it means a change in the principles of IT. All organizational processes are analyzed for the following seven grievances: unnecessary transportation, inventory, motion, waiting, overproduction, overengineering, troubleshooting, and defects. Process errors are thus identified and analyzed, a change designed (plan), then piloted and tested (Do), results and effects are checked (check), then organizational changes implemented (Act).

  • Advantage: holistic approach,
  • Implementation: complex.