Today’s customers, products, business operations, and competitors are fundamentally digital. Succeeding in this new era mandates everyone constantly reinvent their businesses as fundamentally digital. You have two choices,
· become a digital predator; or
· become digital prey.
To compete in this new digital market norm, software applications and products must contain new sources of customer value while at the same time adopting new operational agility. Infrastructure and operations *I&O) professionals need to change from the previous methods of releasing large software products and services at sporadic intervals to continuous deployment. All must adopt key automation technologies to make continuous deployment a reality.
Continuous Deployment Tips
At Forrester, my colleagues and I (including the great Amy DeMartine) developed our recent TechRadar™: Continuous Deployment, Q2 2016 which look at the the top use cases, business value, and outlook of the 12 top technologies engaged in in continuous deployment.
Our key findings include:
1. Continuous deployment is critical to unlock velocity
In this new era of digital business, I&O pros must automate across the entire software delivery life cycle, creating the ability to continuously deploy while assuring service quality.
2. No Silver Bullet
There exists no single tool to enable continuous deployment. I&O pros will need to pursue multiple tools to deliver automation. These investments will require constant review as the technologies evolve. Software integration has become a critical capability because the various tools you need will not easily work together.
3. Leverage technology to transform your continuous deployment
I&O pros must continuously deploy new application releases as well as changes to supporting software and infrastructure. Using a combination of pre-existing as well as emerging tools, I&O pros can create continuous deployment while also decreasing production errors. Automation is going to be critical to not only to velocity, it is critical for consistency, security and effectively govern.
DevOps and Corporate Culture
As with all DevOps transitions, culture and human resources represent one of the largest issues. Identifying the professionals you will need who have expertise with newer technologies is a special challenge. You have a great opportunity to start the journey by first looking within your current teams, looking for pros with an engineering bent. Additionally, develop your own talent to create new growth opportunities. This in turn helps retain talent and establish continuous deployment as the norm rather than the exception, having the advantage of organically growing culture and adoption.
If you are a Forrester client you can download the report here. As always feel free to submit your comments.
Robert Stroud is principal analyst at Forrester Research, serving infrastructure and operations professionals. Read more Forrester blogs here.
