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DevOps didn’t exist when I started as a developer

circleci.com

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Re: DevOps didn’t exist when I started as a developer

#11

Post by JBerlinsky »

zwkrt wrote: post #7

Sidebar: does anyone else get the feeling that infrastructure as code is just cloud vendor lock-in by another name? Especially since the output of the code ends up being wild unstructured JSON/YAML files with no spec or discernible schema. My favorite is how in the Microsoft toolchain you can build a CI pipeline in a visual UI on the right that automatically updates the YAML file on the left. “We know you don’t want…

You might want to look into Terraform [1], which works across multiple cloud vendors, with pluggable open-source "providers" facilitating the communication with the backend cloud platform.

[1]: https://www.terraform.io/

Re: DevOps didn’t exist when I started as a developer

#12

Post by kovek »

zwkrt wrote: post #7

Sidebar: does anyone else get the feeling that infrastructure as code is just cloud vendor lock-in by another name? Especially since the output of the code ends up being wild unstructured JSON/YAML files with no spec or discernible schema. My favorite is how in the Microsoft toolchain you can build a CI pipeline in a visual UI on the right that automatically updates the YAML file on the left. “We know you don’t want…

I tried Terraform this weekend and it was awesome to use. Spinning up a new ec2 instance was very quick. Almost just as quick when you spin up multiple instances.

It supports "providers", which are interfaces to the different vendors (aws, foogle cloud, etc), and "provisioners", which are frameworks for configuring a running instance (chef? Docker? Zookeeper?)

Re: DevOps didn’t exist when I started as a developer

#13

Post by peterwwillis »

zwkrt wrote: post #7

Sidebar: does anyone else get the feeling that infrastructure as code is just cloud vendor lock-in by another name? Especially since the output of the code ends up being wild unstructured JSON/YAML files with no spec or discernible schema. My favorite is how in the Microsoft toolchain you can build a CI pipeline in a visual UI on the right that automatically updates the YAML file on the left. “We know you don’t want…

Infra-as-code is mainly just a method to force people to write things down, rather than the default of nobody writing anything down, and people just manually making changes that nobody else knows about, making it really difficult to manage changes. Even a bash script that creates an ec2 instance is infrastructure-as-code.

OTOH, I kind of hate Terraform now, because you can use it in a way that will surprise you and blow up, leaving a mess that you have to clean up manually. It's more "infrastructure as code" than Ansible, but Ansible will at least attempt to fix things that aren't "right". So everything that has a certain label is not by definition superior to all alternatives. (I actually hate both tools for different reasons, but they have their uses)

Re: DevOps didn’t exist when I started as a developer

#14

Post by LIV2 »

JBerlinsky wrote: post #11
zwkrt wrote: post #7

Sidebar: does anyone else get the feeling that infrastructure as code is just cloud vendor lock-in by another name? Especially since the output of the code ends up being wild unstructured JSON/YAML files with no spec or discernible schema. My favorite is how in the Microsoft toolchain you can build a CI pipeline in a visual UI on the right that automatically updates the YAML file on the left. “We know you don’t want…

You might want to look into Terraform [1], which works across multiple cloud vendors, with pluggable open-source "providers" facilitating the communication with the backend cloud platform. [1]: https://www.terraform.io/

Terraform is great but if you want to change to a different cloud provider you pretty much have to rewrite everything

Re: DevOps didn’t exist when I started as a developer

#15

Post by SamuelAdams »

Personally I think DevOps is like religion. It means whatever someone wants it to mean. Some companies think DevOps means having an automated pipeline for building, testing, and shipping code. Other companies think it means micro-services. Others think it means making developers do DBA / SysAdmin work.

All of these things are fine for companies to do. How you run your org is on you. But I wish companies would go deeper than "DevOps" when putting up job posting requirements.

That's like saying they do "security". There's a lot of different ways that can be interpreted. I (as an applicant) only know a handful of those interpretations really well, so it's important that companies clarify these terms in their job descriptions. This way they have the right candidates applying.

Re: DevOps didn’t exist when I started as a developer

#16

Post by [deleted] »

zwkrt wrote: post #7

Sidebar: does anyone else get the feeling that infrastructure as code is just cloud vendor lock-in by another name? Especially since the output of the code ends up being wild unstructured JSON/YAML files with no spec or discernible schema. My favorite is how in the Microsoft toolchain you can build a CI pipeline in a visual UI on the right that automatically updates the YAML file on the left. “We know you don’t want…

[deleted]

Re: DevOps didn’t exist when I started as a developer

#17

Post by Nursie »

> DevOps is NOT… a job title or role

In which case DevOps as it exists in the real world is roughly on a par with 'agile' practices in the real world. Nothing like they were originally conceived, and nothing like the wildly optimistic descriptions of them that are shared amongst practitioners.

Re: DevOps didn’t exist when I started as a developer

#18

Post by irrational »

This article was frustrating to me. When it started out in the mid-90s (which is when I started my career also), I thought our experiences would be more aligned. However, I've never worked with an operations team.

In all the places I've worked I've been expected to do everything from setting up servers (originally physical servers, later cloud servers), hardening them, installing software, optimizing the software, installing and optimizing the database, creating database schemas and related objects, writing untold number of sql queries, writing server side code, writing front end code, etc.

I was hoping that the article would explain what devops really means today and how I can jump on the devops wagon to hopefully make my job of doing all of the above easier.

Re: DevOps didn’t exist when I started as a developer

#19

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #15

Personally I think DevOps is like religion. It means whatever someone wants it to mean. Some companies think DevOps means having an automated pipeline for building, testing, and shipping code. Other companies think it means micro-services. Others think it means making developers do DBA / SysAdmin work. All of these things are fine for companies to do. How you run your org is on you. But I wish companies would go deep…

> Some companies think DevOps means having an automated pipeline for building, testing, and shipping code.

This seems to be the most common interpretation, but I largely agree with you on no hard and fast rule here.

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