How to overcome objections that stop your enterprise from adopting DevOps

Promo In February, Argyle Executive Forum, a talking shop for Fortune 1000 C-Level execs, invited Puppet to host a webinar on DevOps for its CISO members.

The event, “Understanding and exploring the impact of DevOps,” went down so well that Puppet is keen to give it a wider airing. You can click here to access the on-demand version.

Moderated by Nigel Kersten, Puppet CIO, the webinar features a discussion among Dinesh Gowda, director of product management, Fidelity Investments; Fred Kwong, head of privileged access control, Farmers Insurance Group; Kirk Norsworthy, CIO, Xerox Services; and Richard Rushing, CISO, Motorola Mobility.

“Understanding and exploring the impact of DevOps” delivers a concise overview of the concepts, benefits and practices of DevOps, especially as they relate to traditional, hierarchical organizations.

As you may have guessed from the panel lineup, the webinar has a strong emphasis on DevOps in large enterprises, where the opportunities and constraints can be very different from the classic grassroots set-up, predicated on small teams. There are also deep dives into how the practices that underpin DevOps help to improve security and compliance.

It can be difficult to nail down what DevOps actually is not least because you get different definitions from practitioners and vendors. But in his opening remarks, Nigel provides a useful overview, characterizing the discipline as a “loose and evolving collection of engineering, – behavioral and organizational practices focused on going rapidly, safely, and sustainably from idea to customer / business value.”

Nigel maps out the approach to enabling infrastructure-as-code – and how DevOps initiatives must be underscored with practices such as automated testing, continuous integration and continuous delivery. He places particular emphasis on the importance of version control – hardly a new concept, yet it requires a cultural change for most organizations, he says.

Nigel ably steers the panel as it tackles DevOps ‘myths’ – objections that are frequently voiced against embarking on the DevOps journey. The counter-arguments presented in this webinar should help anyone who needs to tackle the naysayers.

Other topics covered include building a high-performing IT team, best practices and challenges encountered with regards to DevOps, and understanding modern infrastructure and compliance needs. And Nigel, a one-time sysadmin, ensures that the Ops side of DevOps is properly represented in the conversation.

“Understanding and exploring the impact of DevOps” is in audio format and lasts approximately 70 minutes. It ends with a good Q&A, so be sure to listen to the end.