About the need for composability and orchestration in hybrid devops to enable collaboration and reuse.

1. Come together, right now!
GitHub &
Infrastructure as Code

2. Rob Hirschfeld, RackN CEO
Rob made a career of data center and cloud automation including
service as an Executive at Dell and Founding Board Member of the
OpenStack Project. As co-creator of the open Crowbar/Digital Rebar
physical provisioning project he brings DevOps control to physical
and cloud infrastructure using Docker, golang, containers and
microservices.
RackN creates cross-platform orchestration software
based on the Digital Rebar project. Our solutions give
enterprises control of their hybrid IT environments by
allowing them to create a single operational environment
that spans public cloud, private cloud and physical
infrastructure.

3. Inspired by DevOps.com Post:
“What if we had Git for DevOps”
http://devops.com/2016/02/19/what-if-we-had-git-for-devops/

4. DevOps Collaboration
DevOps is not just automation!
It is a culture and process objective about treating
software delivery as a pipeline where all the stakeholders
(not just Dev and Ops) collaborate.
But… there are challenges in achieving this goal.

5. Infrastructure as Code
Cloud is Infrastructure with an API
(blog from 2013)
When infrastructure is programmable,
We can easily write software to creates infrastructure.
Github hosts many such examples. Unfortunately...
Configuring the software turns out to be very hard.

6. Coding Ops Challenges
Ops automation is a constantly moving target.
And usually slightly different for each operator.
Like maintaining c programs with make - everything breaks the build.
It is always multi-system and interpreted (meaning dynamically built).
Applications leverage deep dependency chains that constantly evolve.
And what about security, scale, availability, performance and monitoring?
It’s not just installing code - operators have to automate the full system.

7. Beware the Monoliths
Most DevOps tools provide good modularity concepts; however, the systems
they automate experience configuration side-effects, sequence artifacts and
out-of-band configuration. These hidden actions make it difficult to isolate
actions between modules.
To protect themselves, operators maintain stand-alone (aka forked) scripts
that only work for their needs. I call this “golden path” automation.
Like coders, operators protect scripts
by coupling components together.

8. System A
Required: Horizontal & Vertical Configuration
Configuration
steps require both
same node
(vertical) chains
and cross node
(horizontal)
sharing of
configuration.
Step 4
Step 5
Step1
System B
Step 2
Step 3
System C
Step 2
Step 3

9. DevOps Challenges Break Collaboration
Like reusing code, reusing automation means sharing experiences.
However, many factors make this difficult:
● Multiple Editors - have different needs and styles
● Cross-Organization - have different environments
● Iterative Learning - ops can be slow to recreate
● Infrastructure - breaking differences (like networks)
● Automation - different tools and capabilities
● Hidden Assumptions - omissions in automation
● Changing Dependencies - scripts have short half-life

10. How do we address these issues?
First, admit defeat. We are not going to create a monolithic, stable
environment that everyone can share. Start by embracing diversity.
Like git, we need a way to isolate changes in a way that contains the extent of
the changes.
We need composed automation instead of tightly coupled monoliths.
Collaborators need to be able to add, change or remove steps without
breaking downstream steps. That means creating (and maintaining)
functional boundaries between modules outside of the scripting tools.

11. Ops: Configuration + Services + Orchestration
Tightly integrated automation works for a single
purpose but breaks when when the targets
change.
Composability adds overhead because it
requires orchestration and configuration
management.
However, the isolation helps us accelerate by
making components independent. That improves
collaboration and protects scripts from
unintended changes.

12. Parting Thoughts: Embrace the Hybrid
The concepts we discussed today are essential to coping with a hybrid world.
The sooner we accept a “hybrid tax” the sooner we’ll be able to collaborate.
Further Reading on Hybrid DevOps: Union of Configuration, Orchestration
and Composability
http://community.hpe.com/t5/Grounded-in-the-Cloud/Hybrid-DevOps-Union-
of-Configuration-Orchestration-and/ba-p/6836097#.VvM6ZWErJ6U
Hybrid is the new normal. We are not returning to a single
platform or mono-infrastructure.
This is true for both internal and external collaboration.

13. What is RackN doing about this?
Open Source Digital Rebar Project
(http://rebar.digital)
We’ve build these concepts into an open source project that embraced hybrid
in multiple dimensions including infrastructure, tools, operating systems.
We’re working to make ops automation composable to that people can
collaborate like they do with git. They can focus on their own scripts in their
own environments with less risk of breaking other contributors.
We are looking for help to spread the word.