You can watch the video of this talk: http://vimeo.com/album/3093746/video/109820344 One of the important ideas behind DevOps is that people from development and operations should work together, just like the Doctor (a Time Lord) and his human companions work together to solve the problems of the universe. We're moving away from a model where control was centralized in the hands of a few, like the way the spice was tightly controlled in Dune, and we're sharing more of the responsibilities, like how the Stargate SG-1 team collaborates with the Tok'ra, the Asgard and others. We also work to automate processes and manage configurations, not unlike how Asimov created his 3 laws to make sure that robots, like our servers, were well-behaved and performing according to some standard rules. This is a fun session, but it focuses on real lessons from DevOps as told through science fiction.

1. LESSONS ABOUT DEVOPS
FROM SCIENCE FICTION
Dawn M. Foster
Puppet Labs
!
Director
of
Community
@geekygirldawn
dawn@puppetlabs.com
Presenta(on
available
at
h0p://fastwonderblog.com/speaking/

2. WHOAMI
• Geek, traveler, reader
• Recovered sys admin,
community & open source
• Read 73 books last year,
mostly sci-fi / fantasy
• I keep a list:
http://fastwonderblog.com/about/
reading/
Photos by Josh Bancroft, Don Park

3. OVERVIEW
• Culture: people, process
• Automation: tools, growth, risk
• Measurement: monitor & improve
• Sharing: control, mentoring

4. ALL ABOUT THE PEOPLE
The Doctor and
companions work
together like Ops & Devs

5. ONE STEP AT A TIME
Understand changes,
take one step at a time, and
have solid processes.

6. AUTOMATE ALL THE
THINGS
Automate the tedious
tasks and have time
for the fun stuff

7. DELEGATE TO MINIONS
Delegate the grunt work
to automation tools,
not minions
Thanks to Dave Zwieback aka @mindweather for suggesting a Gru and the minions reference.

8. LAWS OF ROBOTICS
Use config management
systems with rules to control
infrastructure behavior

9. GROWTH & AUTOMATION
Use automation and
configuration management tools to
spin up large numbers of systems

10. REDSHIRTS ARE
EXPENDABLE
Treat your servers
like redshirts
!
Side note: read John Scalzi’s ‘Redshirts’

11. “EVERYTHING WE DO OUT
HERE IS A RISK!”
Automate tasks to
reduce risk

12. MONITOR AND MEASURE
Monitor and measure as much as
possible to track progress for
performance, processes & people

13. CONTINUOUS
IMPROVEMENT
Improve by assimilating
useful technologies into
your collective

14. SHARE AND IMPROVE
Share new ideas, information,
problems, and stories with a
focus on continuous improvement.

15. CONTROL ISSUES
Work together as equals,
give up control and
share responsibility

16. INCIDENT RESPONSE
More people with more access
means that you may need to
adjust how you respond to incidents

17. DON’T CREATE MONSTERS
Create a culture where
developers & ops
avoid short cuts that create
new infrastructure monsters

18. MENTORING
Train the next generation
and help others succeed

19. STRONG WOMEN
Encourage women in
our field and get them
speaking at our events
www.usenix.org/blog/my-daughters-high-school-programming-teacher

20. DON’T PANIC
Things will go wrong
keep things in perspective
calmly recover

21. THANK YOU
Dawn Foster
Puppet Labs
!
@geekygirldawn
dawn@puppetlabs.com
fastwonderblog.com