Look to retail for an example of DevOps success

Source:-ciodive.com

While comparing DevOps adoption across sectors, retail leads in its ability to deploy on-demand, according to Puppet’s industry report card based on a survey of almost 3,000 respondents for its 2019 DevOps report. The technology sector has the most mature DevOps adoption and is the leader in integrating security into the software delivery pipeline.

In retail, 57% of respondents can deploy to production on demand; 28% are doing so regularly. It’s “head and shoulders” above other industries, Alanna Brown, senior director community director and developer relations at Puppet told CIO Dive. In part, its advancement comes from Amazon’s revolutionary pressure. Retail also does not face the same regulatory burdens as industries such as financial services or government.

A key metric of DevOps success is how well companies integrate security. In technology, 35% of companies see security as a shared responsibility across teams, above the cross-industry average of 31%. “If you are doing DevOps well, chances are you are already doing security well,” Brown said.

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Dive Insight:
The Puppet report’s demographics add context to retail deployment success ahead of the tech industry. Top tech companies are renowned for elite DevOps performance. Amazon, Google and Netflix can deploy “thousands of times per day,” according to DevOps Research and Assessment.

Many tech companies surveyed were smaller, which prevents the data from skewing toward the technology sector, according to Brown.

The more-regulated industries, government and financial services and insurance, lag in DevOps implementation. While financial services and insurance have built a DevOps foundation, they are slow to progress to more advanced adoption, according to the report.

The government sector is the slowest to remediate critical vulnerabilities — only 24% of respondents are able to remediate them in less than one day, Puppet found. It’s a stark contrast to retail, where 53% can remediate critical vulnerabilities in the same time frame.

Cross-industry differences highlight the burdens of each sector. Some struggle with regulation and bureaucracy; rules mean tech teams have to slow down and follow outlined processes.

In retail, the biggest burden is competition. To stay relevant, companies are forced to move fast and iterate, breaking down department barriers to optimize systems.