Micro Focus eases DevOps transitions

Source – sdtimes.com

Implementing and scaling enterprise DevOps can be a lot more challenging than building it from scratch. While cloud-based startups use their DevOps capabilities to disrupt industries and change competitive landscapes, large enterprises struggle with DevOps transitions. Micro Focus (formerly HPE Software) helps enterprises ease DevOps adoption so they can meet their goals of delivering higher quality software faster.

“It’s easier to build an effective DevOps practice when you’re starting with a blank slate,” said Ashish Kuthiala, senior director at Micro Focus. “It’s harder for enterprises to change the way they operate so they can implement DevOps efficiently. To do that, they have to choose the right team members and the right toolsets, and stitch those toolsets together.”

Unlike startups, large enterprises have spent a lot of time and money on purpose-specific tools. They want to leverage those investments as customer requirements change, but their cultures and processes also need to change.

“It’s difficult for enterprises to pivot when they have a legacy culture and considerable complexity built into their existing tool chains and processes,” said Kuthiala. “It’s an iterative journey that takes time to understand and implement.”

Transition Slowly

Too often, enterprise DevOps endeavors stumble because the team is moving so fast it doesn’t realize It lacks the right tools, processes, and people to succeed. Despite pressure to adopt DevOps practices right now, successful transformations take time.

“Every change needs to be codified and version-controlled. Whether it’s a change in executable code, configuration, the infrastructure environment, data or monitoring, it needs to go through the CD pipeline in an automated way,” said Kuthiala. “Any changes are fed into the CD pipeline so it goes through the entire cycle until it’s production ready. Then the business can make the decision of when to introduce it to production environments.”

Micro Focus built a set of automated gates so code automatically integrates with the main trunk of the branch, tests run automatically, the infrastructure is provisioned through code and more — all on a hybrid delivery platform. Like other businesses, Micro Focus uses open source, its own tools and other tools.

“It’s really important to build automated gates. That way, if something doesn’t work, it’s immediately pushed back to the source it came from and fixed before it can go any further, said Kuthiala. “Technically, nothing defective ever reaches the production environment.”

To achieve that, enterprises have to standardize their development, testing and production environments so they can be made available on-demand. Micro Focus containerized all of those environments, which has accelerated changes to its CD pipeline.

Transitioning to DevOps isn’t all about tools, though. Cultural adaptation is also important, but it doesn’t necessarily come easily. Micro Focus helps guide enterprises through their transitions, including the cultural transformations needed to enable successful DevOps and CD. It also assesses customers’ environments, tool portfolios and processes.

“It’s really important to develop a culture that allows people to experiment. You have to allow people to fail fast, learn from it and keep moving forward,” said Kuthiala.

Embracing an iterative approach to software delivery requires significant cultural change that can be difficult if not downright painful. It’s important to incentivize teams working across different functions to work toward common goals.

“There’s a lot of leadership change and encouragement that’s needed to make this work at an enterprise scale,” said Kuthiala. “Your first pipeline serves as a proof point and then you have the best practices in place to build successive pipelines. That’s how we’re scaling this up for our customers and ourselves.”

Use Your Favorite Tools

Enterprises shouldn’t have to “rip and replace” tools simply because software delivery processes and practices are changing. At the same time, whatever technology is in place has to meet modern requirements.

“Enterprises have very structured teams, processes, culture and toolsets,” said Kuthiala. “They’re also using more open-source tools than ever before. We help them leverage what they have in fully-automated, CD pipelines.”

ALM Octane integrates with all the third-party open source and commercial tools customers use today. Stitching all of that together is important, but building an effective CD pipeline also requires the right people and processes.

“We advise customers to take a very experimental, iterative approach so they can continuously improve their pipelines,” said Kuthiala. “Try things out, measure them, improve them and do it all very quickly. We can help you put tool chains together, assist you with the culture and process changes, and share best practices of how we do it and how our other customers do it.”

Businesses that want to build enterprise DevOps practices and implement them at a global scale choose Micro Focus to help build all or part of the CD pipeline. The company also has tools available to optimize every part of the CD pipeline.