Toolchains or Tool Cemeteries?

Toolchains have become the bane of DevOps. Much like Agile, DevOps has become cramped by everyone pushing their favorite tools as the proper means to adopt a DevOps strategy.

Don’t believe me? Just take a look at this periodic table of tools.

How We Go Astray

People cite good reasons for wanting to decentralize tools and processes:

1. To allow for flexibility
2. For better product management
3. To beat competitors to the market

Why Tools End up In Cemeteries

It is well-worth taking the end-to-end view up front, to deliberate before making decisions. Instead of getting enamored of a tool because it’s popular, focus on the problems you want to solve.

1. Who has time to  learn all these tools?
2. Who will  vet their worth?
3. How will you ensure proper system integration?
4. What teams will shoulder responsibility for orchestrating their sequence?
5. Who wants to volunteer to be stuck maintaining these tools as they age?
6. When will you know it’s time to decommission them when they eventually become last week’s news?

Backing Away from the Edge

When I first start talking to a new client, invariably the conversation turns to the tools in their arsenal. Yet without the proper process (a word a lot of many people hate), these tools are doomed to turn the organization into a tool cemetery.

Take a deep breath…process isn’t a dirty word in the age of continuous integration and continuous deployment tools.

Process is the means by which your DevOps strategy can become more than a far-off dream. Every organization has challenges, and the best way to move forward is with a partner like us, who has succeeded in helping other organizations do the same.