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The Road to
DevOps Success

Achieve CI/CD with machine data

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The digital economy moves at Internet speed. Accordingly, The key to a successful DevOps feedback loop is
businesses must deliver and refine new software and software metrics—the measurement and analysis of
services faster than ever—with agile, iterative software usage, performance and errors. The flexible nature of
development and delivery. Frequent, smaller updates analytics platforms to ingest and report on any type
empower developers to rapidly try new features and limit of data makes them well-suited to DevOps processes,
the risk of breaking something critical. They also keep which invariably include tools from various sources.
apps fresh and top-of-mind with customers and enable Complexity is the enemy of agility. A typical DevOps
quick responses to threats and changes to the business. process includes eight major steps with different tools
Rapid app release cycles are common in digital used at each stage (Figure 1). Since these tools are
businesses, where organizations are being reshaped by often open source or point products, there’s little to
technologies like cloud services with software-defined no integration between them, creating overlaps and
infrastructure, mobile apps and social communication inefficiencies that cloud visibility of the overall process
channels. These cycles have prompted new and hamper agility.
architectures, design patterns, application stacks and
continuous delivery release trains.
DevOps, a full lifecycle approach based on a culture of
collaboration, is emerging as the leading way to develop,
deliver and support applications. Businesses that adopt
DevOps move faster, enabling them to keep up with
customer demands in an ever-changing digital world.
Yet, the hopes and dreams of DevOps devotees are
often dashed on the rocks of organizational reality. Figure 1: Major steps of a typical DevOps process

DevOps doesn’t always live up to its promises, often The infinity symbol is a common depiction of the stages
due to technological and bureaucratic complexity. of DevOps, since it nicely illustrates the two intertwined
Creating an agile, responsive, data-driven culture and phases of the process. The left side deals with the
supporting processes is easier said than done. While software development and testing cycle (the “dev”), and
there are many challenges along the way, machine the right represents the deployment and operations
data collection and analysis are frequent blockers to cycle (the “ops”). Yet each step in the cycle represents
achieving DevOps excellence. distinct product markets for tools, where a dozen or
Machine data comes from applications, cloud, more products are commonly used in each stage.
infrastructures, containers, mobile apps, databases, This abundance of choice is great for developers and
the IoT, streaming network data and more. Machine operations teams, because each team can choose
data goes beyond logs—it contains a definitive record products that suit its needs and preferences. But the
of all the activity and performance of all apps, systems, resulting stew is a nightmare for project managers,
customers, APIs, industrial systems and much more. DevOps leads and business execs. A mix of DevOps
systems, each exhausting data in isolation, obscures
The Reality of DevOps visibility into the overall process.
DevOps introduces agile development methods into
Flying blind in the DevOps world means there’s no way
software-defined infrastructure and operations. It
to tell if “fixes” solve the root problem or just provide
is about constant iteration. Code is defined, tested,
a temporary patch. If teams lack full visibility into the
deployed, monitored and measured. When problems
entire cycle of code development, release and usage
are encountered, the code is modified and the process
data, they can’t validate app quality, performance and
starts again. Rinse and repeat. The entire process
security. For example, a security monitoring software
requires speed, agility and an organizational mindset
can identify a vulnerability, but without a means of
that embraces incremental improvements and fast
tracking the problem back to its source software
failure — not big bang software releases.
module, the problem can’t be fixed.
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Additionally, when organizations lack visibility into Realizing the Full Value of
DevOps metrics, they can’t achieve the agility needed
DevOps
to try new ideas or iterate in response to changing
business conditions. And without a data feedback loop DevOps is a buzzword for most executives, and a lack of
covering the entire app delivery lifecycle, organizations familiarity often leads to unrealistic expectations. They
struggle identifying errors in code development, testing, have high hopes for what it can achieve, but lacking a
QA and production. The result is poor quality, which can proper understanding of the principles, process and
lead to customer dissatisfaction and churn. challenges sets them up for disappointment.

Disjointed DevOps-build pipelines result in multiple, Without a platform to provide data-driven feedback,
time-consuming handoffs throughout the application DevOps is unlikely to be successful. The only way
delivery process, which risks the introduction of organizations can avoid this pitfall is to use data to
redundant features and lowers efficiency through measure, report and demonstrate the success of
task-switching that drain everyone’s resources. A DevOps, while using data-driven insights to optimize
disconnected delivery workflow also means impaired and improve it over time.
collaboration (with cross-departmental gaps by teams
using different terminologies and having different
DevOps in Practice
viewpoints on the overall project). Together, the friction Agile companies are tuned into customer needs. Being
in communication and information sharing undermines tuned in requires a data-driven platform that provides
trust and cooperation and runs counter to the core constant feedback to help all areas of an organization:
premise of DevOps. IT, app developers, line of business execs, security
teams, auditors and others. By providing fact-based
insights and decision support, a DevOps data platform
Without a platform to provide data-driven feedback, enables businesses to move swiftly to embrace good
DevOps is unlikely to be successful. The only way ideas and eliminate bad ones.
organizations can avoid this pitfall is to use data to
To do this correctly, DevOps requires data, tools and
measure, report and demonstrate the success of
processes that provide all stakeholders with continuous
DevOps, while using data-driven insights to optimize
insights into the DevOps workflow necessary to
and improve it over time.
run business units, application development and IT
operations. Machine data provides the raw materials for
these insightsand decisions, and used properly, delivers
many benefits (Table 1).

Table 1. Benefits of Using Machine Data for DevOps Analytics

Benefit Impact on the business

Better decision IT needs an organized way to address and manage potential breach as well as the aftermath
making of a security breach or attack in order to limit damage and reduce recovery time and cost.

Monitoring user activity with context is critical to pinpoint breaches and uncover misuse.
Easier access to data
Privileged user monitoring is a common requirement for compliance reporting.

Enhanced security Threat intelligence can help IT recognize abnormal activity, assess the risk to the business,
and compliance and prioritize the response.

Analytics are key to producing insights from mountains of data, and machine learning can
Improved uptime
automate this analysis to identify hidden threats.

Faster development Security professionals need specialized tools to monitor, analyze and detect threats
time across the kill chain.

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In practice, successfully coupling DevOps with Create Better Applications With

comprehensive, data-driven analytics provides
Real-Time Insights
three key benefits: faster application delivery, better
application quality and better business quality. Machine data from across the DevOps tool chain
provides information that enables proactive response
Deliver Applications Faster Using to issues early in the development and testing cycle.
Data Analytics With machine data, developers and operations teams
can see and fix problems before customers and users
Achieving agility and customer satisfaction requires
experience the frustration of broken features and
DevOps teams to have four key capabilities:
crashing apps. This type of proactive response requires
• Monitoring: Every component of the DevOps build a common data platform that DevOps teams can use
and delivery workflow must be instrumented with as a single version of the truth that is comparable
the data collected into a master repository for to the way source code control systems empowers
further analysis. Without data, it’s impossible to developers to consolidate and share work results.
understand and remediate app delivery issues.
Instrumenting and analyzing the entire DevOps process
• Iteration: Code fixes and improvements must be
can demonstrate the actual performance, usage and
rapidly identified, triaged and developed using
error data that are critical to improving both the end
data correlated from throughout the tool chain to
product and overall process. A common data platform
provide deeper application insights.
enables information to be correlated across tools and
• Collaboration: Rapid delivery requires that DevOps infrastructure and can proactively alert to problems.
teams are on the same page, use the same data For example, correlating data from code checks with
and take action based on the same measurements. performance monitoring systems can reveal problems
• Optimization: DevOps managers must constantly before users file bug reports.
strive to improve the process by making fact based
Consolidating data from throughout the DevOps
decisions. Process optimization requires data-
delivery cycle requires a platform that can ingest
driven answers to questions such as:
data in real time from across tools used in the eight-
- What is our rate of “idea-to-cash,” our end-to-end phase cycle described earlier. Development tools are
throughput to profitability? constantly changing, and so is the data.
- How long is each phase of our delivery pipeline?
Data is the raw material of DevOps measurement, but
- How much time do teams spend writing, testing it must come from objective metrics that can quantify
or reviewing code? whether code meets functional and operational specs
- Which development teams are the most and quality SLAs. Using a common data repository to
productive? analyze the entire DevOps process can help achieve:
• Quantifiable measurement of code review and
resolution times
The benefits of data-driven DevOps flow directly to
• A single data repository for bug analysis and project
the bottom line—improving the business through
tracking tools
greater efficiency and developer productivity, faster
• Consistent, measurable and trackable benchmarks
application delivery, lower costs, higher customer
for bug rates across development teams and code
satisfaction and greater revenue.
releases
• Increased visibility of test and software quality
assurance metrics that allow problems to be
identified before production release

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• Tighter integration of security into the development data indexing and correlation not only provide visibility
process, or what is increasingly known as DevSecOps. into the delivery status of key features, but also help
By gathering applications and security intelligence draw connections between DevOps activity and
analysis early in a build cycle, development teams relevant customer and business metrics.
can deliver more secure and compliant code by Fact-driven DevOps improves the customer experience
spotting and eliminating vulnerabilities early. A by delivering better performing and more useful code.
common DevOps data platform means that security Better code means happier customers, and happier
audit data is collected and easily available in one customers are more loyal. Using data from across the
place. The net result of real-time, data-driven DevOps-build pipeline means customer satisfaction
insights from the application build pipeline enables can be directly tied to code releases by analyzing
security teams to communicate, alert and avert new metrics like application usage and sales. Other common
potential threats before applications are deployed. DevOps-related business metrics include:

Get Better Business Results • The rate of customer signups and downloads and
revenue changes looking for peaks and troughs
The benefits of data-driven DevOps flow directly to the
associated with product releases
bottom line—improving the business through greater
efficiency and developer productivity, faster application • Changes in customer engagement and sell through
delivery, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction and or cart abandonment
greater revenue. Organizations that expand use of a
comprehensive data analytics platform like Splunk from
Analytics Quantifies and
its traditional role in IT operations to DevOps can expect:
Enhances DevOps Benefits
Success in the digital world requires agility. This is
• Real-time visibility of usage, performance, reliability,
achieved through an efficient DevOps release process,
errors and security incidents for new applications
and data analytics are needed to get the most out of a
releases, not delayed by hours or days as when
DevOps program.
using ad hoc reporting
• Dramatically lower MTTR, up to 70 percent faster DevOps practitioners must continuously improve
production and 40 percent faster pre-production responsiveness, collaboration, security and regulatory
problem resolution compliance—all of which directly enhance business
reputation and customer satisfaction through rapid
• Greater efficiency through automated data
development of innovative products. Yet, adopting
ingestion and analysis. Developers and operations
DevOps comes with many challenges that are often the
teams can focus on meeting the business needs
result of complex processes and tool chains. Business
and not wasting time on building and maintaining
execs, IT leaders and development teams must
monitoring tools
understand not only the benefits of DevOps, but how to
Ensuring DevOps teams stay aligned with business successfully achieve them.
requires a continuous delivery process with frequent
The secret to DevOps success is quantified validation.
releases that are measured and correlated with actual
The adage “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it”
business results. A DevOps analytics platform can
still applies, and a consolidated data analytics platform
ingest business-relevant data from a variety of sources
provides the ideal system for measurement and evaluation.
in the cloud or on premises. Consolidated, universal

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