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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 life cycle 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 DevOps in practice

DevOps metrics, they can’t achieve the agility needed
Agile companies are tuned into customer needs. Being
to try new ideas or iterate in response to changing
tuned in requires a data-driven platform that provides
business conditions. And without a data feedback loop
constant feedback to help all areas of an organization:
covering the entire app delivery life cycle, organizations
IT, app developers, line of business execs, security
struggle to identify errors in code development, testing,
teams, auditors and others. By providing fact-based
QA and production. The result is poor quality, which can
insights and decision support, a DevOps data platform
lead to customer dissatisfaction and churn.
enables businesses to move swiftly to embrace good
Disjointed DevOps-build pipelines result in multiple, ideas and eliminate bad ones.
time-consuming handoffs throughout the application
To do this correctly, DevOps requires data, tools and
delivery process, which risk the introduction of
processes that provide all stakeholders with continuous
redundant features and lower efficiency through
insights into the DevOps workflow necessary to run
task-switching that drains everyone’s resources. A
business units, application development and IT operations.
disconnected delivery workflow also means impaired
collaboration (with cross-departmental gaps by teams In practice, successfully coupling DevOps with
using different terminologies and having different comprehensive, data-driven analytics provides
viewpoints on the overall project). Together, the friction three key benefits: faster application delivery, better
in communication and information sharing undermines application quality and better business quality.
trust and cooperation and runs counter to the core
premise of DevOps. Deliver applications faster using
data analytics
Achieving agility and customer satisfaction requires
Without a platform to provide data-driven feedback,
DevOps teams to have four key capabilities:
DevOps is unlikely to be successful. The only way
organizations can avoid this pitfall is to use data to • Monitoring: Every component of the DevOps build
measure, report and demonstrate the success of and delivery workflow must be instrumented with
DevOps, while using data-driven insights to optimize the data collected into a master repository for
and improve it over time. further analysis. Without data, it’s impossible to
understand and remediate app delivery issues.
• Iteration: Code fixes and improvements must be
Realizing the full value of DevOps rapidly identified, triaged and developed using
data correlated from throughout the tool chain to
DevOps is a buzzword for most executives, and a lack of
provide deeper application insights.
familiarity often leads to unrealistic expectations. They
• Collaboration: Rapid delivery requires that DevOps
have high hopes for what it can achieve, but lacking a
teams are on the same page, use the same data
proper understanding of the principles, process and
and take action based on the same measurements.
challenges sets them up for disappointment.
• Optimization: DevOps managers must constantly
Without a platform to provide data-driven feedback,
strive to improve the process by making fact-based
DevOps is unlikely to be successful. The only way
decisions. Process optimization requires data-
organizations can avoid this pitfall is to use data to
driven answers to questions such as:
measure, report and demonstrate the success of
- What is our rate of “idea-to-cash,” our end-to-end
DevOps, while using data-driven insights to optimize
throughput to profitability?
and improve it over time.
- How long is each phase of our delivery pipeline?
- How much time do teams spend writing, testing
or reviewing code?
- Which development teams are the most
productive?
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• Consistent, measurable and trackable benchmarks

The benefits of data-driven DevOps flow directly to for bug rates across development teams and code
the bottom line — improving the business through releases.
greater efficiency and developer productivity, faster • Increased visibility of test and software quality
application delivery, lower costs, higher customer assurance metrics that allow problems to be
satisfaction and greater revenue. identified before production release.
• Tighter integration of security into the development
process, or what is increasingly known as DevSecOps.
Create better applications with By gathering applications and security intelligence
real-time insights analysis early in a build cycle, development teams
Machine data from across the DevOps tool chain can deliver more secure and compliant code by
provides information that enables proactive response spotting and eliminating vulnerabilities early. A
to issues early in the development and testing cycle. common DevOps data platform means that security
With machine data, developers and operations teams audit data is collected and easily available in one
can see and fix problems before customers and users place. The net result of real-time, data-driven
experience the frustration of broken features and insights from the application build pipeline enables
crashing apps. This type of proactive response requires security teams to communicate, alert and avert new
a common data platform that DevOps teams can use as potential threats before applications are deployed.
a single version of the truth that is comparable to the
way source code control systems empower developers
Get better business results
to consolidate and share work results. The benefits of data-driven DevOps flow directly to the
bottom line — improving the business through greater
Instrumenting and analyzing the entire DevOps process
efficiency and developer productivity, faster application
can demonstrate the actual performance, usage and
delivery, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction and
error data that are critical to improving both the end
greater revenue. Organizations that expand use of a
product and overall process. A common data platform
comprehensive data analytics platform like Splunk from
enables information to be correlated across tools and
its traditional role in IT operations to DevOps can expect:
infrastructure and can proactively alert to problems.
For example, correlating data from code checks with • Real-time visibility of usage, performance, reliability,
performance monitoring systems can reveal problems errors and security incidents for new applications
before users file bug reports. releases, not delayed by hours or days as when
using ad hoc reporting.
Consolidating data from throughout the DevOps
delivery cycle requires a platform that can ingest • Dramatically lower MTTR, up to 70% faster production
data in real time from across tools used in the eight- and 40% faster pre-production problem resolution.
phase cycle described earlier. Development tools are • Greater efficiency through automated data
constantly changing, and so is the data. ingestion and analysis. Developers and operations
teams can focus on meeting the business needs
Data is the raw material of DevOps measurement, but
and not wasting time on building and maintaining
it must come from objective metrics that can quantify
monitoring tools.
whether code meets functional and operational specs
and quality SLAs. Using a common data repository to Ensuring DevOps teams stay aligned with business
analyze the entire DevOps process can help achieve: requires a continuous delivery process with frequent
releases that are measured and correlated with actual
• Quantifiable measurement of code review and
business results. A DevOps analytics platform can
resolution times.
ingest business-relevant data from a variety of sources
• A single data repository for bug analysis and project
in the cloud or on-premises. Consolidated, universal
tracking tools.
data indexing and correlation not only provide visibility

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into the delivery status of key features, but also help Analytics quantifies and
draw connections between DevOps activity and
enhances DevOps benefits
relevant customer and business metrics.
Success in the digital world requires agility. This is
Fact-driven DevOps improves the customer experience
achieved through an efficient DevOps release process,
by delivering better performing and more useful code.
and data analytics are needed to get the most out of a
Better code means happier customers, and happier
DevOps program.
customers are more loyal. Using data from across the
DevOps-build pipeline means customer satisfaction DevOps practitioners must continuously improve
can be directly tied to code releases by analyzing responsiveness, collaboration, security and regulatory
metrics like application usage and sales. Other common compliance — all of which directly enhance business
DevOps-related business metrics include: reputation and customer satisfaction through rapid
development of innovative products. Yet, adopting
• The rate of customer sign-ups and downloads and
DevOps comes with many challenges that are often the
revenue changes looking for peaks and troughs
result of complex processes and tool chains. Business
associated with product releases.
execs, IT leaders and development teams must
• Changes in customer engagement and sell-through understand not only the benefits of DevOps, but how to
or cart abandonment. successfully achieve them.
The secret to DevOps success is quantified validation.
The adage “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it”
still applies, and a consolidated data analytics platform
provides the ideal system for measurement and evaluation.

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