Add 02-ops-dev article
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title: "Dear ops, it's 2019 and you need dev skills"
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subtitle: "Evolve, or die in pain"
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date: 2019-06-21
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draft: false
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tags: [ops, dev, devops, opinion]
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---
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# To infinity... and beyond!
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DevOps, IaC, AGILE, SCRUM, Containers, SysOps, CI/CD, microservices, serverless, FAAS
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Yes, it's a buzzwords **shitstorm** but all of these concepts summarize how
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_software development_ and _deployment_ evolves. Do i think that sysadmins
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time is over ? **No**.
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But time as come, _we_, as sysadmins, have to adapt to this moving
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industry.
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Accept it or die, but [cloud
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computing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing) is the norm now.
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Small IT companies with "good old LAMP" as the only business model will die
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soon.
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Dont' be scared, take a deep breathe and let's dive into this !
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# DevOps is the new sexy
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## DevOps = "Dev" + "Ops"
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_DevOps_, _SecDevOps_, _DevOps Enginner_ are the most used terms in job
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requests. But, after all, what the fuck is that shit ?
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In most cases, IT projets human resources can be split into two teams :
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- [Dev](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmer) : This team write
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application code. Pushed by marketing teams, clients or users, the main
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purpose of the dev team is **adding new feature** to the software.
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- [Ops](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_administrator) : This team have
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to maintain operational conditions and ensure that **prod is up, up to date
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and stable**.
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By means, this two job positions are in conflict. On one side, ops team wants
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stable and predictable stuff, on the other side, dev team wants liberty to
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move quickly in order to add new features and meet commercial goals and
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objectives.
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What could be done to satisfy both worlds ? **DevOps**
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## DevOps culture
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First of all, no, DevOps is not a job title _(even if everyone on LinkedIn
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thinks so)_. It's a culture, a way of thinking and the more important point
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of this is : it tells how to organize software development teams.
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The purpose is to put ops and devs to an agreement. Afterall, everyone works for the
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same goal : **build the best product, work less and make more money**.
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DevOps presents a new way of thinking how teams collaborate. The main purpose
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of DevOps is to open discussions between Ops and Dev. Dev have to be aware of
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how the code is deployed and how the production systems are handled by the
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ops team. On the other hand, ops needs some dev skills in order to understand
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correcly what type of software is served in production.
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To sum it up, DevOps could be presented using a loop of all these concepts and
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actions :
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- Define a task, or feature, focused on needs from customers or clients
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- Implement this feature or execute the defined task
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- Code review
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- Tests (unit tests, integration tests, staging tests)
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- Functionnal testing on a preproduction environment
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- Push to production
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- Handle and analyse feedback from production
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In order to archive all this tasks, teams have to communicate clearly on what
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should be done by each team and in some cases, there is an overlap between
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dev tasks and ops tasks but the final goal is the same : get to the best
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possible result.
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## Devops methods and concepts
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Now that the culture is presented, let's take a look at how this principles
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can be applied to the real world.
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### Contract
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The top most important thing is what I call a **contract**. This is an
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agreement that create a link between dev and ops. A contract needs to be as
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descriptive as possible. On one hand developpers needs to tell to administrators
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all of the project details, what needs to be run and what are the
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dependencies or services required by the application. On the other hand,
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operators have to understand dev needs and do all the plumbing to deploy dev
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requests to production.
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In most cases, this contract can be represented by
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[containers](https://www.docker.com/resources/what-container) and a
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[docker-compose](https://docs.docker.com/compose/) file. It's declarative,
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easy to read, easy to understand and clear enough to know what needs to be
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run and what kind of plumbing is needed to make all services works together
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to create the whole application.
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If this not clear enough, here is a generic example :
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{{< highlight yaml "linenos=table" >}}
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version: '3'
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services:
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web:
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image: galaxies:version
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volumes:
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- ./src:/dest
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depends_on:
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- db
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ports:
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- 8080
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label:
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- "frontend.rule=Host:galaxies.rick"
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db:
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image: postgres
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volumes:
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- ./mounts/db_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
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environment:
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POSTGRES_USER: RICK
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POSTGRES_PASSWORD: C137
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POSTGRES_DB: galaxies
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{{< / highlight >}}
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An ops, receiving this file, can extract a lot of information on how the
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application works.
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- A web app that :
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- is accepting requests on port 8080
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- is responding using the url _galaxies.rick_
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- needs persitent storage
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- needs a a postgres database
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Now let's explain what should be done by ops to push this to production :
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0. Ensure that _galaxies.rick_ DNS points to production environment
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0. Pull galaxies:version image
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0. Ensure an access to a database (can be a container, a cluster or a standalone pg)
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0. Inject database variables into production environment
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0. Start the galaxies:version image
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0. Update HTTP reverse proxy rules to redirect _galaxies.rick_ to _galaxies:version_ on port _8080_
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And **voilà**, now you have a clear line between what kind of stuff
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developers will push to production and how the operators will plug the
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project on the production environment.
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### Automation
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Okay, okay ! But as an ops, I don't want to take care of all this stuff everytime dev needs to push a new version of the sotfware !
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Me too, and this is why the second top most important thing is **automation** !
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Take a look at all the tasks described earlier, do you really want to make all
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those changes by hand using vim on the production environment ?
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Ten or even twenty years ago, the first automated things was machine boostrap
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and basic configuration using scripts. Modern applications requirements means
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more machines, more complexity. The easieast way to handle this new level is
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to delegate some of the tasks to computers using **declarative** structures.
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This is why tools like _Ansible_ are now popular and widely used. Today we
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want to describe a state and let tools do the stuff needed to get to this
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state. Why ? Because this is the simpliest way to normalize how things have
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to be done[^1] and to get complex systems up and running. If there is a bug
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or a missing feature in one of this tool, there is a good chance that you
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will have to put your hands in the grease and code it.
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This first step of automation gives ops opportunity to work on tools
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associated to concepts like [Continuous
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Integration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_integration) and
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[Continuous Delivery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_delivery).
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Do not forget that current apps do more things than serving a simple website.
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By using small iterations, dev gain the ability to make small changes often
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in contrast to doing major updates. This way of develivering software enhance
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stability because most of the code base is not changed between deployments
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to production. If something goes wrong it will be a lot easier to bisect to
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the root causes of this bug or unexpected app response.
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To give dev the power to deliver atomic changes to pre-production, staging
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and production, they need to deploy all the stuff by themselves in a
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**predictable and reproducible** and the answer is automation !
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### Metrics & alerting
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```
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With great power comes great responsibility !
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```
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This is why metrics matters. If devs can deploy stuff to prod, they also need
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to know if everything is working as expected and no, I will not give them
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root access to production !
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Enabling low level metrics ensure to ops that production is up and running
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smoothly but this is not enough to apply DevOps principles. Devs also need
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**visitiliy** on how the app is handling requests (success / error rates) or
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some status about the queue system. Every team needs different sets of
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metrics, specific to their missions.
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With metrics, comes **alerting**. If metrics are well defined, alterting can
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be routed to people who are aware of what can be done to resolve the problem.
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For example, if the app goes crazy, a member of the dev team will be in the
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right position to take action and fix the problem but if it's a proxy memory
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leak, an ops will probably know what to do and to dig, to find and resolve
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the issue.
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Performance monitoring is as mandatory as alerts. Teams wants to be sure that
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the newly pushed feature is working and that there is no performance drop
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somewhere else in the application.
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### Culture, sharing and empathy
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Sharing is caring
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Sharing is one of the key to apply DevOps concepts and culture. In this
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situation, sharing is not restricted to **communication** but also
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**responsabilities**
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If dev teams **share responsabilities** with ops team, there is a all new
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field of possibilities to collaborate and simplify deployment and
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maintenance. For ops team, a better communication and shared responsabilities
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with dev ensure that they have access to informations regarding businesses
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goals, productions requirements.
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If devs and ops are both responsible of failure, or sucess, of the product,
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there is less possibility to fall in a blame counter-blame situation. With
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more communication and a strong trust chain between members of ops and dev
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teams, everyone gets autonomy and a voice in dev or deployment process.
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Last but not least, a lots of **empathy** is needed. Failure is a success !
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It's one of the best way to learn new things but this is only possible in a
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safe and tolerant environment. The war between dev and ops is over. Listening
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and talking to eveyrone will probably help every member of the teams.
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## Limits
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Of course, DevOps is not perfect. When misunderstood, this can be quite
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catastrophic. Reducing DevOps to a buzzword is as silly as taking everything
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as Truth in the holy Bible. DevOps is a mentality, you will have to create
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your own DevOps culture.
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A lots of managers and leaders thinks that DevOps means, fire half of the
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devs , half of the admin, mixup, and voilà. Is this sharing ? No ! Doing
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DevOps means more distributed responsability and less stress for everyone.
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Another wrong idea is to think that more deployments means more features.
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Integrating deployments automations and testing is only used to enhance
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robusteness of the all system. The idea is not to make more feature, but more
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small changes in order to increase poduction stability.
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# A new open field
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After all that, there is clearly an emerging need of programming skills
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common to all the principles and methods presented.
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## Why Industry needs (smart)ops ?
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A smartops is someone who clearly understand that the IT industry is
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changing. Everything is moving to the **cloud**, more and more services are
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externalized and everything becomes more and more automated. All this stuff
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creates a violent shift between two sets of methods.
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- an old one
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- launch command in a terminal using ssh
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- bash scripts to setup things
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- edit file directly on production using _vim_
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- a new one
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- pipelines
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- automation
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- services interactions between HTTP services
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No I'm not saying that ssh is dead. I'm saying that methods evolves.
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As more automation means less human action, there is clearly a move to
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descriptive infrastructure deployments and internal services doing all the
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plumbing stuff needed to get a stable and viable production.
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In order to achieve all this new challenges, industry needs to delegate tasks
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to smart programs write using code. This new services and automation programs
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have to be **written by ops**, beceause they are the ones who trully knows
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how to run production systems at scale. But, sorry to say that, perl and bash
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scripts can do that kind of jobs. More automation of everything also means
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automation of the most complex tasks in the stack and this is where scripting
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langages are not enough.
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For the ones who thinks I'm wrong, maybe. But here is my opinion based on a
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lots of bash and perl script experiments. When things needs at least
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parallelism, http requests and response manipulations, strong error handling
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or ability to push stuff inside a monitoring stack, golang will be my choice
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and I deeply think it should be yours too because this is the main purpose
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of this kind of new languages, created specificaly to answer dev and ops
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problems.
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Moving from scripting to programming will also help smartops understand how
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software they put in production works. By knowing how to construct a
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software, ops will gain the ability to help devs, integrating every one in a
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DevOps culture.
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## New profiles, new horizons
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Yes, ops **needs dev skills** in order to get a role in teams resolving new
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challenges that comes with modern infrastructures and cloud infrastructures.
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This changing ecosystem also gives evolution ability to ops and dev. With
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efforts, everyone can, at least, take a look at how roles and interconnection
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between ops and dev works. To be clear, i'm saying that dev also needs ops
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skills ! But i keep that for another article, stay tuned.
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If old ops don't want to make the effort, that's not a problem because new kind of
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people get what is happening. Believe it or not but it's real. The smartops
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community is **inclusive**. Even if this is not perfect yet, the _golang_ and
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_k8s_ is clearly LGBT and women friendly !
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I want to thanks all the _LBGT_||women gophers||ops[^2] I follow because they
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are the roots of this wonderful and refreshing community[^3]. The best thing
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I can do is to invite you to follow this people ! Here is the list :
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- [Jessie Frazelle](https://twitter.com/jessfraz)
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- [Ashley McNamara](https://twitter.com/ashleymcnamara)
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- [Ellen Korbes](https://twitter.com/ellenkorbes)
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- [Kris Nova](https://twitter.com/krisnova)
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- [Jaana B. Dogan](https://twitter.com/rakyll)
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- [Francesc Campoy](https://twitter.com/francesc)
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- [Aditya Mukerjee](https://twitter.com/chimeracoder)
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[^1]: Alice likes apt-get, Bob likes aptitude ? I don't care, I just want a standardized way to install a package
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[^2]: This is an inclusive OR
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[^3]: If you want to be removed or added to the list, just send me a tweet or whatever.
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