Post on 11-May-2015
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ITIL Release Managementand Automation
Eric Minickeric@urbancode.com
@EricMinickBlogs.urbancode.com
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The Plan for Today
• ITIL: – A brief introduction– The generic problem of implementing ITIL
• Release Management:– Rise of release management– ITIL release management concepts– Varying approach to release management
• Automation:– The end of speed vs. control– Adding value across the SDLC
• ITIL Release Managers Acting as DevOps Facilitators
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IT Infrastructure Library
• Public framework of “Best Practice” for IT Service Management v1: 1989 – 1995, v2: 2000 – 2004, v3: 2007 Updated for 2011
v3: Service LifecycleService Strategy,Service Design,Service Transition, Service Operation, Continual Services Improvement
http://www.best-management-practice.com
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The generic problem in ITIL
• “The guidance in the ITIL publications is applicable generically”– Organizational needs vary– Little guidance on implementation
• Hard to understand the generic language– “A service is a means of delivering value to customers by facilitating
outcomes customers want to achieve without the ownership of specific costs and risks.”
– “Service Management is a set of specialized organizational capabilities for providing value to customers in the form of services.”
Quotes from “An Introductory Overview of ITIL V3”,The IT Service Management Forum
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The generic problem in ITIL
• “The guidance in the ITIL publications is applicable generically”– Organizational needs vary– Little guidance on implementation
• Hard to understand the generic language– “A service is a means of delivering value to customers by facilitating
outcomes customers want to achieve without the ownership of specific costs and risks.”
– “Service Management is a set of specialized organizational capabilities for providing value to customers in the form of services.”
Quotes from “An Introductory Overview of ITIL V3”,The IT Service Management Forum
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Loose translation from ITIL 2011 Glossary
• Configuration Item: a unit of stuff• Release: all the stuff (not just software)• Deployment: moving stuff to the live
environment• Release Window: agreed time to move stuff• Build Environment: a controlled environment
to assemble stuff• Definitive Media Library (DML): only place to
get software stuff for a release
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Agenda
• ITIL: – A brief introduction– The generic problem of implementing ITIL
• Release Management:– Rise of release management– ITIL release management concepts– Varying approach to release management
• Automation:– The end of speed vs. control– Adding value across the SDLC
• ITIL Release Managers Acting as DevOps Facilitators
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The rise of release management
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Increasing architectural complexity
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More complex team structures
Reversed Conway’s Law– Complex architectures require complex
organizational structures
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More complex team structures, ctd
• Implicit system knowledge scattered across geography and companies– Distributed development– Offshore development– Outsource development– Outsourced IT operations
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Faster pace of software development
• Business agility is about being able to respond in the market
Dotted line represents market. Solid line our applications based on imperfect guesses of market direction.
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The ITIL release management concept
• Service Transition, 4.4: Release and Deployment Management
– “Release and Deployment Management aims to build, test and deliver the capability to provide the services specified by Service Design and that will accomplish the stakeholders' requirements and deliver the intended objectives.”
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The ITIL release management concept
• Service Transition, 4.4: Release and Deployment Management
– “Release and Deployment Management aims to build, test and deliver the capability to provide the services specified by Service Design and that will accomplish the stakeholders' requirements and deliver the intended objectives.”
• ITIL 2011 update– Release Management is called upon from Project
Management to perform the planning of build, test and deployment of Releases.
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Approaches to release management
Super project management
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Approaches to release management
Gate Keepers
Image source: http://www.denverpost.com/travel/ci_7524577
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Approaches to release management
Post Office
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Approaches to release management
DevOps facilitators
Image source: http://westlawinsider.com/legal-research/headnote-of-the-day/westlaw-headnote-of-the-day-march-30-2011/
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Agenda
• ITIL: – A brief introduction– The generic problem of implementing ITIL
• Release Management:– Rise of release management– ITIL release management concepts– Varying approach to release management
• Automation:– The end of speed vs. control– Adding value across the SDLC
• ITIL Release Managers Acting as DevOps Facilitators
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Automation: speed vs. control
• False dichotomy resulting from– Risk-tolerant vs. risk-adverse mindsets– Different bonus plans
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Automation: speed vs. control
• False dichotomy resulting from– Risk-tolerant vs. risk-adverse mindsets– Different bonus plans
• Automation improves– Speed– Control– Visibility– Auditability
http://www.streetfire.net/video/126-top-gear-self-driving-bmw_180380.htm
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Complexity demands automation
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Manual bug fix & retest process
http://www.urbancode.com/html/resources/white-papers/Build_and_Deployment_Automation_for_the_Lean_Economy/
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Automation in bug fix & retest process
http://www.urbancode.com/html/resources/white-papers/Build_and_Deployment_Automation_for_the_Lean_Economy/
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Tie Automation to your RM Approach
• Super project management– Use it to track what’s where.
• Release management as gate keepers– Enforce gates automatically. IE: Tie execution of
deployment to Stage to results of automated tests.
• Release management as DevOps facilitators– Automate handoff elements and push for increased
consistency.
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Agenda
• ITIL: – A brief introduction– The generic problem of implementing ITIL
• Release Management:– Rise of release management– ITIL release management concepts– Varying approach to release management
• Automation:– The end of speed vs. control– Adding value across the SDLC
• ITIL Release Managers Acting as DevOps Facilitators
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Release management spans the SDLC
Silos Stink
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Don’t be a silo. Be a Silo Smasher.
Dev Ops
ReleaseManagers
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Use common automation against silos
• Common builds• Common IaaS• Common deployments
• Shared ownership of release pipeline
But we’re soo different, we need
our own thing
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Use common automation against silos
• Common builds• Common IaaS• Common deployments• Shared ownership of
release pipeline
But we’re soo different, we need
our own thing
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Process Transformation
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Form a process team
• Release Management chairs this team
• Other members:– Stakeholders across the SDLC: Devs, QA, Ops, Sec..
• Team meets– Regularly (quarterly or in line Dev Sprints)– For Post-mortem’s of any outage and releases
• RM incorporates results into official SDLC
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The cardinal sins of post mortem results
• Our action item is never, ever, ever “Be more careful”
• It’s almost never “document _____ better”
• Avoid “Release less often”
* For more on good and bad post-mortems, check out “How to Make Failure Beautiful: The Art and Science of Postmortems” by Jake Loomis in Web Operations (ed. Allspaw & Robbins)
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Start Updating Process: Ex. Refinements
• Because errors creep into the official builds…– Unify the CI and official builds and test nightly
• Because a new app wasn’t compatible with the live environment…– Involve sys-admins in early design phases– Setup test envs that more closely match Live
• Deployments failed due to manual error– Increase automation in deployment
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In Summary…
• ITIL RM should be DevOps facilitation
• Embrace the grand charter for RM in ITIL
• Recognize process expertise and automation pieces already available across IT (Dev & Ops)
• Co-own the process, but chair a team– ITIL Continual Services Improvement
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References
http://urbancode.com/resources• Enterprise CD Maturity Model• Death to Manual Deployments!• Lean Build & Deployment Automation• Deployment Automation Basics
Blogs.urbancode.comTwitter.com/UrbancodeFacbebook.com/UrbanCodeSoftSlideshare.net/Urbancode
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Release Management & Automation Products
• uBuild – Build automation and CI for the hard problems
• uDeploy– Deployment and release management
• uProvision– Spins up virtual environments. Integrated with
VMWare, Azure and EC2• uRelease– Release & Environment management / planning
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Next Webcast
uRelease public demo - Nov 27th 13:00 US ET (GMT – 5)
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Questions?
Slides will be up at: Slideshare.net/Urbancode/More resources: Urbancode.com/resources/
Eric Minickeric@urbancode.com@EricMinick
Blogs.urbancode.com