Overcoming Continuous Build and Other DevOps Anti-Patterns
Continuous build is an anti-pattern where a team will have what they call continuous integration (CI) in place, but it only builds the code—there are no unit tests or static analysis. Certainly, this is better than not building, but it leaves a lot of health-check information on the table that is considered part of CI. Without this information, you can never really gain confidence in your build. The whole goal of CI is to feel that your build is healthy, so no tests or analysis means you aren’t doing CI. Just like CI, other DevOps practices can be hard to understand, implement, and get right. Even with the best of intentions, we make mistakes or misinterpret the implementation of a technique. Instead of tweaking a broken process and hoping this time it will be better, learn how to spot common DevOps anti-patterns and how to correct them.
Tom Stiehm has been developing applications and managing software development teams for over twenty years. As CTO of Coveros, he is responsible for the oversight of all technical projects and integrating new technologies and testing practices into software development projects. Recently, Tom has been focusing on how to incorporate DevSecOps and agile best practices into projects and how to achieve a balance between team productivity and cost while mitigating project risks. One of the best risk mitigation techniques Tom has found is leveraging DevSecOps and agile testing practices into all aspects of projects. Previously, as a managing architect at Digital Focus, Thomas was involved in agile development and found that agile is the only methodology that makes the business reality of constant change central to the process.