Abstract: The information architecture of the outline below is how the slide deck will be laid out. Each section will follow the same format giving the attendee a pattern to hold on to while many new concepts and perspectives come at them.
Introduction (10 minutes) - common ground - Who am I
- Founded and run Austin DevOps (since 2012)
- Run Docker Austin (2014)
- DevOps Days Austin Organizer
- Container Days Founder and Organizer
- What is DevOps
- DevOps is the way a technology organization embeds itself in a business to the benefit of that business
- What is Docker
- A quick history of containers
- Containers v. Virtual Machines
- Docker is linux containers for mere mortals
Docker accelerates developers (10 min) What this looks like:
- Traditional - Disposable Development environments
- Forward Thinking - Better modeling of the production topology
- Bleeding Edge - Produce container images as black boxes
The Agile Test:
- (y) Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Developers can take risks such as upgrading PHP knowing they can get back to a working state in seconds instead of days. Enabling innovation means better velocity.
- (y) Working software over comprehensive documentation
- We don't care about the contents of the container, just that it passes tests (unit, functional, security, performance etc). The tests are the documentation.
- (y) Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- A developer can change the function of a service in a container and show it to a customer (B2B) asking, "like this?"
- Developers can kick out new features that can be A/B tested on a SaaS offering (B2C)
- (y) Responding to change over following a plan
- New features in languages (the PHP example above), run time environments, web servers and the like are constantly happening but cannot be tried or deployed until containers.
Docker Accelerates Build and Test (10 min) What does this look like:
- Traditional - Better parallelism in software build and test grids
- Forwared Thinking - Better modeling of the production environment in testing
- Bleeding Edge - Build systems produce container images as artifacts to be run in production
The Agile Test:
- (y) Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- At the bleeding edge, collaboration across function becomes about producing tests rather than processes for inhibiting innovation. Code becomes the documentation and collaboration happens at the engineering level rather than the process control level.
- (y) Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Better modeling of the production environment, especially in a disposable way, means testing happens faster and more accurately.
- (m) Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- A/B testing is a form of collaboration, though generally an individual customer is unaware they are a test subject.
- (n) Responding to change over following a plan
- Responding to change is the definition of both build and quality engineering. Docker adoption has no effect.
Docker Accelerates Project Management (10 min) What does this look like:
- Traditional - None
- Forward Thinking - Coordination between Dev and QA is ease
- Bleeding Edge - Problems of The Mythical Man Month are eased by micro teams
The Agile Test:
- (y) Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Micro teams build around micro services need only communicate to to other teams when they make a breaking change. This, for example, can take a development team of 20 individuals and turn them into a collection of 5 micro teams. PM's need only manage the communication between teams when breaking changes occur, and only between 5 teams.
- (n) Working software over comprehensive documentation
- PM's don't write or operate software. Docker has no impact here.
- (m) Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Use of disposable environments could lead to PMs doing check-ins with customers that ask, "You mean like this?"
- (y) Responding to change over following a plan
- On the bleeding edge change becomes about how to ensure behavior of software rather than people. Software problems are easier than people problems.
- Change is most painful at the hand off between Dev and QA. Since that handoff is now a simply container image, the technology friction is reduced to nearly zero. This means the PM is free to focus on higher value issues.
Docker Sprains an Ankle in Operations (15 min) What does this look like:
- Traditional - Gnashing of teeth, stress and obstinance
- Forward Thinking - Working with DevOps thought leaders to identify an appropriate sandbox to do real world R&D.
- Bleeding Edge - Micro services teams (Netflix), Single tenant systems (Pantheon), Bleeding edge shops (Offers.com)
The Agile Test:
- (n) Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- At the operational level, Docker is a technology.
- (y) Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Containers are portable, so "works on my machine" is not a consideration in a Docker shop. When it gets to Ops, it works. Testing will need to focus on security and performance.
- (y) Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- In the Pantheon example, this is a crucial point. Customers use the fully featured system indefinitely for free. They purchase value added services like performance, back up and the like.
- (n) Responding to change over following a plan
- Ops, by definition, is about eliminating the need for reaction in the production environment.
Summary (5 Min) - Should you consider a Docker Adoption at Your Company?
- Can you derive benefit where it matters most? (making money)
- Can you sandbox the adoption to create safe or low risk learning opportunites?
- Can you work with your operations team to identify these sandboxes?
- Can you, by success, generate a demand across all teams in a project for the use of Docker?
Questions (15 min) - A list of the books and web content referenced in the talk will be on screen during Q&A
While I am extraordinarily keen to attend the conference and hone my own understanding of the Agile practice, I am at your service. Docker is a hot topic, so if there is need to start a "hallway track" after to the time slot to continue Q&A or start a B.O.F. in the evening, then I will work with you to service that demand. I would love to do a B.O.F. in the Lean Coffee format in the evening after the talk!
Learning Outcomes: - The attendee will walk away from this talk with enough high level information to determine is they should invest real time and effort investigating a Docker adoption.
