configuration management

DevOps is a movement that is underway or at least in the very early stages of infancy as a way to rid the IT world of some if not most of its silo’s.  Silos have existed in Information Technology (IT) from the beginning for two reasons, the complex nature of early IT systems and because that’s the way businesses are run, for the most part.  Silo’s are an easy way for Accounting to make sense of business operations, for example, marketing only does marketing activities, sales does sales, distribution does distribution, etc.  So fast forward to today’s IT environment where Agile is taking hold and become more prevalent, where IT systems are becoming more complex, where news reaches the rest of the worlds in seconds not days or weeks.  Large scale failures and inefficiency is becoming not only way of life, in some people’s eyes it’s the norm in IT.  DevOps is an attempt to correct this: Will it succeed?  Time will tell.

Agile's core principles may have been originally intended at the software development, but the concept of DevOps has shown that agile's benefits can be experienced by a much larger audience. Collaboration between these two departments benefits just as much as anyone.

Joe Farah writes on what application lifecycle management (ALM) needs, plus the underpinnings and structures that are in place within a CM and ALM tool that help give the tool significant character.

As much as software developers are stereotyped as solitary coders, software development is a collaborative activity. Communication among team members is essential in ensuring continuously working software. And working software is what makes communication with stakeholders easier. You can show the state of your application rather than explain progress in terms of more abstract concepts. Your SCM system (and processes) are an essential part of how you communicate both in and about code between developers and to stakeholders.