Comparison of top DevOps tools (Pros and Cons)

Tools	Puppet 3.0	Chef 11.4	Ansible 1.3	Salt 0.17
Pros	Modules can be written in Ruby. Web UI handles reporting, inventorying, and real-time node management	Cookbooks and recipes can leverage Ruby Centralized JSON-based "data bags" allow scripts to populate variables during runtime Web UI lets you search and inventory nodes, view node activity, and assign Cookbooks, roles, and nodes.	Modules can be written in any lang. No agent required on managed clients. Web UI lets you configure users, teams, and inventories, and apply Playbooks to inventories. Extremely simple to set up and manage	State files can be simple configuration templates or complex Python or PyDSL scripts. Can communicate with clients through SSH/local agent Web UI offers views of running jobs, minion status, and event logs, execute commands on clients Extremely scalable.
Cons	Requires learning Puppet DSL or Ruby Installation process lacking in error checking and error reporting	Requires knowledge of Ruby programming Currently lacks functional push commands Documentation is sometimes vague	Lacks support for Windows clients Web UI doesn't tie into an existing Ansible deployment automatically; inventories must be imported	Web UI is not as mature or complete as competitors Lacks deep reporting capabilities
Pricing	Free open source version; Puppet Enterprise costs $100 per machine per year	Free open source version; Enterprise Chef free for 5 machines, $120 per month for 20 machines, $300 per month for 50 machines, $600 per month for 100 machines, and so on	Free open source version; AWX free for 10 machines, then $100 or $250 per machine per year depending on support	Free open source version; SaltStack Enterprise costs $150 per node per year, with volume discounts and site licenses available

Survey: Nearly Everybody Will be Using DevOps by End of 2015

DevOps adoption is expected to reach 93 percent by the end of 2015, according to a new survey commissioned byRackspace. A big portion of that number consists of respondents who have already implemented DevOps practices (66 percent), with more than a quarter of respondents planning to implement DevOps by the end of the year. A significant majority (close to 80 percent) of respondents are using some sort of outsourced DevOps services, a key finding for providers that have services that help customers use DevOps tools and practices, such as Rackspace.

DevOps combines many of the roles of systems administrators and developers. It is a set of principles driving greater collaboration between the different groups responsible for taking a product or service to market. IT automation products are DevOps tools, and agile software development is the cornerstone of DevOps, as the overall environment is becoming more dynamic. Major technology shifts of Internet business and collaboration technologies, open source software, and cloud computing are prompting the shift.

Rackspace has reason to both commission the survey and tout the results. It has been building up its DevOps services, and the survey supports this strategy. The Texas company has focused on managed services for cloud in order to distance itself from other cloud infrastructure service providers.

It’s known for its “Fanatical Support,” a message and philosophy the company is evolving for the cloud services world. Fanatical support extended to DevOps and automation last year, and 18 new services were launched this year. DevOps Automation is the highest tier of managed services.

Vanson Bourne performed the study, interviewing around 700 IT decision makers across the U.S., U.K., and Australia. The key takeaways, according to Chris Jackson, CTO of DevOps at Rackspace, are that the operations team is the primary driving force behind the change to DevOps, and customer satisfaction is the biggest benefit.

Given that DevOps is still in its infancy, such high penetration is almost hard to fathom. It is also hard to capture the maturity and stage of a company’s DevOps transition. The survey does examine which DevOps practices have been implemented, with half saying that development and operations teams have been fully integrated, suggesting mature DevOps adoption:

A granular breakdown of how DevOps is being executed across the organization, courtesy of Rackspace

 

The survey shows that DevOps is important, almost all companies strategizing how to move to this approach. The key priority for future implementations is to align DevOps goals with business goals. “The results of the DevOps Adoption Study validate that there is significant recognition among global businesses that DevOps is fundamental to fully exploiting the cloud in the pursuit of driving rapid innovation,” said Prashanth Chandrasekar, GM of Rackspace’s DevOps Business .

What’s the big deal about DevOps?

The biggest business benefit of switching to DevOps is the increase in customer satisfaction (over 60 percent), according to the survey. Other benefits include a reduced spend on IT infrastructure and a reduction in application downtime or failure rates, cited by about half of respondents as the biggest benefits. One third reported increase in sales and employee engagement as the benefits.\

Over 700 IT decision makers breakdown the IT benefits of DevOps (Source: Rackspace)

“Through cultural alignment, automated deployments, and agile infrastructure, businesses are using DevOps methodologies to reduce time to market by responding rapidly to customer feedback — ultimately driving significant business value and efficiency,” said Chandrasekar.

The technical benefits of DevOps are faster delivery of new features, a more stable operating environment, increased innovation, and better collaboration.

DevOps implementation

A keep it simple phased wise approach to implementing DevOps  in your organization (this is strictly not prescriptive) :

1. Scoping - Define a clear scope of what you intend to put under the DevOps services umbrella. Also which applications would you want to start with at the outset. A phased approach with a smaller non business critical application is the way to go about it as opposed to the Big Bang approach.
2. Human Resource - You may want to start with your star performer of course but make sure that he has these three most important skills : scalable and flexible, promptness and process orientation.  Also, the most ideal candidate for your DevOps core team would be a system admin with good scripting/automation skills or the agile-admin as they are more popularly called today.
3. Process framework - Whether you want to start with ITIL first and then integrate agile/scrum into the process or vice-versa. This is very important so as to prioritize from the inception so that right processes can be tweaked based on ITIL principles or agile methodology.
4. Defining  KPI's - Changing the KPI's like MTTR and MTBF has to be revisited and new metrics should be defined, implemented and measured. .This measurement is key to understanding the business and operations benefits that the company achieves with DevOps implementation.
5. Automate - Automation through tools and scripts is one of the key tenets of DevOps. The sole objective of DevOps is to achieve Quality @ the speed of delivery which requires processes to be automated and applying lean methodology by eliminating redundant processes.  

It is very imperative that the team is educated of the culture of continuous testing, integration and delivery which is built into the process to achieve the expected efficiency from DevOps implementation.