Deploy to Production: 5 Tips to Make It Smoother

Who hasn’t had issues when deploying a software change to production? No one.

I once accidentally deleted a bin folder from a .NET application in one of four servers when deploying a change. The site was working intermittently as a consequence, so I had to check all the servers …

Agile and DevOps: Why Are You Keeping Them Separate?

I first heard about agile many years ago. I learned then that the movement started in 2001 when a group of professionals met and created the Agile Manifesto. The manifesto describes a way of developing software faster by focusing more on how to provide value than anything else.

Personally, when …

The Pitfalls of Feature Branching

Working with feature branching reminds me of building a house. You don’t see general contractors insisting on making copies of their own houses when remodeling. Working in the house at the same time forces them to talk to each other and come to an agreement over a conflict. Imagine …

The Top 5 Use Cases for Feature Flags

The concept of feature flags is really simple: it’s a conditional block of code that you strategically put somewhere to enable or disable features of your app easily. But knowing the top use cases for feature flags helps you to plan ahead and be more deliberate with their implementation …

Sexy But Useless DevOps Trends

What’s sexy but useless? A Ferrari in a traffic jam. It’s beautiful, but all that power means nothing. When trapped in traffic, it can’t live up to its full potential.

Same with DevOps. While there are some critical DevOps functions that you absolutely need, there are some …

5 Critical DevOps Practices

DevOps is like pizza. We can’t think of pizza without considering critical ingredients: dough, sauce, cheese, and your preferred choice for vegetables and proteins. Everyone likes different toppings. In my case, I can’t think about pizza without extra cheese and meat. You might choose differently, but I think …

Is DevOps Possible in Government Agencies?

Let’s not beat around the bush. Yes, it’s possible.

And before you close this tab because you’re not working for the government, let me say that what you’ll read in this post will provide a good example of how big organizations could implement DevOps—organizations where …

Why IT and Software Delivery Service Cycles Are Getting So Much Faster?

I had the opportunity to attend Amazon's AWS re:Invent conference this year. The number of new services they launched was amazing. And in November, Microsoft held the virtual conference called Connect(). They, too, announced plenty of new initiatives. But what does this have to do with delivery service cycles …