Top DevOps Links – Week 50

 The last 6 weeks have been very busy and a lot has happened in the meantime. A lot of change in the job, a lot of development in DevOps.
Regardless, it is hard to keep track of what is going on in DevOps even without some “external” disruptions.

Enough whining.
Let’s get back to business. As much as possible I tried to keep track and below is a somewhat condensed summary of links from the past weeks. If you found other
great articles, posts or musings, as always:

I show you mine, you show me yours.

 

100 Days of DevOps with PowerShell 
This project is about to wrap on December 22nd according to the website. They are now at day 75. Getting close. Let’s hope the team gets all done. But even if not, awesome content!

Azure Resource Manager DevOps Jump Start
“This course promises lots of helpful demos, an exploration into the JSON language for creating resource templates, and a look at Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) integration. And it takes a deep dive into some DevOps best practices …”

Microsoft’s Second-Gen Open Compute Server Design Now Open Source
Microsoft invested already over $15b in cloud infrastructure. Learn some of the technical details and read about its Open Source strategy around server design.

What Makes Someone an Engaging Leader?
“Engagement is a leadership responsibility – but by and large, leaders are failing in this regard. Our research suggests that, for most companies, the turnaround won’t happen quickly.”

Visual Studio Release Manager for Azure VMs
Automating multi-stage deployment and managing the release process.

Four ways to help the business understand what IT is talking about
More on the soft skills side of technology folk talking to the business. Helpful read to get started making valuable connections.

Culture Change, Slow And Steady
Sue Schade, CIO, University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers, writes about her experiences, successes, and challenges in changing the culture in IT at UMHS. Great read.

A Hybrid Approach to Outsourcing Fuels IT Success
“Rompetrol, a European petroleum producer, rethinks and revises its IT strategy to be more cost-effective and to align more closely with business requirements.”

Microsoft study finds everybody wants DevOps but culture is a challenge
Shameless plug: My team worked with an awesome team from Saugatuck Technologies to find out more about challenges and opportunities ahead in DevOps. It was also meant to get some insights into where a typical Microsoft customer (not that that exists) stands vs. what companies using mostly Open Source technologies want and expect from a DevOps supporting infrastructure. You can download the full study here.

CoreOS is building a container runtime, Rocket
The Container Wars, Episode 1

DevOps and Change Agents: Common Themes
Another great post from the folks over at Puppet Labs. “The urge for change is driven by frustration.”

CIOs need to get clear on their cloud for DevOps to work
Cloud is one of the most influential change agents for DevOps.