Michael Kaufmann Michael - Accelerate DevOps with GitHub: Enhance software delivery performance with GitHub Issues, Projects, Actions, and Advanced Security

Enhance software delivery performance with GitHub Issues, Projects, Actions, and Advanced Security

Michael Kaufmann

BIRMINGHAMMUMBAI

Copyright 2022 Packt Publishing

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To my family, who had to spend many weekends and nights without me. To my colleagues from Xpirit and the DevOps community for giving me feedback, challenging my ideas, and giving me the opportunity to learn.

Michael Kaufmann

In 2011, entrepreneur Marc Andreessen famously claimed in the Wall Street Journal that Software is eating the world, predicting that the rise of software would digitally metamorphose every industry and every sector of the world as we know it. As I sit here writing this a decade later, there is nothing to say except Marc was right. Software has transformed our lives, and with that, it has also transformed every company and organization. Look at how it has fundamentally changed entertainment with Netflix, or travel and hospitality with Airbnb, or quite nearly everything purchasable under the sun with Amazon. Grocery stores now have a digital experience, parking meters are being replaced by phone apps, the oldest and most traditional banks have moved to the cloud, and cars get over-the-air updates more frequently than your mobile phone.

Every company is becoming a software company. Millions of lines of code already represent the foundation of the global economy. Software developers are the architects of this new, digital world. No longer can any organization, no matter the size or the industry, compete and thrive without software and developers.

And this trend isnt showing any sign of slowing down. According to the World Economic Forum, an estimated 70% of new value created in the economy over the next decade will be based on digitally enabled platform business models. To harness this opportunity, every organization will need to tap into the power of open source. Without open source, they wont stay competitive. Companies will also need to adopt DevOps practices to help refresh and strengthen their internal culture and continuously enhance software delivery performance. Naturally, as GitHubs CEO, I believe that GitHub is the best place for every organization to achieve this.

When Marc wrote his article in 2011, GitHub was still in its early days, focused on the hosting of git repositories. Today, GitHub has evolved to a full DevOps platform with features that support developers in every step of the developer lifecycle. With more than 83 million developers using our platform, we provide the home for the worlds developers. GitHub is the place where every project - open source, cloud native, mobile, or enterprise - can be created, modernized, and deployed to its destination. Its the place where the interconnected community of developers builds the world of tomorrow.

I am thrilled that somebody as experienced as Michael has penned Accelerate DevOps with GitHub. Whether you are a professional software developer, computer science student, solutions architect, or site reliability engineer, this book is for you. Accelerate DevOps with GitHub provides clear, concise, and practical ways for you and your organization to harness the power of DevOps and GitHub. I think it will help you in the years to come, preparing you for the golden era of software development.

I am so proud of the long hours of hard work that you spent writing this book, Michael, but beyond this, Im even more proud of all the meaningful change and progress I know it will help create for others.

Thomas / @ashtom

CEO GitHub Inc.

Michael and I first met at a conference where we were both speaking on DevOps. We bonded over our shared passion for DevOps, and met often on the speaking circuit. It became a tradition for us to take selfies together each time we met. Our friendship and his passion for DevOps are why I was so excited to see that he was going to share his knowledge with the world by writing this book.

As time passes, the tools we use may change. However, the information shared in this book applies universally to organizations embarking on their DevOps transformation.

With COVID driving the world to remote, I really appreciated Michael covering asynchronous work. This has quickly become our new normal and teams must develop this muscle to stay agile and productive on remote and distributed teams.

It was great to read about the use of feature flags, which can be a game changer. Feature flags separate delivery from releasing and enable more advanced deployment strategies. It also reduces the need to rollback and drastically reduces the time to recover from bad code. However, as with anything, there is a cost. Michael does a great job covering the cost of using feature flags and how to mitigate it. This allows the reader to make an informed decision about whether feature flags are right for them.

Many teams I meet assume that going faster means cutting corners, but Michael explains the importance of infusing quality and security into your process. Additionally, he provides practical guidance about how to accomplish this. When DevOps is implemented correctly, you deliver secure, higher-quality code faster.

Often, to harness the true power of DevOps, your application must be refactored. Michael covers software architecture and the impact it has on your process and your team. He also covers the trade-offs of each option to help teams decide which is best.

I am confident that the readers of this book will find it to be an indispensable tool to support their DevOps transformation.