The devops “thingy” is only a few years old. I use the word “thingy” (if it can be considered a word) as it is seemingly hard to describe precisely what exactly devops is.

I am new to devops, but went to devops days in London anyways. This is my attempt to clear my head of some of the thoughts, ideas, and impressions that have been rambling around my head for these two days, and probably will for quite some time.

I had a blast of a time in London listening to the different speakers and participating in discussions, but I must admit that I am even more confused now than I was before coming. Nevertheless, I did get some impressions:

1. Getting back to my opening sentence, the notion that has struck me as being one of the most important is that devops might not be meant to be described precisely, but is a continuous movement towards a better way of delivering value for the end customer (ups… I just did my own attempt at a description). I have heard several other suggestions during these days and it seems that each individual has his own definition of devops. I had the pleasure of talking with Patrick Debois over a beer about this and he hinted that this was actually on purpose. Maybe the journey is more important than the goal and a large part of the value comes from defining what devops means to you? What is your definition?
2. You can get some value with tools and processes, but if you do not get the people aboard you will not get to the end goal (which seems to be as hard to define as the definition).
3. Changing culture seems to be most powerful pattern for doing devops and maybe the only really relevant one.
4. There are a zillion of tools out there that I had never heard about and I am going to try out. Seems like everybody is using (have used at some point) logstash, graphite and so forth.
5. The people that do devops are awesome and passionate about it, which makes me want to learn more and participate in more devops days (Copenhagen next year anyone?)

Cheers!