Continuous Delivery on Romano Roth

SAFe Leadership Forum: Empowering SAFe with Platform Engineering for Fast Flow

Wed, 25 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

What are the railroad tracks of your SAFe agile release trains? How are they built, and why do they matter so much? In this talk at the SAFe Leadership Forum, I explore how platform engineering creates the foundation that enables agile teams to continuously deliver value for fast flow.

How to Architect for Continuous Delivery

Tue, 24 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In September 2024, I had the privilege of delivering a keynote at the Roche DevOps Conference in Poland. The topic: how to architect for continuous delivery. This is a subject close to my heart, because after more than two decades of working in software delivery, I keep seeing the same fundamental patterns that separate high-performing organizations from those that struggle.

Developer Experience and Platform Engineering: The Foundation of Modern Software Delivery

Mon, 23 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Is DevOps dead? That claim keeps appearing on the internet, with people arguing that platform engineering is taking over. In this talk, which I gave at the Developer Experience Conference at Roche in Poznan, Poland, I explain why DevOps is absolutely not dead and why platform engineering is the key to making it actually work at scale.

Unlocking the Power of AI: Deep Dive into MLOps, Machine Learning, and AI Platforms

Mon, 05 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Have you ever wondered how companies build those impressive AI applications and keep them running reliably in production? In this video, I take a deep dive into MLOps, the discipline that makes it possible to continuously develop, deploy, and improve machine learning solutions at enterprise scale.

CrowdStrike Disaster: Causes, Impact, and How to Prevent Future Outages

Mon, 22 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

On July 19, 2024, the world witnessed one of the largest IT outages in history. A sensor configuration update from CrowdStrike, pushed to all Windows systems at 4:09 UTC, caused 8.5 million Microsoft Windows PCs to crash worldwide. Airlines, banks, hospitals, government agencies, stock exchanges, and countless other organizations were brought to a standstill. In this video, I break down what happened and, more importantly, what you can do to prevent something like this from happening in your organization.

DevOps in an Embedded World: From Silos to Digital Factories

Sat, 17 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Many people still think DevOps is only for web applications and cloud services. But the reality is clear: companies that apply DevOps principles to embedded systems are outpacing their competition. In this talk, which I gave at a DevOps Meetup in Munich, I explore why embedded teams need DevOps and how to build a Digital Factory that enables continuous value delivery, even for hardware products.

Architecting for Continuous Delivery at Conf42 DevSecOps 2024

Tue, 09 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

At the Conf42 DevSecOps 2024 conference, I presented my approach to architecting for continuous delivery. After more than 21 years at Zühlke, working across industries on DevOps transformations, I keep seeing the same fundamental problem: value streams broken by walls of confusion. In this talk, I walk through how organizations can move from project thinking to product thinking, build in quality and security from the start, architect for operability, and use platform engineering to scale it all.

The Science of DevOps

Sun, 03 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In this video, I take a deep dive into the science behind DevOps. Specifically, I look at the DORA metrics, where they come from, and the book Accelerate that provides the scientific foundation for everything we know about high-performing software delivery organizations.

How to Architect for Continuous Delivery: From Silos to Digital Factories

Thu, 06 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

At The DEVOPS Conference, I presented on a topic that has been at the heart of my work for over two decades: how to architect for continuous delivery. This talk covers the broken value stream I see in most companies, why product thinking matters more than project thinking, the science behind software delivery performance, and how platform engineering enables organizations to scale DevOps through digital factories.

DevOps: Thinking in Systems & Value Streams

Mon, 06 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In today’s world, everybody wants to do DevOps. But why? What problems are we trying to solve?

Taking a Step Back
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Together, we will take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Instead of jumping straight into tools and practices, we examine the systems and value streams that underpin modern software delivery.

DevOps with SAP: Theory and Practice

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

At this event, I spoke alongside Carsten Brandt from SAP about DevOps in theory and practice. While I presented the theoretical foundations of DevOps and showed how companies can move from projects to products, Carsten brought the practical perspective from over 21 years at SAP. His honest message: the theory has been well established for years, but execution is anything but easy, especially in complex enterprise landscapes.

GitHub DevSecOps Part 1: What Is GitHub and Why Shift Security Left?

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

After we finished the GitLab DevSecOps series, Patrick changed jobs — and his new team is on GitHub. The problem is the same: no security checks during development. The platform is different. In Part 1 of our GitHub DevSecOps series, we cover what GitHub is, the CI/CD vocabulary you have to share before any pipeline conversation works, and the shape of the DevSecOps pipeline we will build over the next sessions.

Baloise OpenX Day: Keynote on DevOps, Value Streams, and Platform Engineering

Wed, 23 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I was invited to deliver the keynote at the Baloise OpenX Day, an internal conference where Baloise brings together their technology community. The session combined impulse presentations with interactive discussions, giving me the chance to share DevOps fundamentals and then hear directly from the teams about their real challenges. The conversations with the Baloise engineers were incredibly valuable, especially around topics like continuous deployment in regulated industries and the role of platform engineering.

DevOps: How Companies Continuously Deliver Value

Thu, 27 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

DevOps is far more than automation or tooling: it is the interplay of people, processes, and technology to develop products faster, more reliably, and more customer-focused.

What This Talk Covers
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This talk shows why companies must shift from project-oriented thinking to product-centric working, how a Continuous Delivery Pipeline works as the backbone of modern product development, and why quality, testing, and operability must be considered from the start.

DevOps: Thinking in Systems and Value Streams

Wed, 19 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In this conference talk, I discuss one of the most fundamental topics in DevOps: thinking in systems and value streams. When I work with companies on their DevOps transformations, I consistently see the same patterns. The business has bright ideas. They write them into Word documents and Jira tickets. They throw them over a wall of confusion to development. Development builds something and throws it to testing. Testing compares what was specified with what was built (never quite the same), tests something, and throws it to operations. Operations asks “How can we operate that?” and somehow, with great effort, they get it running. Then the customer sees it and says: “What is that? That is not what we ordered.”

GitLab DevSecOps Part 1: What Is GitLab and Why Shift Security Left?

Wed, 10 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Why does security still get bolted on at the end of the development process, and how do we move it earlier without slowing teams down? In Part 1 of our GitLab DevSecOps series, Patrick Steger and I set the stage: what GitLab is, what shifting security left really means, and which CI/CD concepts you have to understand before you can build a DevSecOps pipeline that actually works.

What is Release on Demand?

Wed, 11 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Release on Demand is the final step in the SAFe for DevOps continuous delivery pipeline, and it is the step that ties everything together. In this video, I walk through how Release on Demand works, why separating deployment from release is so powerful, and how the whole pipeline enables organizations to build the right thing right.

Feature Toggles: What, Why, How?

Wed, 30 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Feature toggles are one of those concepts that sound simple on the surface but unlock enormous power in practice. In this DevOps Meetup Zurich session, I team up with Ben Rometsch, founder of Flagsmith, to explain the what, why, and how of feature toggles. We cover the foundational concepts of CI/CD that make feature toggles necessary, the difference between deployment and release, and how modern feature flagging platforms enable progressive rollouts, user segmentation, and A/B testing.

What is Stabilize? | SAFe DevOps Health Radar

Thu, 17 Feb 2022 21:52:50 +0000

After we release a new feature to our users, we need to make sure everything runs smoothly. Stabilize is the SAFe DevOps Health Radar activity that focuses on maintaining a high level of business continuity so we can continuously deliver value to our customers. In this video, I walk through what Stabilize involves and why it is essential for a stable, resilient production environment.

What is Release? | SAFe DevOps Health Radar

Wed, 09 Feb 2022 19:51:34 +0000

Release is one of the final steps in the SAFe for DevOps Health Radar. At this point, the new functionality is already deployed to production and verified. Now it is time to make the new functionality available to a small group of users or to all users. In this video, I walk through what the Release step involves and why it is a crucial business decision.

What is Continuous Deployment? | SAFe® DevOps Health Radar

Sun, 23 Jan 2022 09:49:57 +0000

In this article, I explain what Continuous Deployment is within the SAFe® DevOps Health Radar and why it is essential for delivering value quickly and safely. Please note that everything discussed here is under the license of Scaled Agile, and that the Scaled Agile Framework is a framework to be used as a toolbox. Take out of this toolbox what fits your needs and what solves your problems.

What is Respond? | SAFe DevOps Health Radar

Sun, 09 Jan 2022 20:17:55 +0000

How do you proactively detect and fix production issues before they cause a business disruption? Respond is the SAFe DevOps Health Radar activity that answers exactly this question. In this video, I walk through what Respond involves and why it is essential for maintaining a stable production environment.

What is Monitor? | SAFe DevOps Health Radar

Tue, 14 Dec 2021 18:21:51 +0000

Once our features are deployed and verified in production, we need to keep a close eye on how they perform. Monitor is the SAFe DevOps Health Radar activity that focuses on tracking system performance, end-user behavior, incidents, and business value. In this video, I walk through what monitoring involves and why it is essential for making the right decisions about your features.

What is the SAFe® DevOps Health Radar

Sun, 12 Dec 2021 17:54:55 +0000

In this article, we will explore what exactly SAFe® DevOps is for health radar and what can you use it for.

What is Stage? | SAFe DevOps Health Radar

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 08:28:51 +0000

Stage is the step in the SAFe for DevOps Health Radar where we perform the final validation before going to production. In the staging environment, we run user acceptance tests, conduct system demos for our stakeholders, and verify that everything is truly production-ready. In this video, I walk through what the Stage step involves and why it is essential for a reliable delivery pipeline.

What is Develop? | SAFe DevOps Health Radar

Sun, 05 Sep 2021 19:53:31 +0000

In the SAFe DevOps Health Radar, Develop is where we take the features from continuous exploration and turn them into working code. We split features into user stories, implement them with a strong focus on built-in quality, and commit everything to version control. In this video, I walk through the Develop step and explain why quality practices like TDD and BDD are so important.

What is Continuous Exploration? | SAFe DevOps Health Radar

Mon, 30 Aug 2021 18:29:46 +0000

In this article, I explain what Continuous Exploration is within the SAFe DevOps Health Radar and why it is essential for building the right thing in the right way. Please note that everything discussed here is under the license of Scaled Agile, and that the Scaled Agile Framework is a framework to be used as a toolbox. Take out of this toolbox what fits your needs and what solves your problems.

What is Architect? | SAFe DevOps Health Radar

Sun, 15 Aug 2021 22:00:03 +0000

Architect is the third step in the SAFe DevOps Health Radar, part of Continuous Exploration. In this video, I explain how we define the minimal architecture needed to prove a hypothesis and enable continuous delivery of value to customers.

What is Hypothesize? | SAFe DevOps Health Radar

Mon, 02 Aug 2021 12:00:33 +0000

In this video, I take a deep dive into Hypothesize, the first process step of the SAFe DevOps Health Radar and the continuous delivery pipeline. The core question is simple: how do you know you are building the right thing?

What is SAFe for DevOps?

Sun, 06 Jun 2021 18:56:06 +0000

In this video, I explain what the SAFe for DevOps training is all about. Unlike traditional classroom courses, this training is a hands-on workshop where real teams work on their own value streams and leave with a concrete, prioritized action plan.

What Are the Top DevOps Trends in 2021?

Sun, 03 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

What will move the needle in DevOps in 2021? After a year that forced almost every organisation to accelerate digital delivery, the trends I see for 2021 are less about shiny new tools and more about discipline: making DevOps stick at scale, shifting security left, getting serious about continuous delivery, leaning further into the cloud, and watching the early signals from AIOps.

What Is the First Way of DevOps? Optimise the Flow

Tue, 18 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The first way to introduce DevOps is to optimise the value flow from development, through operations, all the way to the customer. This is the First Way in Gene Kim’s Three Ways framework — and it is where every transformation should start.

What Is Continuous Delivery (CD)?

Wed, 05 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Continuous Integration ends with a tested artifact. That sounds great, but a green build does not mean the software actually works in a realistic environment. Unit tests run in isolation. Integration tests run against mocks. Until you put the software somewhere that looks like production and exercise it under real conditions, you have not really proven anything. Continuous Delivery is the step that closes that gap.

Satisfied end users thanks to DevOps

Sun, 26 Jul 2020 21:07:39 +0000

Companies today are confronted with the challenge of enhancing efficiency while lowering costs. Changes to products often take much too long to reach end customers on the market. A consistent DevOps approach can aid this process.

Better through the crisis thanks to DevOps

Sun, 26 Jul 2020 19:45:30 +0000

The coronavirus crisis is demonstrating how companies with an agile DevOps mindset can better respond to new circumstances and challenges than companies with rigid structures and processes.

By Romano Roth and Romeo Weber

What is DevOps?

Sun, 26 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

DevOps is one of the most overloaded words in our industry. People use it to mean a tool, a team, a job description, even a vendor product. None of those are right. DevOps is the set of cultural and technical practices that improve the development (Dev) and operation (Ops) of software — together, across the entire life cycle.

Why is DevOps important?