DevOps

Like most people who work in IT, I subscribe to multiple lists such as ComputerWorld, ITWorld, eWeek, and others in addition to magazine subscriptions. As I was going through my email this week, and getting caught up on industry news, I saw an article sent to me from ITWorld Development news. The article, The New Type of Programmer: DevOp, discussed a potential new type of IT Professional which peaked my interest.

This new career choice, DevOp, would be a combination of a developer and system administrator. The article discussed the need for this new type of developer in Cloud Computing. I won’t go into the specifics of the article, instead I’ll just let you go read it. I’ll wait.

Just in case you have been living in a cave, or under a rock, Cloud computing is basically Internet computing. Google Docs is an example of cloud computing. Access to your office program, on any computer, any where, so long as you have an Internet connection.

So what’s the big deal about this new type of position you ask? Why spend time writing about it? Well, it got me thinking. I’ve been in IT for going on 12 years. I was around in the dot com days, survived the bust, and I am still working in IT now and in that time I have seen trends in IT cycle a couple of times. During the dot com days, you just had to have an idea on how to do something, not be afraid to do it or try it, and learn from your mistakes. Money was thrown at anything that  might work. Enter the bust and suddenly you had to cost justify everything. IT expands and IT contracts. We’ve gone from a workstation being nothing more than a dumb terminal, to having a powerful pc, and now moving back to the terminal model under virtualization. Ok, virtualization isn’t exactly the same but it’s close. The same has happened with the sought after skill sets of IT Pros. So I’m not surprised to see the return of a generalist to prominence.

Years ago, a Sys Admin was the generalist. They had their hands in everything, had to understand the big picture but be technical enough to resolve broken components of the big system. Now a days Sys Admins have had to specialize into security, networking, and the system side stuff has moved to an Analyst role, while the support function has been moved a help desk. I’m sure in the small business world Sys Admins are still the generalists as they once were. In the larger companies instead of being the go to guy, the system administration position has been spilt and marginalized, making the role more specialized. On the worst day, you’re blamed for everything and on good days, you’re forgotten about. When was the last time you heard about your star Systems Admin? Or when was the last time the Admin was included in the bonus structure? Flip it and ask yourself, who’s your best buddy when your workstation goes belly up, or when they recover your 600 MB BAFO from the email abyss. From experience, I can say that being a Systems Administrator is a challenge.

I can’t say much about how the world of Developers has changed. The obvious change is the push from desktop applications to web applications. Then there are the differences between open source, closed source, Java, and Microsoft. I’m sure there are other divisions I am not aware of, but those are the major ones I can think of. My programming experience is limited to course work and what I have shown on this website. So, like I said…not a lot.

So I’m fascinated by this speculated new position in IT, but also concerned about the role of a DevOP. I think it’s interesting to combine the roles of a Sys Admin and Developer, mainly because it would be a great fit for me. My concern lies in what the job responsibilities would be. I can see where a developer role is a full-time job and I know an admin role is a full-time job. How do you balance the time between code and infrastructure? Perhaps I am reading too much into this and DevOps wouldn’t be anything more than another tool for troubleshooting or break/fix type operations. Although I know that’s rarely the case in the IT world, so if the generalist is coming back (and in this case, on steroids), where would the DevOp fit in current environments? They aren’t really developers and they aren’t really admins. They are bound to be caught in the middle of both groups, which never ends well. I can even see where both developers and admins shun this role as well. Something to do with cheese getting moved and what not. It would be one of the rare times when both Devs and Admins actually agree and get along.

As with any generalist position…you are expected to know how to do everything, fix it all, and not get bogged down to deep into the specifics. Which brings me back to what role would these positions fill? I don’t know if this is a legitimate position, or just a new way for corporations to use one person to do the work of two. Time will tell I guess. One thing is for sure, the people who take these jobs are going to have be sharp and feel confident they know where to look to find answers. I will give IT this, it’s rarely a boring ride.