The Future of Configuration Management for Continuous Delivery

Mark Burgess

An on-going business transformation

“Arranging parts into a pattern…"

Configuration is ...

CADCAM

“Continuous improvement of softwareas a stream of releases, always ready for use…”

Continuous delivery is ...

Irregular and high riskRegular and low risk

Engineering focus

Town planning

Business focus

Stylesheets for infrastructure

Continuity

Availability(ops)

History(dev)

Geography (space)Latency (time)

Usability (consistent)CompatibilityPersistence of worlds

Convergence

Infrastructure(ops)

Intent/function(dev)

Configuration driftPrep/runtime“Consensus”

Unintended changeEmergent side effects

• Convergence

• to a desired end-state / promised outcome

• Branching decisions

• intentionally and unintentionally diverging

Competing forces

We are the humans …

Significant innovation doesn’t happen until humans change their habits, or get out of the way …

Identity inertia

Infrastructure culture

AddressabilityLatencyConnectednessGarbage collectionNormalization

Centralized

HumanizedPoints of serviceIdentitiesHomeLocalIntentional

Decentralized

DehumanizedLogisticsReplicasStorageNon-localEmergent

BRAIN …

Society ….

• Microservices• Totem pole• Builder, town-planner, consumer …• Remote control junkie• Policy-maker

How do we want to live?

Parallel delegation

Serial transformation

The storyli

ne

SSH

Promisescron jobscontainers

hands-on

Tenancy - where do we want to live?

you commune with the tree, but the forest is large

Where to put workloads and data

scale, complexity, knowledge

grow as flexible freedoms are thrust upon rigid systems by social or environmental forces

Going beyond “mere automation” …

Separation of concerns reduces complexity?

Delegation? Separation?

What allows us to handle complexity?

Weak coupling, and choice relationships

Atomize – keep it simple and light, autonomous

Untether – give me the freedom to work/live

Separation of concerns with

STRONG COUPLING

increases complexity!

Beware “orchestration”

Emergence - ecosystem

Don´t confuse tidiness with resilience

Don´t confuse untidiness with disorder

Complexity means cost

Balance exploration against targeted outcomesAutomate documentation of intentWatch out for the human storylineDelegate for tidiness with weak coupling

The future

Join the discussion …

@markburgess_osl