The New IT: Yes, And...John Troyer, TechReckoning Melbourne VMUG UserCon, Feb 2015

@jtroyer jtroyer@techreckoning.com

Old IT doesn’t have a great reputation

Putting the NO in Innovation

BOFH

PEBCAK

Have you tried turning it on and off again?

What if IT was doing exactly what it was asked to do?

Q: But what is the one thing that can get you fired

A: Downtime

Q: How many people in your company think they’re your boss

A: Everybody

Background of high-performing IT managers

Backgrounds

non-commissioned officers

chemical engineers

auditors

What do they have in common?

discipline? Kevin Behr, Gene Kim, George Spafford

Expectations of IT have changed

IT is being asked to be the grown-up of the corporation

Of course everything think’s we’re arseholes.

Other options now exist: cheaper, faster, consumer-grade

IT now needs to provide similar value AND be the grown-ups

I.T. of “NO” to “Yes, And…”Modern improvisational theater started in Chicago in the 1950’s coalescing in Second City

First rule of improv: “Yes, and…”

Removes your ego

Acknowledge to their reality

Then you add your value

Reactions to our current situation

Organizational change

Skills change

Community leverage

Become a Pi-shaped expertWhat shape are you?

Generalist = tactics, not strategy (ie, get stuck with the boring daily stuff)

Specialist = interesting but limited span (eg, Cobol programmers, Priests of Storage)

T-shaped Expert = Generalist with Speciality

PI-shaped Expert

Your “T” must move over time!

Windows -> Storage -> Virtualization -> Cloud -> Flying Cars

GeneralistSpecialist

Interest

A short sidebar on business alignment

Part of this “Yes, And..” IT is about business alignment

After all, you’re building things for the business, not you

Know what the business needs and why

CIOs talk about Not Getting Respect a lot - if they can’t figure it out, I can’t either, so I’m not going to talk about it here

But you need to know how to apply technology options to the requirements of your business

CloudCloud is the ultimate AND

SaaS AND self-managed apps

Off-Perm AND on-prem

private, public, AND hybrid

Fighting about definitions (“True Cloud”) has held us back

OpenStack, vCloud Air uses are very different

Effect on IT: IT now a service broker, not an infrastructure owner

Warning: Do not play Buzzword Drinking Games with

“Cloud” You will get drunk

Cloud Engineering Skills

Software development basics & APIs

Linux

Automation and orchestration

Public cloud services

via Scott Lowe

Containers (Docker)Job to be done

VM: utilization for legacy apps (also get isolation, management, BCDR)

Container: rapid, portable deployment for cloud-native apps

destroy/rebuild paradigm

Effect on IT: Docker is seen as a Dev tool, but it’s actually good for Ops (early days)

HardwareOS

Container ContainerApp App

HardwareHypervisor

VM VMOS OSApp Container

App

How do people use Docker?“for me the value is in trivial repeatability”

“having a fresh image that is easily rebuildable is easier for me to give demos than to spin fresh VMs”

“Most configuration management systems actually make ongoing configuration pretty hard. O… The reality is that once the VM is built there is temptation/opportunity to make ad-hoc changes”

“Bridging a gap with less-technical coworkers” for off-line distribution

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8324138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8470206

Docker Next Steps

Docker Fundamentals & Deep Dive from Pluralsight — but just try it on a project

Docker mailing lists

Github

Text

If you’ve ever edited a .vmx fileyou can make a docker file

DevOps: The Holy Grail?DevOps is explicitly without a definition

Not about tools, job titles, process, and not even about Dev and Ops

About empathy, culture, inclusivity, continuous improvement, aligning incentives, removing information hiding, clear responsibilities

Effect on IT: End-to-end service delivery teams

Acknowledge old way doesn’t work

Smart people fix things

Codify into best practicesEstablish processes

Processes without context fail

Lifecycle of all thingsInspired by a diagram on Twitter I can’t find at the moment

DevOps is over here

ITIL is over here

DevOps NextSteps

Kanban and continuous improvement methods

Configuration management tools

Puppet, Chef, Ansible, SaltStack, others

Read Phoenix Project

go to a Meetup

Become part of the new business landscape

Old channels failing: tech press, analysts, trade shows, email marketing, Google ads, webinars

50-70% customer decision before talking to vendor

How do people learn anything these days?

From their peers (that’s you)

New forces shaping learning, shifting power

Open Source

Cloud

SaaS

Social Media

inspired by The New Kingmakers, Stephen O’Grady

Cheaper to Try

Try Before You Buy

Easier to Scale

Knowledge Sharing

Faster Time to Value

What I do atVendors need Geeks

to validate product, marketing message

to explain to peers

That’s what VMware also needed in 2009 with the

Social Techies have powerInvolvement in community projects

Blogs and Podcasts

Open Source Projects

VMUGs and UGs

vBrownbags & study groups

Learn

Better at your job, $$

Raise knowledge level of the industry

Giving back to others

Actually shape the future of IT via interactions with vendors

Text

The Power of Community

vBrownbag Community Survey

vBrownbag Community Survey

TechReckoning Dispatch http://techreckoning.com

Mostly-weekly mailing list about … stuff

Mostly tech stuff and some ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Geek Whisperers podcast http://geek-whisperers.com

IT careers and marketing and unicorns

Paradox of the grass rootsVirtualization could come from bottom-up

Secretly virtualize a DNS or file server or low-hanging fruit

Start with one person

Cloud, DevOps: all-or-nothing?

Cloud & DevOps require process and cultural changes

But change starts with youStart a side project or join an OSS project

Use a new tool on a new work project

Blog about it

Go to a new user group

Start a brownbag lunch-and-learn series at work

Educate the team about your results

A few Jedi mind tricks before I leave

Shift from “operator” mindset to “creator” mindset

Keep moving

Do things that charge you up

Release early and often

“Yes, And…” makes you seem smarter

-Gandhi

“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his

own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. … We need not wait to see

what others do.”

-Not Gandhi

“Be the change you wish to see in the world”