ITSM Hype Cycle in Plain English - Episode 8
Welcome to the 8th edition of the newsletter, in this edition we are covering Continuous Endpoint Engineering, Continuous Delivery and Site Reliability Engineering.
Continuous Endpoint Engineering
The What
Brings efficiency and speed to the management of the end-user device lifecycle. Lean-agile processes, plus automation make it easier to request, maintain, and replace physical devices, and their software. End-users keep their own tech up to date and expect their employer to so the same. Your endpoints such as laptops, tablets and mobiles are the front door into your organisation. It is important to keep them up to date to ensure your employees can work seamlessly and that security isn’t compromised.
The Why
With an ever increasing requirement to manage and control end user devices from a security viewpoint, having a centralised and robust approach to endpoint engineering is now vital. Ensuring the latest patches are on devices but also allowing for remote lockdown in the case of a theft is equally important.
The end device is also what enables your business. If your end users can’t access then they often can’t work, so providing an effective delivery for all endpoints ensures your users can get to work wherever they are.
Security and usability is often tied into ensuring you are leveraging the latest technology. Having a simple way to maintain endpoints also allows you to manage programmes such as end point replacement. Being able to manage this centrally ensures any refresh can be done effectively.
That same central store can also be used to report compliance, ensuring you meet the standards required by your suppliers and customers.
The How
The first step to ascertain what you have across your estate. From laptops, to tablets and mobiles, through to VPN and remote connections. You may also have a mix of policies from ‘bring your own’ through to fully managed. Each may have a different underlying use case and security policy. Getting all of this documented and under control first can then help identify the scope of any central management for the endpoints.
Once you understand what you have, you can then look at how best to manage these centrally. This is typically a mix of using the most appropriate tooling combined with the right processes. There are many endpoint management solutions available from Microsoft, VMware etc, but by understanding your estate you can make the right decision on what makes sense to use.
However even with a central tool it’s important to ensure that using, replacing and managing those devices is done seamlessly through your IT Service Management catalogue. Users should be able to request changes or report issues in the same place.
Integration and automation between your catalogue and the endpoint is also important. If an user requests a change or an update, try to keep this automated. Equally if an user reports an issue, the resolving teams should be able to see any errors through the management platform. Longer term turning this into a proactive alert from the management platform to the support teams will further mitigate any end user downtime.
Continuous Delivery
The What
Continuous Delivery (CD) is closely aligned with the Agile framework and shares many common principles. The CD software development methodology extends Agile to ensure frequent and automated release of code changes. This approach emphasizes seamless integration, automated testing and streamlined deployment processes. By maintaining a deployable state of code at all times, CD enables teams to swiftly deliver new features, enhancements and bug fixes into production with minimal manual intervention. This results in reduced deployment risks, faster time-to-market and ultimately delivers high-quality software reliably and efficiently.
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The Why
Continuous Delivery offers a range of benefits that transform software development. By automating and standardizing release processes, it minimizes deployment risks and errors. Swift and incremental updates reduce feature delivery time and thus enhance user experience. Collaboration between development and operations improves, as teams work closely throughout the development lifecycle. Immediate feedback from automated testing drives code quality and reliability.
CD accelerates innovation by enabling frequent feature releases, boosts team morale with faster, more controlled deployments and fosters a culture of continuous improvement. Ultimately the main benefit that CD can achieve is agile, high-quality software, efficient resource utilization and increased end-user satisfaction.
The How
To effectively integrate Continuous Delivery within the Agile framework, a culture of clear communication and collaboration needs to be established between development, testing and operations teams. Automation tools must be embraced for tasks such as building, testing and deployment pipelines. A robust suite of automated tests needs to be created to ensure code quality and prevent regression. Modular design should be prioritized along with decoupling to enable independent feature deployment. Adopting feature toggles will enable the separation of deployment from release, allowing controlled feature activation.
A culture of continuous improvement, with frequent retrospectives will refine processes. By adopting these practices, teams can seamlessly combine the speed of CD with the adaptability and collaboration of Agile, resulting in efficient, quality-focused software development.
Site Reliability Engineering
The What
Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) is a methodology pioneered by Google, blending software engineering practices with traditional IT operations. The primary goal of SRE is to create robust and scalable software systems that deliver exceptional performance and reliability. SRE bridges the gap between development and operations teams, focusing on automating processes, monitoring system health, and proactively addressing potential issues. By setting and measuring Service Level Objectives, SRE ensures a balanced approach to reliability and innovation. By aligning technical effort with the overarching business objectives, this approach cultivates a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement.
The Why
The adoption of Site Reliability Engineering offers a range of benefits. By focussing on reliability, organizations can significantly reduce downtime, ensuring a seamless user experience and safeguarding their brand reputation. The focus on automation and proactive strategies enables teams to identify and mitigate potential problems before they impact users.
Collaboration between development and operations teams accelerates innovation and shortens time-to-market. Embracing Service Level Objectives instils a data-driven mindset and helps align technical advances with business goals. SRE enhances system performance, resilience, user satisfaction and ultimately overall business outcomes.
The How
When it comes to implementing Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), there is no standard one-size-fits-all guideline. The crux lies in constructing a well-structured approach that tackles the fundamental aspects of SRE: reliability, automation, measurement, proactive practices, and inter-team collaboration. This approach should harmonize with your organization's goals and challenges.
Common steps to consider to achieve success include:
Thank you for reading this edition of the newsletter and for any questions please contact hello@ktsl.com