„You build it, you own it!“
5 reasons why Vorwerk enables DevOps teams through containerization
In continuously growing projects and systems, it is challenging to scale functions, add new features or to find and resolve possible errors. Luckily, over the last few years container technologies have evolved to help mitigate many of these challenges and to avoid structureless growth. At the same time, containerization changes working methods for developers and IT-specialists radically. At Vorwerk we can observe this very closely after finding and establishing OpenShift, a state-of-the-art container solution by Red Hat. Here are 5 reasons, why we bet on containerization in our DevOps teams.
Reason 1
Developers can work faster and more flexible
Developing and changing a long code takes time and effort. Software containers include just the minimum operation system resources and services required to run an application or service. Moreover, creating, replicating or destroying containers is just a matter of seconds, because they start immediately and do not require an operating system boot. That’s why containerization makes our DevOps teams faster and more flexible.
Reason 2
Containers increase quality
Containers enable us to work with identical development environments and stacks. And they allow standardized testing for our quality assurance teams. As a result, quality can be guaranteed more easily. A positive side effect of standardization is that you break down team silos in your development and QA at the same time.
Reason 3
Containerization manages complexity
Safety is an important issue in development and it’s easier to ensure the safety of a single building block in a complex system. So, while our solutions are getting more and more complicated and complex the individual containers we work on become less complex and open. That way complex systems become manageable.
In addition, the container system forgives mistakes. Just trying things out becomes an option for all development teams and is of particular interest to Product Owners, who want to test just a rough idea for a new function or element.
Reason 4
Container solutions can save money
Using containers as a service solution can bring long-term competitive advantages from a company perspective. Valuable time can be gained and costs can be reduced – two essential factors for development and production departments. A great advantage of a tool like OpenShift is that it was created as an agile open source project. The Red Hat community generates new ideas just as fast as we can work on the containers. By the way Red Hat scores by its many years of experience at an enterprise level, which is why it is the most attractive solution for us right now. Yet, containers are portable, which makes it easier for an organisation to switch to another cloud environment or another provider, if need be.
Reason 5
“You build it, you own it” is getting real
"You build it, you own it" has become one of the pithiest DevOps phrases. But it’s definitely becoming real. An integral way of viewing things is one of the most important job requirements for development as well as for operations.
The use of containers brings software developers and IT departments closer together, which sums up the main idea behind DevOps: Two formerly different areas can hardly be considered as separate fields. Instead, they complement each other, get stronger and help to integrate agile methods into everyday work, to enable shorter release cycles and to react quickly to new business requirements.
Michael Hosse
ist Senior Manager Digital Architecture bei Vorwerk. Seit er für sein Team den CaaS OpenShift eingeführt hat, treibt er die Containerisierung voran, um die Software-Infrastruktur in seiner Organisation zu verbessern.