Brief introduction:On June 23, Alibaba’s DevOps Practice Guide (hereinafter referred to as the Guide), jointly written by 20 experts of Alibaba Yunyun Efficiency Team, was officially released at the 2021 Alibaba R&D Efficiency Summit. This guide is a systematic summary of Alibaba’s DevOps experience in the past ten years.
On June 23, Alibaba’s DevOps Practice Guide (hereinafter referred to as the Guide), jointly written by 20 experts of Alibaba Yunyun Efficiency Team, was officially released at the 2021 Alibaba R&D Efficiency Summit. This guide is a systematic summary of Alibaba’s DevOps experience in the past ten years.
The guide starts from the origin of DevOps and puts forward the fundamental goal of implementing DevOps under the digital transformation. Based on Alibaba’s own practice, this paper puts forward four value propositions of Alibaba’s DevOps implementation and corresponding technology practice system. Finally, the guide also summarizes the Alibaba DevOps tool system and enterprise DevOps capability maturity advanced model.
The release of this guide aims to export Alibaba Group’s practical experience in DevOps to the industry and promote exchanges in the industry. The guide has also been recommended by Fu Xiaoyan, associate partner of IBM and author of “Digital Transformation of Banks”; Wang Jinyin, founder and CEO of Youwei Technology; and Peng Xin, vice dean of the School of Computer Science and Technology at Fudan University.
At present, the alibaba conversation practice guide ebook is now available for free download, go to https://developer.aliyun.com/topic/devops to download.
A guide to the essence of content
1. The fundamental goal of DevOps implementation from the perspective of digital transformation
Digital transformation is a system change, and DevOps is an important part of it. In the digital age, the efficiency of IT technology delivery and operation is the key to the success or failure of the digital transformation, and this is where DevOps is addressing the problem.
In the context of digital transformation, Alibaba believes that the fundamental goal of DevOps implementation is to achieve business agility. In order to achieve this goal, enterprises need to build two major capabilities:
First: the ability to deliver effective value consistently, smoothly and in high quality. Second: the ability of the system to operate with extreme elasticity and toughness.
To understand the fundamental goal of DevOps and the two capabilities that need to be built, you can find an overview in the first part of the guide.
2. Four value propositions and practice systems implemented by Alibaba DevOps
In order to build on the above two capabilities, Alibaba proposed four value propositions for DevOps implementation. They are:
1) Business-driven collaboration mode; 2) product-oriented delivery model; 3) Continuous delivery of features as the core; 4) Operation and maintenance based on application.
These four value propositions and the technical practices associated with them are the main content of the guide, and you will learn more about Alibaba’s DevOps practices in more than 20 articles in Chapters 2, 3, and 4 of the guide.
3. Alibaba DevOps tool system
DevOps can’t be implemented without tool support. Good tools can precipitate principles and methods to implement the right value proposition, and make DevOps work with less effort.
In implementing DevOps, Ali faces a number of challenges. In the process of meeting the challenge, Ali gradually formed its own characteristic DevOps practice, and landed in a complete set of DevOps tool system. This tool system has the following characteristics:
- handle all demands of demand, development, testing, deployment, operation and maintenance in one stop.
- loose control, strong card point
- is customizable, reusable and extensible
You’ll get a full look at Alibaba’s DevOps toolset in Part 5 of the guide.
4. Advanced DevOps capability maturity model
DevOps capability reflects the ability of technology R&D to respond to business changes. As organizations grow in size and complexity, DevOps capabilities become increasingly important. Continuously improving the capability of DevOps has become a common challenge for technology development.
In order to give the organization the direction of DevOps capability improvement, and plan a clear path. The AliYunYunEfficiency team has defined the DevOps Capability Maturity Model in the guide, which includes 4 categories and 10 capabilities, hoping to help the team: 1) know where we are today; 2) How to plan the promotion path.
You’ll learn more about the five maturity stages of the DevOps maturity model from L0-L4 in the final section of the guide.
Fu Xiaoyan, Wang Jinyin, Peng Xin and other joint recommendation
DevOps practice guide from inside Alibaba has also been recognized and recommended by Wang Jinyin, Fu Xiaoyan, Peng Xin and others in the industry.
Digital transformation is the overall transformation from society to enterprise, which requires top-level design and unified planning. The digital ecology is ultimately a highly connected society rather than a set of silos. Alibaba DevOps practice guide shows that the integrated development, operation and maintenance to support the target is the full link, full life cycle business, this is the direction of technology development, but also the inevitable requirement of digital ecology.
— Fu Xiaoyan, associate partner at IBM, author of “The Digital Transformation of Banks” and columnist of Geek Time’s “The Digital Transformation” column
The digital transformation of the enterprise will not only focus on DevOps, but also on how IT enables business and creates value. The system of this guide book is very clear, personal understanding is from the delivery state and operation state two perspectives to elaborate, and completely from the perspective of application. Delivery is the core engineering practice of today’s DevOps: continuous delivery. Continuous delivery is a revolution in the fragmented delivery model of IT organizations; Operation state is discussed from the perspective of continuous operation and maintenance, which has introduced many different latest practices, such as intelligent operation and maintenance. What is rare is that a lot of practice in the book comes from Ali’s practice. Practice improves theory, and theory can better guide practice. A rare practical guide book indeed!
— Wang Jinyin, founder and CEO of Youwei Technology
The combination of DevOps and cloud-based development platform has realized a leap in software development tool platform, which not only realizes the integration and pipelining of software development tools, but also makes it possible to improve the quality and efficiency of software development based on big data analysis. The launch of Alibaba DevOps Practice Guide provides an important guide for us to understand DevOps and cloud development practices in the industry and to carry out software development big data analysis and research work. It is expected that more exchanges and cooperation will be carried out between academia and industry to jointly promote the development of software engineering research and practice.
— Professor Peng Xin, Vice Dean of School of Computer Science and Technology, Vice Dean of School of Software, Fudan University
Over the past 10 years, Ali Cloud has made a lot of exploration and efforts in IT infrastructure, which has been recognized by customers and the society. Cloud, big data, AI, IoT, etc., have become a new generation of digital infrastructure. DevOps capability is one of the core parts of our ongoing efforts to make these infrastructures play a greater role in promoting the digital transformation of the industry. We hope that the Alibaba DevOps Practice Guide will inspire you and become your partner on the road of digital transformation.
— Jiang Jiangwei, Alibaba partner
Technology creates new business, and technology has become the core link of business innovation and development in the digital age. Improving the business response and delivery capability of technology, while maintaining the continuity and stability of system operation, has become a common challenge for digital organizations. “Alibaba DevOps Practice Guide” is derived from many years of Alibaba’s front-line practice, and made a systematic precipitation. Whether it’s engineering, collaboration, operations, or tools, I hope you’ve learned something that you can use to guide your actual work. — Liu Guohua, Alibaba researcher and head of hybrid cloud platform
From B2B to Taobao, from cross-border e-commerce to local life, in the face of such rich and large business delivery demands, Alibaba has always been at the forefront of the industry in software delivery efficiency. To this end, the company has done a comprehensive and in-depth design and optimization from the technical culture, technical architecture, software infrastructure and platform, as well as process. “Alibaba DevOps Practice Guide” summarizes the best parts and explains the thinking behind the practice in detail. The content of the guide is mainly written by senior engineers working in the front line. It is a strong reading experience and recommended for everyone.
— Xu Xiaobin, senior technical expert at Alibaba
Finally, the alibaba conversation practice guide ebook is now available for free download, go to https://developer.aliyun.com/topic/devops to download.
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