Nearly 20 years ago, core principles of the DevOps movement were actually written down. That was when 17 software developers created the “Manifesto for Agile Software Development” and released it as a philosophy of teamwork and continuous delivery in February 2001. Those tenets remain very much a part of the DevOps culture today.

The desire to drive software growth and productivity moved DevOps front and center in today’s enterprise. And operations teams are helping to aid developers’ agile mantra with the ultimate goal of aligning development with an organization’s business side.

“We’ve seen how DevOps practices have minimized or even eliminated finger pointing between ‘Dev’ and ‘Ops’ teams,” said Dave Vellante, chief analyst at SiliconANGLE Media’s sister market research firm Wikibon and host of SiliconANGLE’s livestreaming video studio theCUBE. “People are now taking the next step and aligning software development with product development. This is critical, as in the coming decade, virtually every company will have a software element to its product roadmap.”

On Nov, 18, starting at 11 a.m. EST, theCUBE will provide inside coverage of the DevOps Virtual Forum, which spotlights emerging trends in the DevOps world. TheCUBE hosts will interview top executives from Broadcom Inc., Forrester Research Inc. and British Telecom Group PLC, with a focus on new capabilities in agile management, how organizations are pushing the envelope through the integration of product development and DevOps, and the use of cutting-edge automation tools to maximize value and efficiency. (* Disclosure below.)

Pandmic forces a move to ‘spiritual’ colocation
As an unforeseen pandemic forced organizations of all types and sizes to evolve quickly, many had to go remote overnight. The resulting virtual collaboration required laptop cameras and video conference technology to ensure seamless operations. This reality forced businesses to move from physical spaces to “spiritual” colocation.

“You can’t do that without having an even higher attention to automation and DevOps practices that enable it, but there’s also an increased focus on enabling digital collaboration,” said Jeffrey Hammond, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, during a recent interview with theCUBE. “In 2020, every company is a remote development company.”

While the transition may have challenged developers, recent studies actually revealed that the development community is doing quite well. More than 50% of developers surveyed in the Harness “2020 State of Developer Satisfaction” report said they were happier in their roles since COVID-19 disrupted the world, and an astonishing 94% were overwhelmingly satisfied with the investment their companies were making in employee growth. And a GitHub report published in May revealed the activity of developer-generated pushes and pull requests has increased year-over-year.

But challenges still exist inside organizations, including the cultural alignment between DevOps and the product cycle. In October, the BizOps Coalition released a Manifesto that outlined a framework to bridge the gap between business outcomes and tech investment in DevOps. The bottom line: By connecting software development with the goals of a business and leveraging critical tools such as AI, organizations can create cultural change and eliminate wasted money while improving productivity.

“When we think about the major impediments for DevOps implementation, it’s all about culture,” said Serge Lucio, general manager of the Enterprise Software Division at Broadcom, during a recent interview with theCUBE. “It’s about who can do what and when and driving a bias toward action. There’s a great role that technology and AI can provide for a new level of collaboration.”

In the beginning, there was “Dev” and there was “Ops.” Now, the term “DevOps” has taken its place in the tech lexicon, and the combination symbolizes how developers and IT operations have blended into one unit.

What propelled DevOps to the forefront of organizational focus was a desire to drive both productivity and software growth. Rather than serve as an obstacle to success, operations teams have sought ways to facilitate the developers’ agile mantra. Now the challenge will be to marry development with the business side to achieve full alignment.

“We’ve seen how DevOps practices have minimized or even eliminated finger pointing between ‘Dev’ and ‘Ops’ teams,” said Dave Vellante, chief analyst at SiliconANGLE Media’s sister market research firm Wikibon and host of SiliconANGLE’s livestreaming video studio theCUBE. “People are now taking the next step and aligning software development with product development. This is critical, as in the coming decade, virtually every company will have a software element to its product roadmap.”

During its coverage of the DevOps Virtual Forum on November 18, theCUBE will focus on emerging trends in the DevOps world. The event will include interviews with top executives from Broadcom Inc., Forrester Research Inc. and British Telecom Group PLC, with a focus on new capabilities in agile management, how organizations are pushing the envelope through the integration of product development and DevOps, and the use of cutting-edge automation tools to maximize value and efficiency. (* Disclosure below.)

Physical to ‘spiritual’ colocation
The end of February will mark a milestone that no one could have foreseen. It will be the approximate one-year anniversary of when a global pandemic transformed businesses around the globe, forcing entire organizations to work remotely.

This sudden forcing function has fueled virtual collaboration and a reorientation from a physical workspace to one where laptop cameras and video conference technology have become the tools of daily use. Enterprises have been forced to move on from physical spaces to “spiritual” colocation, a transition that was not always easy.

“You can’t do that without having an even higher attention to automation and DevOps practices that enable it, but there’s also an increased focus on enabling digital collaboration,” said Jeffrey Hammond, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, during a recent interview with theCUBE. “In 2020, every company is a remote development company.”

For developers, the transition may have its challenges, but two recent studies have found that the development community is thriving. The Harness “2020 State of Developer Satisfaction” report issued in August found that over half of responding developers were happier in their roles since COVID-19 disrupted the world and 94% were overwhelmingly satisfied with their companies’ investment in employee growth.

A GitHub report issued in May documented that while development activity has not been without disruption, the activity of developer-generated pushes and pull requests has actually increased year-over-year. Developers appear to be keeping pace.

There remain key challenges for many organizations, particularly in the cultural alignment between DevOps and the product cycle. Does the development cycle match the product timetable? Not always.

In October, the BizOps Coalition released a Manifesto that outlined a framework to bridge the gap between tech investment in DevOps and business outcomes. By connecting software development with the goals of a business and leveraging critical tools such as AI, organizations hope to spark a cultural change that will eliminate wasted productivity and money.

“When we think about the major impediments for DevOps implementation, it’s all about culture,” said Serge Lucio, general manager of the Enterprise Software Division at Broadcom, during a recent interview with theCUBE. “It’s about who can do what and when and driving a bias toward action. There’s a great role that technology and AI can provide for a new level of collaboration.”

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE during the DevOps Virtual Forum include Jeffrey Hammond, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester; Serge Lucio, general manager of the Enterprise Software Division at Broadcom; and Glyn Martin, head of QA transformation at BT.

Google’s Infrastructure-First Product Strategy

Google LLC has a long history of building internal tools to manage its vast global IT network, then productizing those tools for enterprise customers. Several recent Google Cloud releases follow exactly this pattern: capabilities developed to run Google’s own infrastructure are now available as managed services that customers can consume directly.

June Yang, General Manager of Google Compute at Google Cloud, described the philosophy in an interview with theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during Google Cloud Next OnAir:

“We want to help do the heavy lifting around infrastructure so that a customer can simply consume our infrastructure-as-a-service. We’ll do the plumbing work and allow our customers to innovate on top of that.”

June Yang, General Manager of Google Compute, Google Cloud

Google Cloud VMware Engine

One concrete example of this strategy is Google Cloud VMware Engine. Built internally at Google, the service allows enterprise customers to run VMware workloads as a managed service on top of Google’s infrastructure — without needing to re-architect existing VMware-based applications.

Because the service runs natively on Google Cloud, customers can integrate it with other Google Cloud services. Yang highlighted the ability to connect VMware workloads with BigQuery to extract data and generate insights — a migration path that lets teams modernize analytics capabilities without immediately re-platforming their entire workload stack.

The Grace Hopper Subsea Cable

Google’s cloud ambitions are also backed by significant physical network investment. Shailesh Shukla, Vice President and General Manager of Networking at Google Cloud, noted that approximately 98% of all international internet traffic travels over subsea cables — making that physical layer a critical component of cloud performance and reliability.

Google announced the Grace Hopper subsea cable, a new transatlantic link connecting:

• The United States
• The United Kingdom
• Spain

Named after the pioneering computer scientist Admiral Grace Hopper, the cable is designed to significantly expand bandwidth capacity between the US and Europe, supporting the growing volume of cloud and enterprise traffic crossing the Atlantic.

“It will allow for significant new capability between the U.S. and Europe.”

Shailesh Shukla, VP and GM of Networking, Google Cloud

SD-WAN Partnership with Cisco

Beyond physical cables, Google Cloud also announced a partnership with Cisco Systems to bridge enterprise networks with multi-cloud environments using software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN).

The integration connects SD-WAN connectivity with workloads running on Google Cloud, on-premises environments, or other cloud providers. According to Shukla, the solution provides automated, end-to-end, intelligent and secure bridging of enterprise networks to workloads across multiple clouds and locations.

“It’s one of the first in the industry which creates an automated end-to-end solution that intelligently and securely bridges enterprise networks to any workload across multiple clouds and to other locations.”

Shailesh Shukla, VP and GM of Networking, Google Cloud

For enterprises evaluating multi-cloud strategies, this type of SD-WAN integration reduces the networking complexity involved in connecting on-premises data centers to cloud workloads, particularly in heterogeneous environments where not all workloads are on a single cloud provider.

Key Takeaways for DevOps and Cloud Engineers

• Google Cloud VMware Engine offers a low-friction path for enterprises to migrate VMware workloads to the cloud without re-architecting, while gaining access to Google-native analytics services like BigQuery.
• The Grace Hopper cable reflects Google’s continued investment in private physical network infrastructure as a performance differentiator for its cloud platform.
• The Cisco SD-WAN partnership targets enterprises managing hybrid and multi-cloud environments who need consistent, secure network connectivity across locations and clouds.
• Google’s broader strategy positions its infrastructure investments — cable, networking, compute — as services that shift operational burden away from customers and onto the platform.

Source: SiliconAngle / theCUBE interview with June Yang and Shailesh Shukla, conducted during Google Cloud Next OnAir.