Hitchhiking on DevOps with Express 42
DevOps is already well-known to everyone, but the DevOps transformation for many is still like a journey into uncharted space. Today I want to talk about a partnership that helps us explore this universe ourselves and pave the way for others.
It all started in 2015, when we, Express 42, together with Ontiko recreated the RootConf conference. Formally, the direction of the conference was listed as "Professional Conference on Operation and DevOps", but in fact, the reports mainly discussed the tasks of system administration.
In 2018, it became clear that in a world where Dev and Ops live in the same process , a conference only about system administration is no longer relevant. Then we began to gradually change the format of the conference. Now our conference is about everything about DevOps - from Kubernetes, to discussing process changes and effective knowledge sharing.
Now, together with the Program Committee, we headed for everything related to the conversion of analog business processes into digital. This year's DevOpsConf program focuses on how everything turns into code and is managed as code . The community has matured and I am already looking forward to how strong the conference will turn out. But today we are talking about the path traveled, plans to talk about another time.
No idea can exist without people who share it. In a dialogue, ideas develop and spread. For Express 42, as a consultant, it is very important to be on the cutting edge of DevOps trends, and for this, space for dialogue is vital. Therefore, from the first days of the company’s existence, we began to support the DevOps community, organized under 50 meetings, participated in dozens of thematic conferences, sponsored the translation into Russian of several books on DevOps, including the Phoenix Project. A novel about how DevOps is changing the business for the better. ”
At the conference, we are working to reveal DevOps more fully. Unfortunately, our industry is now somewhere on the Internet level of the 2000s. Then there was such a thing as a webmaster - a person who knows everything and does everything in a row: sets up a mail server, typeset a site, etc. A similar story is now with the DevOps engineer.
Already now in the DevOps-process the following roles can be distinguished:
Therefore, we are trying to take papers at the conference that reveal these roles from different angles and show that you can’t get off with one DevOps engineer.
Express 42 is a company that brings engineering practices of modern software development to other companies, allows you to use and create opportunities, be faster than others. We constantly communicate with companies in the market and it is important for us to be in the thick of things, that's why we do DevOpsConf. Besides me from Express 42, Nikita Borzykh and Vitaliy Khabarov take part in the program committee. Together with other industry experts, we are looking for speakers, working with them so that the content of the conference is varied and modern.
It is important for us that we talk about topics that really hurt people and spread the true Russian experience. Still, Russia has its own specifics, and we need to take it into account.
When we created the company in 2012, DevOps was an outer space, few people knew this word. And we turned to space topics to come up with a name. The first part of the name was inspired by Futurama cartoon and their Planet Express delivery service. We already understood then that quickly delivering changes to the battle is very important, so the word "Express" in the title should definitely have been. But this was not enough for the name, and we continued to tear up the space theme.
Where space is - there’s Douglas Adams’s science fiction novel “Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”. And, of course, we took from this novel the number 42, which is the Answer to the Main Question about Life, the Universe and All That.
So Express 42 became a company that knows the answer to the main question about the fast delivery of software.
For people who haven’t read “Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy,” we have another version that we came up with later. 42 is a car code of the Kemerovo region. And Boris Grebenshchikov has a song “A Man from Kemerovo”, in which there are such lines:
By the way, our internal exit hackathon is called Magratea - as a planet in the “Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxies”, on which other planets did.
As a bonus, I am making my speeches with my colleagues. I wanted to collect everything, but this video of 2012 is more likely to cause an attack of nostalgia than bears real benefit. Therefore, I stopped at 2015 - just when the history of our conference began. The reports on the list go from newer to older.
And this is a link to a playlist with all the DevOpsConf reports within the framework of RIT ++. You can see where DevOps and the conference are going.
It all started in 2015, when we, Express 42, together with Ontiko recreated the RootConf conference. Formally, the direction of the conference was listed as "Professional Conference on Operation and DevOps", but in fact, the reports mainly discussed the tasks of system administration.
In 2018, it became clear that in a world where Dev and Ops live in the same process , a conference only about system administration is no longer relevant. Then we began to gradually change the format of the conference. Now our conference is about everything about DevOps - from Kubernetes, to discussing process changes and effective knowledge sharing.
Now, together with the Program Committee, we headed for everything related to the conversion of analog business processes into digital. This year's DevOpsConf program focuses on how everything turns into code and is managed as code . The community has matured and I am already looking forward to how strong the conference will turn out. But today we are talking about the path traveled, plans to talk about another time.
Why the DevOps community is important to us
No idea can exist without people who share it. In a dialogue, ideas develop and spread. For Express 42, as a consultant, it is very important to be on the cutting edge of DevOps trends, and for this, space for dialogue is vital. Therefore, from the first days of the company’s existence, we began to support the DevOps community, organized under 50 meetings, participated in dozens of thematic conferences, sponsored the translation into Russian of several books on DevOps, including the Phoenix Project. A novel about how DevOps is changing the business for the better. ”
Why there are no DevOps engineers
At the conference, we are working to reveal DevOps more fully. Unfortunately, our industry is now somewhere on the Internet level of the 2000s. Then there was such a thing as a webmaster - a person who knows everything and does everything in a row: sets up a mail server, typeset a site, etc. A similar story is now with the DevOps engineer.
Already now in the DevOps-process the following roles can be distinguished:
- infrastructure engineer;
- service development engineer;
- site reliability engineer (SRE);
- quality engineer;
- developer with knowledge of the DevOps process;
- release manager.
Therefore, we are trying to take papers at the conference that reveal these roles from different angles and show that you can’t get off with one DevOps engineer.
What are we talking about
Express 42 is a company that brings engineering practices of modern software development to other companies, allows you to use and create opportunities, be faster than others. We constantly communicate with companies in the market and it is important for us to be in the thick of things, that's why we do DevOpsConf. Besides me from Express 42, Nikita Borzykh and Vitaliy Khabarov take part in the program committee. Together with other industry experts, we are looking for speakers, working with them so that the content of the conference is varied and modern.
It is important for us that we talk about topics that really hurt people and spread the true Russian experience. Still, Russia has its own specifics, and we need to take it into account.
Why the company is called Express 42
When we created the company in 2012, DevOps was an outer space, few people knew this word. And we turned to space topics to come up with a name. The first part of the name was inspired by Futurama cartoon and their Planet Express delivery service. We already understood then that quickly delivering changes to the battle is very important, so the word "Express" in the title should definitely have been. But this was not enough for the name, and we continued to tear up the space theme.
Where space is - there’s Douglas Adams’s science fiction novel “Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”. And, of course, we took from this novel the number 42, which is the Answer to the Main Question about Life, the Universe and All That.
So Express 42 became a company that knows the answer to the main question about the fast delivery of software.
For people who haven’t read “Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy,” we have another version that we came up with later. 42 is a car code of the Kemerovo region. And Boris Grebenshchikov has a song “A Man from Kemerovo”, in which there are such lines:
The sky will fall to earthSo we became a company that corrects everything related to the fast delivery of software.
The grass will stop growing -
He will come and silently correct everything
A man from Kemerovo.
By the way, our internal exit hackathon is called Magratea - as a planet in the “Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxies”, on which other planets did.
Speeches Express 42 at Ontico Conferences
As a bonus, I am making my speeches with my colleagues. I wanted to collect everything, but this video of 2012 is more likely to cause an attack of nostalgia than bears real benefit. Therefore, I stopped at 2015 - just when the history of our conference began. The reports on the list go from newer to older.
- What is DevOps / Alexander Titov
- BOF DevOps Deflope / Nikita Borzykh, Ivan Evtukhovich, Andrey Alexandrov, Vitaliy Khabarov
- Myths about DevOps / Alexander Titov, Ivan Evtukhovich
- New IT for a new enterprise / Alexander Titov
- DC / OS - More Than PaaS / Nikita Borzykh
- Testing infrastructure as a code / Igor Kurochkin
And this is a link to a playlist with all the DevOpsConf reports within the framework of RIT ++. You can see where DevOps and the conference are going.
DevOpsConf 2019 is coming soon - September 30 and October 1. The schedule is ready, and it is very tight. At each point in time there will be reports for everyone, so come .
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