The software development process has changed drastically over the last 10 years. DevOps has taken over the world, and as more Development and IT teams work in harmony, the more these agile companies sing the praises of continuous deployment
Continuous deployment is what makes DevOps so special. Instead of releasing application updates every 1-6 months, DevOps teams now deploy small, incremental changes several times a day.
DevOps teams see significantly higher performance number over their traditional deployment counterparts. In the 2017 State of DevOps report, Puppet found that high-performing DevOps teams had:
The benefits of DevOps extend beyond development metrics, too. Puppet also found that companies with high-performing DevOps teams were twice as likely to meet their financial and non-financial goals for the year.
If it’s not clear by now, I’ll spell it out for you: Teams that do not adopt DevOps practices are getting left behind.
If you want to develop an “Always Be Shipping” culture on your team, you first need to adopt an “Always Be Learning” attitude. The best DevOps engineers are reading, learning, and deploying new ideas constantly.
If you’re ready to do the same, here are the top 12 DevOps blogs right now, created by the best DevOps minds in the world:
If you’re a fan of Atlassian products— JIRA, Bitbucket, Confluence, Bamboo, Trello, among others— then you’re going to love the Atlassian blog. They tackle important topics that span the DevOps ecosystem from IT management to compliance standards.
While most of their articles are Atlassian product-specific, everyone can glean insight and inspiration from their articles. They even have an agile marketing category, if you’re into that kind of thing.
How to Choose the Right DevOps Tools
DevOps Cube is a dream come true for DevOps engineers and ambitious upstart developers. It is chock full of great tutorials for getting the most out of your favorite tools: Docker, Jenkins, Google Cloud and more. Experience level for these tutorials ranges from beginner to highly advanced.
DevOps Cube has a great resource section and a fairly active forum if you can’t find the information you’re looking for on the site. The only thing better than great DevOps resources is a great DevOps community.
List Of Best Docker Container Clustering And Orchestration Tools/Services
DevOps.com is like the front page of the DevOps community. You’ll find all types of commentary on the DevOps ecosystem, including news, product reviews, humorous opinion pieces, and insights from the pros. They also publish a weekly podcast called DevOps Chat hosted by legendary IT Pro Alan Shimel.
If you want to go deep into the weeds, DevOps.com has the resources for you to do it. They host several webinars a month that covers specific DevOps tactics and strategies like “Automating Deployment for Enterprise Level Businesses” and “Setting up a Private Cloud”. They also have a huge repository of ebooks and PDFs for you to download.
Study: CIOs want a Chief Data Officer
Docker is a popular Container as a Service (CAAS) tool that regularly updates their blog with valuable goodies for DevOps pros. Almost all the information on the blog is product-specific, so it’s especially valuable for anyone who uses Docker.
Think of this blog as continuing education for Docker users, with company updates and general DevOps advice sprinkled in here and there.
Containers as a Service (CAAS) As Your New Platform for Application Development and Operations
iHeavy (Also called Scalable Startups) is the personal blog of data and DevOps guy Sean Hull. He specializes in mySQL, AWS, and scaling operations, but topics on his blog range from data security (See: What Does the Fight Between Palantir and NYPD Mean for Your Data?) to Brooklyn Real Estate. He only posts a few times a month, but he has a fairly active reader base that will continue the discussion in the comments.
What’s great about iHeavy is that it’s a pure blog. Sean isn’t a journalist and he doesn’t have a marketing agenda. He simply shares his insights when they come to him, and very often those insights are spot on.
IT isn’t just experiencing a technological revolution; it’s in the middle of a business revolution as well. IT leadership needs to be included in the highest-level conversations in order for a business to win. That’s where IT Revolution comes in.
Co-author of the novel The Phoenix Project, Gene Kim has compiled an excellent catalog of books, PDFs, and other resources for DevOps organizations. While you won’t find technical how-to’s on this site, you will learn a ton about using DevOps to run a more effective business.
IT Revolution Books and Free Resource Center
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The Microsoft Azure Blog has everything you need to know about developing on Azure. Along with updates and documentation, Microsoft also has a suite of guided learning paths for topics like .NET, node.js, and Azure solution architects.
If you want to see even more from Microsoft, check out Channel 9, their media site. It includes videos, whiteboard lessons, and podcasts.
See also: We included the Channel 9 podcast on our list of best developer podcasts.
Network World is an online magazine that covers data, networks, cloud computing and IoT. Network World covers more than just DevOps, but it’s still a great resource for sheer volume of content.
Network World keeps you up to date with the latest industry news and takes you deep into the weeds with technical how-tos and product reviews. This is one of those sites you can check every day and find plenty of new reading material.
Review: Microsoft Azure IoT Suite
Bonus: Network World wrote about Stackify way back in 2013 soon after Matt founded the company.
The Pivotal Resource Center is a great destination if you’re just starting to explore the world of DevOps. They have easy-to-read guides for several high-level topics such as DevOps, agile, and containers.
The Pivotal blog is also valuable for Pivotal users. They regularly provide product updates, case studies, and industry insights.
Cloud Native Applications: Ship Faster, Reduce Risk, Grow Your Business
Scott Hanselman is a developer on Microsoft’s Web Platform Team, but he’s also a prolific writer, speaker, and podcaster. Scott’s blog covers primarily .NET, cloud, and open source applications. The best part is that he provides code samples in nearly every article. If you’re the type of learner who likes to follow along with an expert, Scott’s blog is perfect for you.
Scott has been in the game so long that you feel like a real insider reading his blog. He starts many of his posts talking about a conversation he had with a friend, that then led to a miraculous breakthrough. Man, I want to hang out with this guy.
See also: We included Hanselminutes on our list of best developer podcasts.
Cloud Database? NoSQL? Nah, Just Use CSVs and CSVHelper
If you like your IT news with a side of snark, then subscribe to The Register. Apart from having one of the most clever slogans in town (“Biting the Hand that Feeds IT”… Get it?), The Register conquers news, product reviews, and IT policy stories with biting and often hilarious candor.
Regular topics include Data Centers, Software, DevOps, Security, and Emergent Tech. It’s a full-fledged news site, so there is plenty of material to check out every day. And don’t give them too much flak for being based in the UK… it’s not their fault.
Python Explosion Blamed on Pandas
UpGuard specializes in cyber resilience for cloud-based businesses. Jon Hendron, UpGuard’s Director of Strategy defines cyber resilience as, “Building protection into the processes that create and maintain technical assets and data.” This is different than cybersecurity, which normally involves additional tech on top of your infrastructure.
UpGuard’s blog covers cyber resilience in depth, along with other security topics like compliance, cloud leaks, and ransomware. This blog is great for anyone interested in the intersection of business and tech security: executives, IT professionals, and even customers who have their information on the cloud.
DZone is a tech media site and education hub with loads of information. They publish several articles a day on across multiple “Zones” like DevOps, Cloud, Java, Mobile, and IOT. Recent topics have ranged from highlights of Apple’s September Keynote to SOLID Principles by Example: Liskov Substitution Principle. It basically has everything you need if you live and breath DevOps.
DZone also has a popular Member-Only program that lets you dive deeper into the topics you’re most interested in. Definitely something to consider if you enjoy the free content.
An Introduction to Continuous Integration and Workflows
Before starting Stackify, Matt Watson was the CTO of a fast-growing enterprise SaaS provider. He was frustrated that he didn’t have the tools or server access necessary to work efficiently with his IT team. That’s when he set out on the mission to help developers create better web applications.
The Stackify blog is an extension of that mission. The blog is perfect for developers who want to learn more about .NET, Application Performance Monitoring, DevOps, and running a more agile business. It also covers career advice for developers and managers, IT Consultants, and CIOs/CTOs.
“To become a DevOps expert, remain a DevOps student, you must.” – Yoda, probably
You can never know too much about DevOps. To continue learning, head over to the Stackify blog where you’ll find a ton of great information about improving your software development lifecycle.
Also check out our list of .NET blogs.
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