Benjamin W. Smith

Benjamin W. Smith

Benjamin W. Smith  //  Sysadmin by trade, Pythonista by passion. Dad to two boys and a girl. Guitarist. I like my coffee black, just like my metal.

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Aug 29 / 8:36am

from python.podcast import awesome

If you don’t know, Chris Miller, Dave Stanek and Mike Crute started a podcast some months ago, aptly named from python import podcast. If you do know, great! Keep listening and supporting!

What you might not know is that I crashed the party to babble with the fellas about all things python. Hope they like me, cause I’m sticking around!

In all seriousness, on the most recent episode we talk about PyOhio, the conference process, the various awesome ideas and projects that spawned off of it and lots of other stuff. Definitely worth noting that Mike C. sits down to chat with Greg Malcom about the Python Koans project, which you need to check out.

So why are you still reading this? Why are you not listening to from python import podcast while playing with Python Koans??

Nothing left to see here..

Filed under  //  devops   from python import podcast   podcast   pyohio   python   python koans  
 
Aug 25 / 8:58pm

DevOps: A New Approach to An Old Problem

With the recent chatter about 'DevOps', I thought to myself, how can I explain the idea in a terse manner?  It's pretty simple, really!  You have a business need or problem, so you hire a developer to write code that will solve it.  Web Operations is a business need (or problem, depending on how you approach it), and you hire a sysadmin to do some crazy magic to solve it.

What I think it boils down to is this, and I would use it to introduce someone to the concept:

DevOps means D-e-v-e-l-o-p-m-e-n-t O-p-e-r-a-t-i-o-n-s and is the idea that development doesn't stop at the application layer.

FWIW, according to GoOVERLORD, development is defined as: 'act of improving by expanding or enlarging or refining'.

To expand a little, I should say that this is not a new idea.  It seems cool to throw the term around right now, but it really is just a restructuring of how sysadmins work today, with some magic pixie dust thrown around in the form of code, version control, organizational frameworks and agile methodologies.  Know why this is good?  Several reasons, not the least of which is synergy between business, development and operations.  Huge.  Effing.  Win.

The tools have been there for some time, but I think the experience of doing things at such a large scale has forced us to to see how these tools can work together to make everyones lives easier.  

Operations is the foundation of your web presence, why fuck around when it comes down to it? 

EDIT: Seems that Matt Simmons over at Standalone Sysadmin shares very similar thoughts: His take on DevOps.  Nice to see I'm not alone in this way thinking!

 

Filed under  //  dev   development   devops   ops   programming   sysadmin