The Ship Show

In episode 36, we sit down with Shanley Kane and Amelia Greenhall to talk about people and communities within the technology industry and startup/VC culture. We were first introduced to Shanley in episode 24, where the crew discussed her post on microaggression in management. We touch again on that topic today, but also look at the power structures that are often obscured or deemphasized. We also look at what conferences and meetups are (or aren't) doing to help keep all attendees safe, and what we can all do to improve our workplaces and the technology industry as a whole. Plus, we discuss Shanley and Amelia's new venture: Model View Culture, a media company dedicated to helping us all examine and deconstruct the technology industry's: Myths, Archetypes, Heroes, and Imposters

For episode 35, the crew takes a look at a core component of continuous delivery: the application update mechanism. We talk a bit about our collective experiences supporting update paths, how some of the players in our industry conduct their updates, and whether or not that's actually good for customers, or it's just a myth we hear parroted constantly. We also take a look at a couple of case studies related to continuous delivery transformations, and some myths around the implementation details of continuous delivery, ultimately trying to figure out, whether it's customers, engineering teams, release teams, or ops teams, are the way we do updates today is a case of: Continuous Deployment... or Annoy-ment?

To ring in 2014, the panel discusses some of the core elements of release engineering infrastructure for all sorts of applications, from web services to shipped-software. We talk about the challenges of coming into a new environment and having to support an existing infrastructure, a few methods for changing taking the infra over and starting to really own, and the components every build and tool infrastructure needs to address to be considered "operationalized." We revisit some topics we've discussed in previous shows, but it's always a good checklist to run through to see if you've got them covered in: Infrastructure As A Service... You're Responsible For.

For our 2013 finale episode, the crew takes a look back at 2013, discussing the trends we predicted at the beginning of the year, as well as others that crept up on us. We also dust off our collective crystal balls and discuss what we think 2014 will bring for DevOps, cloud, and shipping software. Join us for our holiday of edition of the Ship Show as we: Ringing in 2013++

For episode 0x20, we sit down with Bay Area improvisation trainer Chris Sams. Chris works with all sorts of organizations, including software development companies, teaching their teams in the art of applied improvisation. Most of us probably think of comedy troupes or shows such as Whose Line Is It Anyway when we think of improv, but improv skills can increase team creativity and cohesion, and make it easier for the team to work together and react in real time to unforeseen situations. Chris also discusses how tech companies, specifically, can up their skills by learning improvisation basics, and how this all fits in with companies on their own DevOps transformation journey, plus illuminates some surprising facts about what the basics of improvisation are about! So join us as we sit down, improvise an interview, and try to find out: Whose Function Is It Anyway?

As the holiday season approaches, we take a moment to sit down with Sarah Goff-Dupont and James Dumay from Atlassian's Bamboo team to discuss the full stack of tools used by companies of all sizes, from startups to massive enterprises to NASA to get their software shipped. (Sometimes off of the planet!) Atlassian is known for the bug-tracker Jira, but we discuss the many of the other things they do, the process they use to design the various tools in their stack, how they work to address the special technological and cultural challenges that larger enterprises and governments find themselves facing when working towards scaling a DevOps transformation, and how to get those organizations started. So, grab some turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing, and join us for: A Cornucopia of Dev[Ops] Tools: A Chat with Atlassian!

What happens when you bring together practitioners from all corners of the software development arena, put them in a room, and discuss hardware and software scaling, what your ops teams should (and shouldn't) do, how not to fool yourself again, how to delight your customers, how to tune your feedback cycles, how to get the executive staff to buy into it, how to make the outcomes better by embracing diversity, and wrap it all up with how not to turn it into an pie-in-the-sky religion? Well, you'd have FlowCon! Join us as we review the conference held last week in San Francisco with two of the program committee members, a couple of gentlemen who’ve both written a couple of little books you might've heard of before. Listen in as we attempt: Getting into Flow[Con] with Gene Kim and Jez Humble!

It is fitting that our first episode to be split into a TV-esque cliffhanger is with our Netflix panel! In episode 28, we discussed Netflix's unique engineering culture; in part two, we discuss with the panel the dynamics of how Netflix develops its release engineering tools, Netflix’s cloud prize, configuration management vs. baked potatoes, what percentage of the Internet Netflix actually uses at peak, plus the panel's guilty (and possibly embarrassing) Netflix pleasures; find out what they are and more when we wrap up: To Be Continued: Release Engineering Tools at Netflix.

It's hard to have a conversation or hear a presentation these days about DevOps without hearing Netflix’s name being uttered: they're a poster-child not only for employing DevOps principles and techniques, but for successfully moving their entire application to Amazon's Web Services public cloud. But how did they achieve this? And what cultural and technological struggles did they have while reshaping themselves from a company that mails out DVDs to a company that slings bits and produces Emmy-award winning content. Join us for a chat with members of Netflix's Engineering Tools and Playback Reliability teams; we know it's a conversation you won't want to miss... after all: Because You Watched DevOps, You Might Enjoy Netflix

With the explosion in popularity and usage of Git and its distributed version control brethren, developers finally have cheap, easy, local branching. But branching is pointless without merging, and many organizations are finding that the free-for-all merge process that Git can leave your organization with (mostly by being totally silent on the subject) is error prone, doesn't scale, and may even destroy content! As you search for the perfect branching model, questions like "should we use fast-forward merges or merge commits," "When do we rebase (if ever)?" and "What repository structure should we use" are bound to crop up, along with "can't we just use git flow?" Join the panel as they grab a razor and a yak and talk: Branching, Merging, and Octopi (Oh My!)

All of Information Technology’s puppeteers recently came together in San Francisco to discuss their beloved automation/configuration management tool, Puppet! We attended the conference and have the lowdown on all the Puppet developments of the past year, plus what’s in store for Puppet and the community this next year! Join our eclectic panel of puppet experts as we recount the goings on this year at PuppetConf in our: PuppetConf 2013 Revue!

The initial premise for episode 25--has it really been that long?--was "should everyone have access to the production environment," which the panel was squarely divided on. But the discussion eventually turned to what skills your Ops (and, with DevOps, your developers!) should have so they don't "freak out" when dealing with production outages. But, it's not just engineers: organizations, with their management ethos and culture, play a big role as well. So find out who thinks who should have access to PROD, plus how you can: Keep Calm and PROD On.

Earlier this year at ChefConf, rabble-rouser Sascha Bates proclaimed "training is pointless! Why do training when you can just sequester yourself (and maybe your team) away and read a book!" But, within earshot were Julian Dunn and Nathen Harvey, who both lead training for a living. Hilarity ensued, and we decided to mediate the "dispute" for episode 24! We tackle the issue of training, learning styles, and industry technical certifications, as we try to figure out: Training: Vapid or Valuable?

For episode 23, we sit down with programming veteran and Ruby expert Sandi Metz to discuss her new book: Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby! But we don't just talk about design patterns; we tackle everything from what Sandi means by "object-oriented design", to how design patterns permeate both software engineering and operations. We also philosophize on the art of the programming craft and what changes Sandi has seen over thirty years. Sit down with us for a conversation on: Practical Object OO (and Cat!) Design with Sandi Metz!

Episode 22 sports a special treat: in case you weren't able to attend DevOpsDays Silicon Valley 2013, we join forces with the Food Fight Show (again!) and the DevOps Cafe for the first ever "Food Ship Cafe!" We convene a group of DevOps household names (including the "fairy godmother" of DevOps himself!) for the: DevOpsDays Silicon Valley 2013 Super Panel!