Creating a Product through DevOps: The Story of APPUiO Cloud

Since its foundation in 2014, the slogan of VSHN has been 'The DevOps Company'. Following that ethos, VSHN applied all of its practice of DevOps and Agile to the creation of its latest product, APPUiO Cloud. In this session we are going to see how DevOps shaped product and human management decisions throughout the process, from idea to market.

Transcript

1. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Adrian Kosmaczewski, Developer Relations, VSHN APPUiO Cloud Creating a Product through DevOps Thank you so much for this opportunity to talk about APPUiO Cloud in the Berner Architekten Treffen. Through this talk we would like to give you an idea of how we built this new product using DevOps as a guiding philosophy. Speaker notes 1
2. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform 1. About VSHN’s Culture 2. What is APPUiO Cloud? 3. A DevOps Way of Working 4. Some crunchy details 5. Questions Agenda Today I’m going to talk about how we built APPUiO Cloud at VSHN. For that I will start explaining a bit our culture, what is APPUiO Cloud, and then how we used DevOps to create it. I’ll give you some practical details about how we made it, and I’ll be glad to answer your questions at the end. Speaker notes 2
3. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Pronounced ˈvɪʒn – like "vision" The DevOps Company Founded 2014, 50 VSHNeers located in Zürich Switzerland’s leading DevOps, Docker & Kubernetes partner ISO 27001 certified & ISAE 3402 Report Type 1 verified First Swiss Kubernetes Certified Service Provider Before we start, I’d like you to introduce VSHN to those who have never heard of it before. We’re a company of 50 people based in Zürich, founded in 2014 with the objective of providing companies with DevOps services of different kinds. The slogan of VSHN is, actually, "The DevOps Company." We embrace the DevOps philosophy completely, and as you’ll see today, we use its principles and ideas in everything we do. What does VSHN do? We provide various services and products: We offer "DevOps as a Service" (or DaaS), with a full team of Kubernetes and cloud experts ready to monitor your applications 24/7, in every hyperscaler, all over the world. We help companies become self-sufficient and cloud- enabled; we help software engineers to "build bridges" between Dev and Ops, building CI/CD pipelines in various platforms such as GitLab, OpenShift, or Jenkins. We are Kubernetes specialists, to the point that our strategy is 100% oriented towards Kubernetes; all of the code we write, all of the systems we assemble, for us or others, are meant to be run on Kubernetes. Speaker notes 3
4. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform The DevOps Company Self-funded, organic growth Sociocracy Handbook: Our Culture handbook.vshn.ch Aside from our technological choices, the important thing to know about VSHN is that we have chosen to drive the growth of our company in various ways that are completely nonstandard: We are "The DevOps Company", and as such, we embraced the DevOps mantra completely. Everything we do is automated as much as possible, freeing our brains to think. We have decided as a company not to grow through venture capital, instead relying in the good old method of organic growth. We have been self-funded since day one (2014), and we have been consistently profitable and growing since 2017. We use Sociocracy as a management and growth framework. This means that all decisions, and I mean all of them, happen through consensus among all VSHNeers (that’s how we call ourselves, by the way.) We have created a Handbook, freely available online, which in printed form takes 563 pages, explaining everything we are and do at VSHN with quite an incredible level of detail. I invite you to check it out at and you will learn everything there’s to learn about us. Speaker notes handbook.vshn.ch/ 4
5. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform www.vshn.ch/en/blog/how-vshns-organization-evolves-using-sociocracy-3-0 Sociocracy is our evolution framework, and we have a small team of people at VSHN whose only job is to help us evolve into this framework continuously. In particular, any VSHNeer is able to raise issues, problems, and to ask for help to change procedures or situations that are hurting their happiness at VSHN. VSHNeers are able to create "VSHN Improvement Proposals" or VIPs as we call them; they are simply tickets in our Jira that explain a current situation or decision, the drawbacks and negative impact, and propose a solution to be discussed by everyone involved and/or interested in the issue. This simple mechanism has completely transformed the way we work in the past 3 years, and as a result we all feel part of the structure we built, and we all feel responsible for it at all times. Speaker notes 5
6. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Hiring All of these choices have shaped our culture in ways that are really not common at all, and have interesting consequences in our day-to-day operations. For example, our hiring policies are different to those of most IT companies; not only we do pay attention to the IT skills of those who want to join our team, but place a very high degree of attention to the human factor. We want people to feel great at VSHN, and one of the primary factors we evaluate during our hiring process is the "likeness" of the person, that is, how much would we like to work with them every day? Speaker notes 6
7. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Remote & Async Another interesting consequence of how VSHN works is that we had embraced remote and asynchronous working well before the pandemic; when the Bundesrat mandated everyone to work from home in March 2020, we simply stayed home and continued working as if nothing had happened. The important bit of information here is the asynchronous word; not so much that we work remote, but that we work in a non synchronous way. This particular mindset has shaped our company greatly. Speaker notes 7
8. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform But let’s get back in time a little bit, and see how APPUiO Cloud came to be. In 2016 VSHN and Puzzle ITC (an IT and software consulting company with offices in Bern and Zurich) launched a joint venture called APPUiO. This is a word in Esperanto, meaning "Support". APPUiO consists of a series of products built around Red Hat OpenShift. Speaker notes 8
9. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform For those who haven’t heard of it yet, OpenShift is the most widely used Kubernetes-based platform in the enterprise world. It is quite popular with big companies, and it incorporates a hardened and highly available Kubernetes cluster surrounded by lots of relevant software: a container repository, a management console, CI/CD pipelines, with a very nice and professional GUI on top. We decided we wanted to be a part of the OpenShift market, but we also realized that installing and operating OpenShift is a huge endeavour, and many companies could not use OpenShift because of the lack of staff or budget. So we decided to join forces with Puzzle ITC. Speaker notes 9
10. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform   APPUiO is our response to the complexity of Red Hat OpenShift. With APPUiO, customers can get a ready-to- use cluster, together with the know-how of VSHN and Puzzle ITC. We at VSHN we specialize in the setup and maintenance of OpenShift clusters; we have been operating OpenShift clusters since version 3. Puzzle ITC are specialists in the creation of software solutions for OpenShift, which is something we don’t do. Together, the APPUiO team can help companies make the most out of their OpenShift investment. Speaker notes 10
11. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform APPUiO Public  APPUiO Cloud APPUiO Managed APPUiO Self-Managed Flavors APPUiO has been historically available in various forms: APPUiO Public, based on OpenShift 3, was the first Swiss-based shared OpenShift cluster available to customers. It is a shared platform, where customers can run their projects without having to care about management or anything else. There were APPUiO Public clusters running in various cloud providers, such as Cloudscale in Switzerland and AWS in Germany. Customers can choose whichever they prefer, and deploy their containers there in a few minutes. APPUiO Managed is the next step for organizations who are not comfortable running their workloads in a public platform. With APPUiO Managed, they get their own OpenShift cluster, for their exclusive use, and Puzzle ITC and VSHN take care of the operations of the cluster transparently for their users. APPUiO Self-Managed is the final step in the evolution of organizations: with APPUiO Self- Managed, organizations not only get an OpenShift cluster "keys in hand" and ready to run, but we teach their IT teams how to manage and maintain the cluster by themselves. We gradually "fade in the background" and provide help, until at some point they become completely independent. This is a very interesting option for big corporations with their own IT teams. APPUiO Cloud is the latest offering in the APPUiO family, officially launched in November 2021. Speaker notes 11
12. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform What is APPUiO Cloud? Simply put, APPUiO Cloud is the successor of APPUiO Public. Given the major architectural changes between OpenShift 3 and 4, instead of migrating our APPUiO Public infrastructure to OpenShift 4 we decided to create a new project from scratch, and we gave it a different name and even a different visual identity. We have notified our APPUiO Public customers of the upcoming phasing out of the service, with an offer to help them migrate their payloads to APPUiO Cloud. At this moment we only have a few APPUiO Public customers remaining to move, and we have been decomissioning those clusters as we move forward. Speaker notes 12
13. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform cloudscale-lpg-2  Lupfig (AG) exoscale-ch-gva-2-0  Genève (GE) Regions As said previously, APPUiO Cloud is based exclusively on OpenShift 4. At the moment we have two APPUiO Cloud zones available to our customers: cloudscale.ch in Kanton Aargau Exoscale au Canton de Genève We plan to open more regions in the future, as required and following the demand from our customers. Speaker notes 13
14. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform We started working on APPUiO Cloud in Spring 2021, and we released to the public in Autumn that year. We reused lots of code and infrastructure we had created for our work previously: K8up, a Kubernetes backup operator that has been picked up by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation as a sandbox project. Project Syn, a suite of tools that allow for the remote management of Kubernetes clusters of any kind, from a central location using a GitOps philosophy and workflow. Speaker notes 14
15. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform MVP DevOps & CI/CD Pipelines Mobile app backends Education Technology trial Resellers Target Audience APPUiO Cloud, just like its predecessor APPUiO Public, is meant to be an "entry level" product, catering at the "long tail" of OpenShift customers, who might be interested in getting access to a working OpenShift cluster without the hassle of installing and operating it. As such, we identified a few target groups: MVP: Spin a new OpenShift namespace on APPUiO Cloud, deploy your MVP, and go back to raising more venture capital. DevOps & CI/CD Pipelines: Run your CI/CD pipelines, deploy, and preview your application on a running OpenShift cluster right now before going live. Mobile App Backends: For iOS or Android developers needing to deploy back-ends on a scalable, trusted environment. Education: Let students experience the full power of a real OpenShift cluster with their own individual namespace. Technology Trial: For users interested in APPUiO Managed cluster, but needing to hedge the risks of trying out new technology. Resellers: Resell APPUiO Cloud and let us manage the cluster for you. Speaker notes 15
16. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Instant On Pay-per-use Integrated backups Pre-installed operators Community support Features Features What is included in APPUiO Cloud? Instant On: Get your own OpenShift namespace in minutes, ready to use. Pay-per-use: Only pay for the resources you actually use. User Management: Organize your namespaces in teams and organizations, and assign users to those teams; control who can access which namespaces at a glance. Backup: Backup all your work with the pre-installed K8up operator. Pre-Installed and Configured Operators: APPUiO Cloud provides the following OpenShift operators pre- installed and pre-configured, ready to be used: K8up: Kubernetes Backup Operator. Cert Manager: X.509 certificate management for Kubernetes. Community Support: Need help? Check out our APPUiO Cloud forums and community chat. For those needing more help, there are support packages available at extra cost. Speaker notes 16
17. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Strict maintenance policies Status information: Resource availability: no guarantees SLA: Best-effort Fair-use policy No privileged containers Log retention: 72 hours No other operators (yet) Restrictions status.appuio.cloud Conditions Because it’s a public platform, APPUiO Cloud comes with some gotchas: Maintenance Policies: There are two types of maintenance: APPUiO Cloud Zones receive automatic revision updates (for example, from 4.7.1 to 4.7.2). This includes OpenShift and worker nodes updates. These updates can happen at any time without prior announcement. Upgrades of minor (for example from 4.7 to 4.8) and major (4 to 5) OpenShift versions are announced in advance, with a description of all possible breaking changes. On request, we can provide you with access to an already upgraded APPUiO Cloud Zone, for you to test your deployment if needed. Status Information: We communicate the status of the platform on status.appuio.cloud. Resource Availability: APPUiO Cloud is provided without any guarantees of resource availability. SLA: Best-effort. Fair-Use Policy: APPUiO Cloud is a shared platform. Unless otherwise stated, this fair-use principle applies to the use of our services. APPUiO Cloud users must use their resources moderately, so as not to degrade the service level available to other users. Privileged Containers: Privileged containers can’t run on APPUiO Cloud. Log retention: The OpenShift integrated logging (Elasticsearch / Kibana) retains collected logs for 72h (3 days), after that time-period logs are permanently deleted. Other Operators: It is not possible (at the moment) to run other OpenShift operators than the ones we are offering. We evaluate them on a case-by-case basis, following the requests from our customers. Speaker notes 17
18. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform A DevOps Way of Working What do we mean by "a DevOps way of working"? Let’s see first what we mean by DevOps, one of those words that can mean anything and everything dependending on who you ask. Speaker notes 18
19. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Usually when people talk about DevOps they think about this physical division between developers and operation teams, and how they don’t communicate anymore, and how much better it would be if they did. Speaker notes 19
20. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Then DevOps comes along, with its long list of technologies and buzzwords… Speaker notes 20
21. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform … and somehow all barriers are destroyed, and we can once again collaborate and work better together. For us at VSHN, this is a limited view of what DevOps is and can bring; it is an important part, but not all. Instead, we prefer to think about DevOps as a set of three principles, following what some authors have written about it. Speaker notes 21
22. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform In particular, we think the best people to talk about DevOps is the author of "The DevOps Handbook" and "The Phoenix Project": Gene Kim. The latter book is actually a modern rewriting and reinterpretation of a classic management book from the 1980s called "The Goal" by Eliyahu Goldratt, but quite faithful in spirit. Speaker notes 22
23. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform 1. The Principles of Flow 2. The Principles of Feedback 3. The Principles of Continual Learning and Experimentation In those books, DevOps is usually defined by the "three ways": 1. The Principles of Flow 2. The Principles of Feedback 3. The Principles of Continual Learning and Experimentation Let’s see how these three principles helped us build a new product. Speaker notes 23
24. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform 1. The Principles of Flow How did we create APPUiO Cloud following DevOps? We applied these three principles in and out during the whole process, as follows. Speaker notes 24
25. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Value Stream The first thing was to decide where to start, that is, what was the value stream we wanted to provide first. We wanted to have actual results as early as possible, because seeing things happen and appearing is one of the best ways to keep a team in activity, motivated, and delivering. Speaker notes 25
26. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Product Documentation That work brought together the Product Documentation. That’s right, the first thing we created through discussion was a written documentation of what we wanted to offer. Why written? Because we work asynchronously. That means that some of us work better at night, while some work better in the morning; having everything written down helped everyone, commenting down drafts of the documents until there was agreement. Agreement from whom? From the Product Owners to the DevOps engineers who would have to maintain the solution at the end. This way, the operations team knows exactly what is it that’s going to happen. There are no surprises down the hall, and they feel empowered and listened to. All the features of APPUiO Cloud are, simply put, possible to release; either now or later, but they are possible. Speaker notes 26
27. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform www.vshn.ch/en/blog/reverse-engineering-conways-law The important thing here is that we started by applying Conway’s Law. That is, we first structured the team that would work on APPUiO Cloud, and then we got to create the system. The end result of this process is that the architecture of APPUiO Cloud, following Conway’s Law, strictly mirrors the structure of our team. We do not fight against Conway’s Law; we embrace it. Speaker notes 27
28. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform For Product Owners For System Engineers For Users Documentation products.docs.vshn.ch/products/appuio/cloud/ kb.vshn.ch/appuio-cloud/ docs.appuio.cloud/ The result of this work of architecture can be summarized in three different documentation websites for APPUiO Cloud; you’ve heard right, we have created three different sets of documentation, and we keep them updated every day: System engineer documentation at Product owner documentation at End user documentation at We have made all of the documentation publicly available and viewable, even editable, because transparency is one of our values at VSHN. We want all of our customers to know exactly we’re doing things the way we do; this, in turn, generates trust in our existing customers, and shows our know-how to prospective customers. These three documentation sites are, simply put, great marketing tools! Speaker notes kb.vshn.ch/appuio- cloud/ products.docs.vshn.ch/products/appuio/cloud/ docs.appuio.cloud/user/ 28
29. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform 1. Reduce batch sizes 2. Reduce work intervals 3. Build quality in Flow The principle of Flow requires teams to make work visible, recuding batch sizes and intervals of work, and to build quality in. We limited work in progress to the strict minimum, and we automated as much as possible of the process. Speaker notes 29
30. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Automation This automation involves removing the human factor from the maintenance of those clusters as much as possible. One of the key factors for doing this was Project Syn, a suite of tools we started building in 2019 that allows our small team to manage hundreds of clusters from a central location. We created Project Syn as a way to be able to operate our customers' assets with a reduced human footprint, but it turned out to be a great way to handle our own work on APPUiO Cloud, too. Speaker notes 30
31. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Thanks to Project Syn, DevOps engineers can specify and deploy changes to lots of Kubernetes clusters from a central location, using a GitOps strategy; just commit your changes as "infrastructure as code" to a Git repository, and wait a few seconds until all clusters apply those changes. We use Project Syn to deploy Kyverno security policies to our APPUiO Cloud clusters, so that all regions conform to the same rulebook. We also configured each of the APPUiO Cloud zones with the mandatory differences between the cloud providers we use; Exoscale and cloudscale.ch do not offer exactly the same features, and being able to see those differences in written form allows us to manage those systems, to take decisions for the future, and to inform our customers of any possible tradeoff. Speaker notes 31
32. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform 2. The Principles of Feedback We know that APPUiO Cloud is a complex system, built out of complex systems, that are prone to failure at any given time. It is not a matter of "if", but rather a matter of "when." Speaker notes 32
33. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Observability We have built observability and management tools immediately from the start in our work of APPUiO Cloud. We have reused the management infrastructure provided by OpenShift, the same one we were using for our private customers, and we have built APPUiO Cloud to be observable at all times. Speaker notes 33
34. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Policies Builds Configuration Infrastructure Documentation "Everything as Code" Using "everything as code" as a basis for our work means that every time we fix an issue on the platform, we have to change a configuration file somewhere. This information is later stored in the Git repo, as part of the project history; not only that, but we also update the required documentation files, both internal and external, so that everyone knows (asynchronously and at their own rhythm) what happened, when, where, and most importantly, why. And when we say "everything as code", we mean it: Policies Builds Configuration Infrastructure Documentation All of this is described in their corresponding files, and versioned in Git repos. We use GitLab, and its integrated CI/CD pipelines are configured to automatically build, test, and eventually deploy changes as required. Thanks to Project Syn, all of the feedback the bring back to the system is automatically deployed whenever possible, reducing the amount of human brain work required to keep things running. Speaker notes 34
35. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Documentation as Code Even our documentation is automated: we use the Antora documentation generator tool, which can automatically extract and integrate documentation from various sources into a single website, and we use GitLab pipelines for that as well. With this process, engineers only have to update the documentation sources (using the Asciidoc format, very similar to Markdown) and git push their changes. They are immediately picked up, built, verified (we have automatic styling and syntax checks built-in in our pipelines) and deployed. Speaker notes 35
36. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform 3. The Principles of Continual Learning and Experimentation APPUiO Cloud is not, and will never be, finished. It is a product that changes continuously, sometimes in small ways, and sometimes in bigger ones. Speaker notes 36
37. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform console.cloudscale-lpg-2.appuio.cloud This is a screenshot of the current APPUiO Cloud console in the cloudscale.ch region. Can you see the red banner on top? This is the result of us learning something interesting. Speaker notes 37
38. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform CPU Requests & Quotas Issue with CPU requests resolved. The resolution includes a slight change to the pricing model. Here is the text of the red banner in the previous screenshot. This, as you can imagine, is the result of a learning process. We realized that, in our preparation, we had not designed our CPU request pricing properly. As a result, as soon as the first users started using the platform this year, we realized that some of them were consuming disproportionate amounts of CPU; this was a huge problem, since they were not aware of that, and we would have to cover for those extra costs at first. Speaker notes 38
39. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Solution As of 2022-05-01: The underlying infrastructure has a fixed ratio between memory and CPU resources. CPU requests exceeding that ratio will be counted as well. The requested CPU cores will be multiplied with the platforms' ratio. This yields an equivalent in MiB. The memory to CPU ratio can be different per zone. See zone listing for the exact values. products.docs.vshn.ch/products/appuio/cloud/pricing.html#_compute We modified the policies in the clusters, made a communication to all of our customers, and updated our documentation as shown on the slide. This was an unexpected and unplanned learning; a local discovery that brought a global improvement in APPUiO Cloud for all users. We did cover some of the costs, but we rectified our policies openly, and communicated clearly with our customers. The result? Not only all of them acknowledged and understood the changes, but we didn’t lose a single customer because of this change. This level of cooperation with our customers is one of the things we’re most proud of. Speaker notes 39
40. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Crunchy Details Let me give you now some details about the work we did, including team sizes, tech stack used, and many other details. Transparency is one of our values, so we’re very happy to tell you everything about it. Speaker notes 40
41. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform 1 Project manager / Product manager 1 Product owner 3 DevOps engineers core team + 3~5 engineers from other teams + Marketing & sales team members 1. The Team: Tarazed [1] handbook.vshn.ch/team_tarazed.html The team called "Tarazed" in VSHN was mostly in charge of the design, deployment and operation of APPUiO Cloud. They have also received help from other teams, in particular those with experience in the deployment and operation of OpenShift clusters, and of course from Marketing and Sales, to coordinate communication and marketing campaigns to get new users onto the platform. The Project Manager and main Product Manager of APPUiO Cloud is Tobias Brunner, one of the founders of VSHN and its current co-CEO, who provided a very strong vision (no pun intended) about how APPUiO Cloud should behave and look like. Speaker notes 41
42. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Red Hat OpenShift 4.10 Policies: Kyverno IdP: Keycloak Secrets: Vault Storage: Rook CNI: Isovalent Cilium Enterprise Tech Stack kyverno.io keycloak.org vaultproject.io rook.io isovalent.com/product Let’s go into some details about how APPUiO Cloud is built. This slide contains the list of major components we’ve chosen for it. Speaker notes 42
43. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Zoom Discourse RocketChat Jira & Confluence Visual Studio Code Live Share Collaboration Tools discourse.org rocket.chat During our day to day communication and collaboration we used various tools. Here’s a small sample of them. Speaker notes 43
44. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform 2021-02-19: First discussions about product definition for "APPUiO Public 2.0" Spring/Summer 2021: Design & development 2021-06: Benchmarking storage options: Rook, Ceph, and Longhorn [1] 1. Spoiler: Rook won! Timeline (1/4) www.vshn.ch/en/blog/benchmarking-kubernetes-storage-solutions A timeline of events leading to the release of APPUiO Cloud. Speaker notes 44
45. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform 2021-07-29: "APPUiO Cloud" name chosen, appuio.cloud domain registered 2021-08: Project Syn components for APPUiO Cloud 2021-08: cloudscale.ch cluster ready for testing 2021-09-17: published Timeline (2/4) docs.appuio.cloud A timeline of events leading to the release of APPUiO Cloud. Speaker notes 45
46. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform 2021-09-20: Public announcement [1] 2021-10-28: Beta users start migrating apps from APPUiO Public to APPUiO Cloud 2021-12-01: Testing phase ended 2021-12-07: Pricing calculator released 2021-12-16: New logo 1. Timeline (3/4) www.vshn.ch/en/blog/announcing-appuio-cloud A timeline of events leading to the release of APPUiO Cloud. Speaker notes 46
47. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform 2021-12-21: Partnership with Isovalent [1] 2022-02-02: Exoscale Geneva region available [2] 2022-02-07: released 2022-02-09: Getting started guide published Summer/Autumn 2022: Decommission APPUiO Public 1. 2. Timeline (4/4) portal.appuio.cloud www.vshn.ch/en/blog/partnership-vshn-isovalent www.vshn.ch/en/blog/bonjour-geneve-je-mappelle-appuio-cloud A timeline of events leading to the release of APPUiO Cloud. Speaker notes 47
48. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Conclusion Can other organizations use a similar process to create a product? We believe that yes, it is possible. However, there are a few caveats, that we know some companies should have to work on those items first, in order to have a successful DevOps journey. Speaker notes 48
49. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform 1. Writing skills 2. Cloud-Native technology 3. Trust First of all, writing skills are fundamental. We need DevOps engineers to be writers, and to put everything down. Not only as "everything as code" (security, infrastructure, business rules, etc) but also as documentation writers, making sure that both engineers and users are able to refer to a written document that explains the reasons why things happen. Yes, keeping that written documentation is part of the work; it is not a chore, it is not a bonus; it is part of the deliverables, and it must be updated, reviewed, and proofread. Second of all, Cloud Native technologies have been designed to work faster than ever. Containers, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, Open Source, and all of the ecosystem of Cloud Native technology is the greatest enabler of our world. The technological context constitutes a fantastic "giant’s shoulder" where we can stand on, and go faster and better. We definitely could have never done this work without the ecosystem of Open Source Cloud Native technologies available today. But third of all, trust is paramount. You have to have trust in your teams. We actually think that trust is more important than flat hierarchies; even though these have helped us, without trust there’s no way we could have created APPUiO Cloud in such a short amount of time. Trust allows teams to work independently, moving fast, and without the inherent fear typical of a "blame culture". And trust is the key ingredient for an asynchronous work culture. You cannot really go full async if you do not trust your teams. We stress this point, because this factor is the deal breaker for many teams in this country. These are, we think, the three most important pillars of our DevOps culture: writing, technology, and trust. Those who have helped us shape APPUiO Cloud into a product that is steadily growing and changing continuously. Speaker notes 49
50. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform No. Easy? Is it easy to work like this in DevOps mode? Of course not, there are lots of things that can go wrong. Speaker notes 50
51. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Yes! Worth it? Is it worth it? Let’s put it this way: after all this time, we have internalized this way of working so much, that we couldn’t do things any other way. We think it is totally worth it, and as a result, we just do things like this. With APPUiO Cloud, VSHN has demonstrated that we can deliver world-class products in a short amount of time, with a small team of experts, and with fast cycles of feedback and experimentation baked in the process. Speaker notes 51
52. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Behind the scenes About the APPUiO Cloud API How billing works All APPUiO Cloud posts www.vshn.ch/en/blog/behind-the-scenes-at-appuio- cloud www.vshn.ch/en/blog/about-the-appuio-cloud-api www.vshn.ch/en/blog/appuio-cloud-billing www.vshn.ch/en/blog/appuio-cloud We regularly publish blog posts telling the story of our product, and sharing news about future features or developments. Check it out at Speaker notes www.vshn.ch/en/blog/appuio-cloud 52
53. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Go to and use the voucher code BAT Try APPUiO Cloud for 30 days! appuio.cloud/register Try APPUiO Cloud by yourself! Speaker notes 53
54. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform www.vshn.ch/en/devops-report-2022 If you’re interested in knowing more about the state of DevOps in Switzerland in 2022, we just published a free report, with various interesting findings based on a country-wide survey earlier this year, and comparisons to our previous reports in 2020 and 2021. Speaker notes 54
55. APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform Adrian Kosmaczewski, Developer Relations, VSHN – VSHN AG – Neugasse 10 – CH-8005 Zürich – +41 44 545 53 00 – – Thanks! Questions? adrian@vshn.ch vshn.ch info@vshn.ch Thank you so much for your attention! Speaker notes 55