cloud foundry, lessons learned at the home depot
TRANSCRIPT
Cloud Foundry & The Home
DepotWhat tools can teach us about our people and processes.
greetingsthe missiona planthe realitythe challenges & lessons
Agenda
Greetings
14 years
Anthony McCulleyManager, App Platforms & Dev ToolsThe Home Depot anthonymcculley
Startups
The Mission
Build better software.
A Plan
how do I build better software?
A Plan
Do some research
A Plan
Drink from the hydrant
A Plan
Get some help
A Plan
Get some tools
The Reality – In the Beginning
We turned this…
The Reality – Going to Production
… into this! #facepalm
The Challenges & Lessons
What Cloud Foundry is teaching us about our
company.
Challenge #1
cf push == deploy in minutes
DISCUSS: Why do you think it took us 4.5 hours?!?
Oh yea – these people.
Lesson #1Get all the players involved early on.
Use new things as a catalyst to question everything. Nothing is sacred.
5 Whys.
Let teams think. Don’t control via crippled tools.
Lesson #2
Apply new processes to old things.
Look for low-hanging fruit.
Challenge #2
So teams can push quickly now.
DISCUSS: Why don’t teams push more frequently?
Lesson #3
Drive deployment costs down until going to prod is free.
Lesson #4
Come up with a ToS for “going fast”.
Approve a process for auto-approving frequent change instead of manually
approving all changes.
Lesson #5
Personify your software – think of Facebook for Apps.
What does it mean to:• Interact with an app’s wall• Like an app• Friend request an app• See an app’s friends list
Lesson #6
Store meta data about your software.
Be able to query and filter.
DISCUSS: What are some interesting data points? To deploy? To support?
Challenge #3
We now have the means to push quickly and frequently… but some are scared to do so.
DISCUSS: Why are teams scared of pushing to production? How do we build confidence?
Lesson #7Make small changes and push
frequently.
Go from “don’t make mistakes” to “recover very quickly”
Use blue / green deployments.
Pilot with low risk applications and ramp up.
Lesson #8
Have good leaders. Get them onboard.
Celebrate learning what doesn’t work – aka saving money.
Don’t overreact to first production issue under new processes. Avoid new “operational scars”.
Challenge #4
Users can create new orgs or sign up for Pivotal Tracker in minutes online.
DISCUSS: Why does this take days at The Home depot?
Lesson #8
Remove all barriers to entry for collaborative tools.
Enable self-provisioning.
Running out of licenses is a good thing!
Thanks! Any questions?