DevOps Consulting: I Think I Will

I posted a lengthy reply to a blog entitled “Devops Consulting: Why I Don’t” (essentially “devops doesn’t mean what you think it means, stop using it badly, there’s no such thing as a devops consultant”, which I disagree with since that’s what I’m trying to become!) so thought I may as well blog it as well to keep any discussion going. Your thoughts are appreciated.

To me a devops consultant is someone who is knowledgeable in many things from the entire length of the development lifecycle; like value stream mapping, impact mapping, fishbone/5 whys retrospectives, multiple development methodologies, various test automation frameworks, various build automation frameworks, various environment automation frameworks, release management tools, various reporting and monitoring frameworks, as well as the business knowledge to know how to put it all together to identify the best mix of things to suit a given company who is struggling to gain business benefit from their projects in a timely manner.

Not necessarily being an expert at hardcore technical depth in all of those areas, but knowing which tools to take out from the toolbox for which job.

I agree that the term devops is ambiguous and hugely incorrectly overused – mainly due to it sounding much like a person instead of a culture – but that doesn’t mean that the term can mean something that is a set of skills a consultant can have.

Recently I’ve started to think that it could be used in a similar fashion to “agile”; you could affix it to existing disciplines to expand their meaning:

devops engineer – someone who knows about implementing a CI process using build automation, packaging, and environment automation

devops tester – someone who knows about building testable software right from the idea initiation through development, defect tracking and reporting, test automation, and the resulting feedback loop

devops developer – bit trickier; possibly someone working on building or expanding the automation tools, as opposed to an application developer?

devops consultant – someone who can be dropped into a company, assess their processes, people, and technologies, and work out what changes would need to be made in order to achieve better throughput, where to make the changes and recommend which technologies to use (without necessarily being able to implement the changes themselves, but having the network of skilled devops-** people who can).

That’s my understanding of it anyway, Environment automation is one part of a big term – and may not even be the right answer for certain companies anyway.

Thoughtworks Webinar Notes

I’ve just watched a good ThoughtWorks webinar entitled Automate Everything Second. Simplify Your Process First.

Here are some of the great resources mentioned in it which help to identify improvements to your development and deployment process:

Aside #10 – Send To Kindle WordPress plugin

Whilst uber geeking it up (streaming a HD Wired.com video podcast to my TV via a raspberry pi with the world’s teeniest usb wifi and a USB battery pack – my next RPi post will cover this!) I learned that WordPress has a new plugin for sending posts straight to your Kindle!

Great idea, since I’m always wanting to read some long post but don’t have the time, so would love a “read it later” button to push it to another device.

Installing the plugin

Here’s all it took to install on this blog:

Search for "Send to Kindle” from the plugin page on your wordpress install/site.

Find the “Send To Kindle” plugin from “Amazon Inc” and click “install”

Once installed you have a couple of options

You can configure the basics, such as where to display it, what font to use, what text to display (you’re limited to “Kindle”, “Send to Kindle”, or nothing..), which colour scheme to use, what size icon and of which colour, what colour background, and whether to display a border or not.

If you want to mess around with the display yourself then the Advanced controls allow this, as well as some default settings of where to pull the post details from.

Then this will appear wherever you’ve chosen.

Button in action

Here it is on a post

Clicking that button pops up a window to get you to log in to your Amazon account …

and choose which device you send it to…

Then content will be loaded and processed for Kindle viewing:

Which means it ends up looking like this:

Clicking the “Send” button first gives you a quick thinky thinky image:

Before shortly letting you know it’s all ok

Viewing the post on your Kindle

You can then see this post on your Kindle the next time you turn it on in a Wifi (or 3G if your Kindle has Whispernet and you selected that as the delivery mechanism) area:

Here I have a couple of posts sent to my Kindle displaying on the home screen:

Selecting the RaspberryPi Part #2 post (which you can’t tell from the two on the home screen at the moment – I can probably sort this by changing the selectors in the advanced settings on the plugin page) here we have some basic text content:

Some image content:

And some code example content:

The code example is rendered via the wonderful SyntaxHighlighter plugin, hence the weird “view sourceprint?” link at the top of each one.

Summary

Pretty cool concept, huh? No idea if my posts are worth doing this to, but I like the idea of it. And it’s easy too; once installed you can either say “put this everywhere on every post” or just use the [sendToKindle] smart code.

Asides #9 – IRC. WTF?

Whilst I’ve been attempting to learn a new thing each month this year, I’ve been finding it really tricky to keep to the pretty loose schedule. As such, I though I’d try and note down every time a shiny new thing takes my interest, so that I have some idea why I’m incapable of completing a series of blog posts.

JabbR / IRC

IRC

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) – text based shared “room” chat environment, with private messaging etc. I seriously had no idea that people still used these. I would have used them back in university (’98/’99), but haven’t touched them since.

The idea of attempting to convince a company that they should set up a private IRC server internally for team communication just doesn’t seem right to me. I’d much rather suggest that people use any other form of IM or even JabbR; this is probably due to my developer background instead of ops.

JabbR

As such, I’ve been trying to install JabbR in the cloud using AppHarbify as a proof of concept

You can use Janrain to process the authentication, and AppHarbify allow you to just install apps into your appharbor account – including JabbR!

The details for manual installation are in an AppHarbor blog but the killer info is in the comments section..

Instigator
— Discovering people still use IRC, thanks to discussions at DevOpsDays..

RaspberryPi 101: Part #2 – Setup

So part 1 was a quick intro to what a pi is and what it can do. This post is about getting and setting yours up.

Installation

1. Get a raspberryPi

You can get one from a few places these days, but the big UK reseller is element14/Farnell

2. Get a linux distro

As mentioned in the last post, you can get a few different operating systems to run and the recommended ones to start with are on the raspberrypi website

3. Put the distro on a suitable SD card

3.1 Writing the image to the SD card

The methods for doing this differ depending on your dekstop OS;

Mac and Linux you can use the existing “dd” and “df” commands to check and write the image to the SD card
For Windows you need to use the Win32DiskImager “used for writing images to USB sticks or SD/CF cards on Windows”

3.2 BerryBoot

Steps 2 and 3 can actually be shortcut by either buying an SD card with a distro already installed, or installing BerryBoot bootloader which bootstraps your installation to give you the easiest possible route to installation:

Berryboot is OSS and you can even dig into the source over on github

Random tangent #1: HDMI CEC
BerryBoot supports the fantastic HDMI CEC which “is an HDMI feature designed to allow the user to command and control up-to ten CEC-enabled devices, that are connected through HDMI, by using only one of their remote controls”; this means that you don’t even need to connect a keyboard for most of the berryboot setup process and can just use your tv remote.

There’s more info over on elinux about just how important CEC is for HDMI capable devices and writing software for these devices.

Want to start understanding the CEC messages? Check cec-o-matic

This is the same feature that XBMC uses to allow full and simple navigation of the media centre features just using your remote control – more on XBMC later.

Checkpoint! Base Installation Complete

You’ll now have a version of linux (or RISC OS) running on your pi. If you’ve chosen RISC then I can’t really help you, since the last time I used it was playing games on my uncle’s computer as a young lad (check out those vids – classic 90s gaming at its “best”).

Anyway. From here on in I’ll assume you’ve gone with Raspbian. Wheezy should be pretty much the same I think.

Starting it all up #1: Raspbian

Plug it all in

Put the SD card in, the HDMI cable to your tv/monitor, the network cable in, your USB keyboard which you’ll need for the initial installation (unless you’re berrybooting with it’s CEC awesomeness), and finally the power cable; there is no power switch on the pi so once the cable is plugged in you’re running.

You should see the initial configuration screen where you can setup the locale and turn on SSH (do so).

Then you can choose to get to a terminal or boot into a desktop environment.

SSH

With raspbian this is just a case of enabling ssh from the config menu; after that you can ssh in from another machine on the same network. If you don’t know the IP address of your pi, either plug it in to an HDMI capable display and execute “ifconfig” or just check the devices attached to your router from the router admin screen.

more info on pi ssh

Bluetooth

Setting up a bluetooth keyboard may not be much use if you’ve already got ssh running and want to access the terminal only, however if you’re accessing the pi directly you will either need to plug in a USB HCI device (keyboard/mouse) or set up bluetooth.

1. Get a supported device

There’s a list of confirmed working devices over on elinux.

I went for the dinky little TOPDIGI UA01 Bluetooth USB Dongle from Amazon

2. Setup bluetooth on the pi

2.1 install bluetooth software

[code]pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo -s
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# apt-get install bluez[/code]

2.2 scan for nearby devices

[code]root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# hcitool scan[/code]
Your device should appear in those found; use the MAC in the following steps.

2.3 pair your pi to the device

[code]root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# bluez-simple-agent hci0 00:11:22:33:44:55
RequestPinCode: 0000
Enter PIN Code: Release
New device (/org/bluez/3964/hci0/dev_00_11_22_33_44_55)[/code]

Obviously your MAC will be different to the dummy one I’ve used..

2.4 trust the paired device so it’ll auto connect in future

[code]root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# bluez-test-device trusted 00:11:22:33:44:55 yes[/code]

WiFi

Since I’m bored with swapping the ethernet cable from my tv to get this on the network (the switch has no spare ports.. too much living room tech..), I’ve just ordered an Edimax EW-7811UN 150Mbps Wireless Nano USB Adapter

Portable Power

Since I’m bored with swapping my phone charger over to power the pi, I’ve just ordered a PowerGen 5200mAh External Battery Pack High Capacity Power Bank Charger

I’ll report back on how they work out for me soon. I should find that having a fully portable pi will allow me to mess around with it even more!

Summary

That’s it for this one! You’re now set up with a Linux computer, bluetooth keyboard, and ssh. You can do with this whatever you would do with a normal low power distro (Puppy, DSL, #!.. or is it !#.. hmm..), but you can also interact wiht the outside world via GPIO.

Next Up

I’ll be installing XBMC and having a play. I play, so you don’t have to. See? I care.

Aside #8 – Officeless Working; Amazeballs!

Mobile working

WorkSnug

The worksnug website lists places mobile workers have tried and rated; unfortunately it’s mainly coffee shops. The app can apparently filter these out, but the app doesn’t work on the Samsung S3.

Southbank

I’ve recently discovered that the SouthBank in London is an amazing place to be an officeless worker:

The Royal Festival Hall (RFH) is HUGE, has loads of different areas to sit, free wifi (a bit dodgy sometimes, but fast when it is working), no pressure to buy coffees just to be there, and a members area with panoramic views over London (for only £45 a year – awesome!)
The British Film Institute (BFI) venue has a Benugo coffee area, but quite a lot of seating and no pressure to actually buy any coffee
National Theatre is a wonderful, huge building, which between shows is exceptionally quiet. Free wifi, limited seating, but would be perfect in nicer weather due to it’s outdoor seating areas.

Instead of following WorkSnug and ending up stuck in coffee shops, I’m going to spend some time with E-Architect’s listing of awesome buildings in London and a few such others and find the ones you can happily work from.

Non-Southbank Mobile Workspaces

Other great places I’ve previously tried and tested, or would like to:

Barbican

British Museum

British Library

Any other suggestions?

They don’t need to have free wifi; sometimes I prefer not to join those open networks and will instead fire up a bluetooth PAN with my phone. It’s still fast enough for everything I need to use it for.

Aside #7 – Career Change

Career

Having decided to leave senior management and get back into something more technical, I thought about what I enjoy doing. I had a short chat with a very smart business friend of mine and thought I’d try to go it alone and focus on devops as a service I would eventually provide.

I was in the enviable position of having the luxury of a little bit of time to work out the direction to take, and made a great move in crowd-sourcing my decision making! I sent out a verbose email explaining all of the options and what I wanted to get out of life (!) to a group of friends (some techies, some not) and asked for their thoughts. The replies covered every possible scenario and reading them helped me work out what I wanted to do myself.

As such, I’m leaving permanent employment behind for the time being, becoming a contractor and working on setting up as a freelancer/consultant for DevOps evangelism.

Initially I needed to set up a company.. which isn’t particularly complicated, but it’s certainly not quick and easy! Coming up with a company name, checking domain availability, registering a company bank account, setting myself up as a consultancy; this is all time consuming stuff.

If you’re thinking of doing the same thing I would recommend reading up on it – there is a VAST amount of info out there on the interwebs and this article from Simon Rigsby is a great one to get your head around things.

What I ended up doing, after loads of email conversations with techie mates who have gone contracting, was to join the Professional Contractors Group and also got insurance, set up a company, and chose an accountant all via the PCG.

In the end it’s all been handled very smoothly by my accountants, and I’m now able to review a contract myself for basic IR35 flags, but I can get one contract reviewed for free each year via PCG.

Instigator
— not liking my job in senior management, deciding to work out what’s important to me instead and focus on that.

Aside #6 – A Random Analogy; DevOps/Washing Up

Random Analogy – DevOps For Washing Up

Waterfall

Getting all of the dishes ready to wash, clearing all of the space required to let them dry, washing everything in one go and setting it all to dry, then getting a towel and drying everything in one go, then putting everything away in one go.

Agile

Wash one sink full, put it on the drainer, stop washing and grab a towel, dry that load and put it away as you go – one iteration completed!

DevOps

My definition of the devops movement is not about a technology or a single process, but about getting everyone necessary to get something out of the door involved at the start. As such; get two people to help you out: one washes, one dries, one puts away. Continuous deployment 😉

Instigator
— Thinking about DevOps a lot in the run up to devopsdays, and my dishwasher breaking..!

Aside #5 – A trip down memory lane (RISC OS games)

RISC OS

I’d been derailed by the idea of getting games I used to play on Acorn running on the rPi. Seeing the RISC OS as an option for the rPi OS I went straight off to find ROMS for old Acorn games I loved as a lil hacker.. And ended up watching loads of vids on youtube:

Cataclysm

Galactic Dan

(“Mmm! Thank you!”)

Xenon 2

Twin Worlds

Mad Professor

Gods

(awesome music!)

Instigator
— Seeing Mad Professor youtube clip whilst researching for the “setup” pi post made me yearn for simpler times..

Aside #4 – Accessing EC2 from my phone via SSH

Accessing EC2 from a phone running ConnectBot

The ppk you use for putty/kitty/ssh doesn’t work on connectbot so you need to generate a new one from within the phone (connectbot app) and copy it over to your EC2 instance, appending it to your authorised keys file.

Generating the key

Go and install the app from the android store.

Find the app on your phone:

Generate a new key from the Manage Keys page:

Getting your file to your EC2 instance

Firstly, copy the public key to clipboard:

Then get it to your phone. There are a few ways of doing this; I pasted it into a new text file via my phone’s dropbox app and then curl-ed/wget-ed that file on to my EC2 instance (obviously logging in from a PC).

Adding it to your authorised keys

First I backed the existing authorized_keys file up:

cp ~/.ssh/authorized_keys backup_auth

Then I appended the one generated from my phone:

cat s3_id_dsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

You can now log in directly from your phone without using a login:

Instigator
— needing to restart Apache whilst AFK

Menu

Installing the plugin

Button in action

Viewing the post on your Kindle

Summary

JabbR / IRC

IRC

JabbR

Installation

1. Get a raspberryPi

2. Get a linux distro

3. Put the distro on a suitable SD card

3.1 Writing the image to the SD card

3.2 BerryBoot

Checkpoint! Base Installation Complete

Starting it all up #1: Raspbian

Plug it all in

SSH

Bluetooth

1. Get a supported device

2. Setup bluetooth on the pi

2.1 install bluetooth software

2.2 scan for nearby devices

2.3 pair your pi to the device

2.4 trust the paired device so it’ll auto connect in future

WiFi

Portable Power

Summary

Next Up

Mobile working

WorkSnug

Southbank

Non-Southbank Mobile Workspaces

Any other suggestions?

Career

Random Analogy – DevOps For Washing Up

Waterfall

Agile

DevOps

RISC OS

Accessing EC2 from a phone running ConnectBot

Generating the key

Getting your file to your EC2 instance

Adding it to your authorised keys