infrastructure

Articles

Foundation of a building Infrastructure as Code: The Foundation of Effective DevOps

The absence of versioned infrastructure as code (IaC) and automated provisioning undermines one of the most important benefits of DevOps: the ability to version, manage, and control the servers and networking required to run software applications in development, testing, and production. Automating infrastructure setup and continuous monitoring helps keep system environments stable and less susceptible to outages.
Anirudh Sethi's picture Anirudh Sethi
November 6, 2019
Server stack with a line through it The Pros and Cons of a Serverless DevOps Solution

The dream of any product owner is fully customizable production software without the expense of the hardware it rests upon. While not completely free of infrastructure, serverless infrastructure significantly reduces overhead costs by abstracting away physical hosting, physical security, server maintenance, and OS patching. Here's what you need to know to decide if serverless infrastructure is right for you.
Glenn Buckholz's picture Glenn Buckholz
April 11, 2018
Infrastructure Envisioning

I have seen many Agile projects, particularly those focused on brand-new product lines, struggle with getting their infrastructure up and running. Much of the reason is the time and effort that is needed to get infrastructure established far exceeds the time it takes to start development using an Agile method, effectively the first iteration. Typically the approach used to establish infrastructure is ad hoc and often not always aligned with the needs of the project. Therefore, a task must be identified to establish infrastructure. The question then is, how to best approach the establishment of infrastructure for a project using Agile methods? We do not want to build excessive infrastructure that may constrain us in the future yet we want to establish enough to keep us stable and productive.

 
Mario Moreira's picture Mario Moreira
January 19, 2009
Infrastructure Refactoring

Early implementations of Agile focused on brand new or newer product-lines. More recently, Agile is gaining acceptance in the legacy product space where the project teams are moving away from their company's traditional (aka, waterfall) methodology and moving toward an Agile approach. In these cases, the project team that begins to use Agile methods are typically inheriting an existing infrastructure that was constructed for a phased (aka, waterfall) approach.
Mario Moreira's picture Mario Moreira
October 7, 2008
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Conference Presentations

Virtual Test Labs in the Cloud

In most software engineering organizations, development and test labs continuously demand regular computer, storage, and networking infrastructure upgrades and continuous support. Lab administrators have moved toward server consolidation powered by virtualization platforms from vendors such as Citrix, Microsoft, and VMware, often accompanied by a management layer called virtual lab automation (VLA). Together, virtualization and VLA enable the lab to operate as a private, on-premise cloud. While this solves some problems, there are still other challenges to consider. Some test labs now leverage public cloud infrastructures such as Amazon Web Services. Jacob Ben-David reviews virtual labs enabled in private, public, and hybrid clouds, and explains how they improve development, build, and test processes.
Jacob Ben-David, VMLogix, Inc.
After System Testing: Don't Forget Infrastructure Testing

Traditionally, testing IT applications is done in isolation on a stand-alone platform. However, when applications interface with the corporate IT infrastructure, you need to plan, engineer, and execute an additional level of integration testing. David Watt describes a typical IT infrastructure and the historical problems, costs, and complexities of conducting infrastructure integration testing. Because of the complexities common to many IT infrastructures, this level of testing is often ignored and omitted. David explains how enhancements to testing techniques and test process management can remediate many of these complexities and make infrastructure integration testing possible. David introduces the concept of an Enterprise Test Bed and explains how strict management techniques can make this resource a reality for your infrastructure integration testing.
David Watt, Lockheed Martin
Software Test Automation: Planning and Infrastructure for Success

Automation tools are often viewed as a cure-all that will instantly reduce test cost and effort. However, without up-front planning and infrastructure design, automated tests can quickly become difficult to create and maintain, and the tools nothing more than expensive shelf ware. This paper describes how to initiate a successful automation effort by developing standards and processes for automation and an infrastructure designed for success.
Bill Boehmer and Bea Patterson, Siemens Building Technologies, Inc.
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