How CTO’s should rely on automation infrastructure — Rob Hirschfeld // RackN

People should be automating as much as they can, but they don't have a lot of ground rules, benefits, or even KPIs that they can use to start knowing if they're automating well. Want to know more? Listen to Rob Hirschfeld, CEO and Founder of RackN, as he discusses how CTOs should rely on automation infrastructure.
About the speaker

Rob Hirschfeld

RackN

- RackN

Rob Hirschfeld is CEO and Founder at RackN

Show Notes

  • 01:26
    How CTOs should be using automation in their infrastructure
    People should be automating as much as they can, but they don't have a lot of ground rules, benefits, or even KPIs that they can use to start knowing if they're automating well.
  • 02:05
    Automation KPIs
    Automation half-life is one example. How long can your automation go without you tinkering with it, and you still trust it? If you have automation in your organization that's supposed to eliminate human interactions and speed your processes, but somebody's always managing, tweaking, and changing it then you don't have a very scalable process.
  • 04:31
    The challenges with automation
    Complexity and systems complexity over time. We see companies try to address the complexity problem by thinking that the opposite of complexity is simplicity.
  • 07:18
    Before you cut that automation know this…
    Are you exercising your automation enough? Are you collaborating on it to keep it fresh and up to date?
  • 09:58
    How to keep your automation exercised
    Invite teams to modify the scripts. If you are building that process, you need to have very clear points where you're injecting the variations between those scripts or between those teams.
  • 16:38
    What happens when you dont exercise your automation
    If think that those TerraForm scripts are cast in gold and should never be touched, then over time without that exercise, it just becomes a dreadful part of the pipeline.
  • 18:57
    Automation is software, too
    In some cases, we think that automation isn't software, so we give it a pass. You have to treat automation with software disciplines.
  • 23:52
    Why OpenStack matters
    The idea here sharing and reusing code. You want to be able to follow in somebody else's footprints. And if you find issues and bugs, you need to make it so it's easy to share back with them.
  • 26:37
    Generative DevOps
    Generative DevOps is making it possible for you to take the expertise that you need to do this work and not be worried about, oh, I don't know how to do a bare metal.

Quotes

  • "People should be automating as much as they can, but they don't have a lot of ground rules, benefits, or even KPIs that they can use to start knowing if they're automating well." - Rob Hirschfeld

  • "If you have automation in your organization that's supposed to eliminate human interactions and speed your processes, but somebody's always managing, tweaking, and changing it then you don't have a very scalable process" - Rob Hirschfeld

  • "One of the things you hear companies that have climbed the automation curve a bit say is complexity and systems complexity." - Rob Hirschfeld

  • "We see companies try to address the complexity problem by thinking that the opposite of complexity is simplicity. The antidote for complexity is exercise." - Rob Hirschfeld

  • "The danger people get into is they write a script, and then people don't know where they're allowed to play in it." - Rob Hirschfeld

  • " In some cases, we think that automation isn't software, so we give it a pass. And what we're describing here is actually treating automation with software disciplines." - Rob Hirschfeld

  • "We can't have operators and operations, custom and not sharing code, not collaborating and not getting the benefits of shared exercise. We need to do better, if we're going to keep up." - Rob Hirschfeld

About the speaker

Rob Hirschfeld

RackN

- RackN

Rob Hirschfeld is CEO and Founder at RackN

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