One of the critical foundations of delivering brilliant multi-channel experiences with Sitecore is DevOps.
DevOps is the combination of cultural philosophies, practices, and tools that increases an organization’s ability to deliver applications and services at high velocity.
- Amazon
In my experience, DevOps (Development Operations) is something often misunderstood or even completely ignored by those who aren't a developer or directly involved with the day-to-day development process. In many respects, everyone has "DevOps", it just might not be the diamond-encrusted Rolls Royce version that everyone believes it can be. Perhaps the missing link is the gap, or perceived, quantum leap between doing everything manually and having at least some flavour of automation.
Many DevOps write-ups and reports focus on metrics like; how much faster deployments are or how many more releases they can do etc. The one thing we know that is certain, is the business outcome of a well-functioning development and release process, is the direct and positive impact on the profitability of any given business.
You can read more about how DevOps is becoming the new Enterprise Value Chain, but don't let that distract you just yet though...
When it comes to Sitecore, arguably the most powerful and customisable Content Management and Digital Marketing platform in the market, we know that organisations need to deploy code to Sitecore to leverage its full power. We also know that the Marketing Dept. needs the agility of perhaps a SaaS solution, but often is left desiring the power of a fully customisable one. In my opinion, this has always been a Sitecore Secret Sauce ingredient, but the casualty can be either multiple systems co-existing or marketing left going without.
Having spent many years working for Sitecore snooping on looking at and helping client installations, there is a broad spectrum of maturity in the market, from those who can barely contemplate a release once a month to those who deploy like a trigger-happy kid at laser tag!
Sitecore, as of version 9 has really started to turn up the heat to help organisations deploy faster, smarter and more predictably. Technologies like Microsoft Azure PaaS, Sitecore SXA and under the hood changes like Configuration Management really start to set the pace for the future. What we want to know, is how well is your organisation adopting those capabilities into your deployment process.
Here's where our DevOps for Sitecore Survey comes in, you might ask, why does a Digital Marketing agency have such a focus on DevOps, well simply put, it's the bedrock of delivering at what we call the #speedofmarketing. To us, any web CMS platform, even Sitecore becomes a burden if we cannot deploy landing pages, templates, automation plans and features when the business demands, even IF your solution is by definition "complex".
We would like you to tell us how you "do Sitecore". You don't need to tell us everything and we certainly don't want you to tell us any secrets your organisation wouldn't appreciate you sharing.
If you want to learn more about how we "do Sitecore", then feel free to get in touch. We have some pretty cool tech that fully automates the entire Sitecore process, but we'll share more on that another day! In advance, thank you for your insights, we will publish the results later this year.
