While there has been a steady increase in the adoption of DevOps in the federal government – 75% of CIOs report that their organizations are now adopting it – many public sector organizations struggle to adapt to the DevOps culture.
Challenges to Using DevOps in the Public Sector
According to the 2017 Federal CIO Survey, the two most common adoption struggles are a lack of understanding of what DevOps is and the difficulty of the cultural shift.
Government agencies, at both the federal and state/local level, tend to be risk-averse. Not because they are necessarily wed to the old way of doing things, but that any change brings wide-reaching implications. This makes it harder to get stakeholders to buy into a new approach.
Funding is another challenge. With budgets shrinking, the necessary resources aren’t always available – even though DevOps saves money over time through improved efficiency.
Traditional IT systems are also an albatross around the neck of government IT departments. Legacy systems need upgrading and modernized, which isn’t easy to achieve with limited resources.
Yet, while DevOps can seem intimidating and hard to grasp at first glance, it’s undoubtedly a quicker, more efficient approach for government IT than traditional Waterfall approach.
The Dos and Don’ts of Rolling Out DevOps
So how can DevOps best be rolled out? Evong Nham, a Senior Solutions Architect at Red Hat, subscribe to the following DevOps dos and don’ts that can help. The paper also includes a quick case study of implementing DevOps at the U.S. Courts, featuring Peter Chin, Application Development and Architecture division Chief at the U.S. Courts’ Department of Program Services.
“Where DevOps helps me is in achieving my goal of supporting the U.S. courts system efficiently through the eliminating waste, identifying repeatable steps, and automating those steps,” said Chin.
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