What’s in a name? It’s still DevOps no matter what you call it

What something is called is not as important as what it is. For example, a banana is a banana is a banana no matter what you call it.

DevOps is a great example of this concept as well. There is very little consensus on a single definition for DevOps, and many organizations are using various elements of DevOps even if they’ve never heard of DevOps, and have no idea what it is.

I wrote an article for DevOps.com about this issue:

My version of “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” is not nearly as eloquent as Shakespeare’s, but the sentiment is the same. Juliet argues in Romeo and Juliet that the name of a thing such as a rose is irrelevant—it’s still a rose no matter what you call it. The same thing is true when it comes to DevOps.

The term DevOps has achieved industry buzzword status. Most people—at least most people in IT—are familiar with the term even if they don’t have any idea what DevOps is. Even among those who think they know what DevOps is, there may not be consensus on how to define or implement the concept. It is understandable that some people don’t have a clue what DevOps really is.

The Wikipedia entry for DevOps is a great illustration of the issue. Wikipedia is a crowd-sourced encyclopedia, and as such it is comprised of a variety of contributions. The first few paragraphs of the DevOps Wikipedia entry actually offer up different attempts at a definition. The various explanations don’t necessarily conflict directly with one another, but they also don’t agree completely and reading the Wikipedia entry will leave most people just as confused about what DevOps is or isn’t as they were before they started.

Read the full article here: DevOps by any other name still gets things done.