With SOA, the services you consume are typically developed by your organization or a close business partner, so you can assume they have standards similar to your own. But when you adopt APIs, you usually have no visibility into how solidly the services were built—or when and how they are evolving. How should you properly vet an external API?

When new developers and testers join the company, we want them to learn the “way we do software here.” So we give them the “stone tablets”―the volumes of process documentation― to study. However, the problem is that the details in this documentation are primarily for beginners and don’t...

There is a natural tension between development and operations. When this relationship is in balance, each side helps the other. But when there is imbalance, bad things can happen. Leslie Sachs details the pitfalls that can sabotage a DevOps team, as well as the checks and balances that will help the team achieve productivity and quality.

The ability to stay competitive by adjusting, adopting, and continuously improving is essential to survive in the business world of today. But there are a few common challenges where your intuitive responses actually prevent you from succeeding. Keep these five paradoxes in mind during your DevOps continuous improvement journey.