Reasons why DevOps implementations fail.

Over the last few years we have seen a monumental rise in the number of organisations adopting a DevOps working culture. This trend shows no signs of slowing down whatsoever and whilst many are now realising the benefits of these working practices many are also struggling with the adoption and in some cases it's either stopped completely or not even started.

There's a number of reasons of why this happens and I've seen some common causes, which is actually a good thing because we can recognise where these are occurring or even prevent them before they start to become a problem.

No clear direction.

It's very difficult to drive to a destination if you don't know where you're actually going (trust me on this, I've tried it). This is obviously very reasonable advice however many DevOps projects fail because of a lack of direction. It's actually a common issue with many buzzing trends, particularly in IT where organisations rush into a technology stack or movement just for the sake of doing it. Inevitably this often always leads to failure.

Organisations need to fully understand what a DevOps culture is, its objectives and its close relationships with their existing business processes and frameworks. A common misconception is people often viewing DevOps as a direct replacement for ITIL when in actual fact it's more of a cultural change built on top of ITIL principles. By fully understanding DevOps the benefits of adoption become much more viable and ultimately the path to it's success becomes much simpler.     

Adopting a silo approach to DevOps.

I often see individual teams being very successful in implementing components of DevOps practices only for other teams being behind in terms of adoption and/or understanding. The classic case is the Developer and DBA; the developer is pushing for much more frequent releases (a realised benefit of DevOps) but then the DBA, who perhaps isn't on board, is then trying their best to slow down all of these changes to their production databases. In the words of Bon Jovi, "we're half way there".

This lack of cohesion or a shared direction can result in a significant bottleneck and the DevOps practices start to creak a little. Then other unintended side effects start to creep in, such as blame and finger pointing (some of the things that a healthy DevOps culture seeks to eliminate) and then it can all start to fall apart. 

DevOps for databases is one particular area that is so heavily reliant on lots of people in different roles working together in a collaborative manner. An organisation must identify this and start to encourage teams to engage and build with each other in the early phases of a DevOps implementation, but organisations also have to be very careful in how they seek to develop this collaborative culture...

Forced collaboration.

I believe collaboration underpins the entire DevOps methodology so it makes perfect sense for organisations to work towards developing much closer working relationships between teams however organisations can also over-formalise things, even making the activity seem very process-driven which often leads to much less buy in from individuals, even entire teams.

This causes obvious problems, not least the silo approach mentioned in the previous point, so organisations have to find the balance on being almost relaxed in how they let relationships build and at the same time provide a certain degree of steer. This isn't as easy as it sounds and it is certainly reliant on strong leadership. In my experience successful implementations have been led by those that enable positive change rather than those who try to dictate it.

Rushing into new tools.

New tools are awesome, fact and in a DevOps ecosystem there are so many to pick and choose from that each bring new ways of doing things and [hopefully] improving productivity. The advantages are great, without a doubt but often tools can be implemented way too early without a focus on the underlying processes. This can significantly reduce the effectiveness of what a particular toolset/platform is trying to achieve; a release management tool for example won't improve a change/release process if the process is fundamentally flawed.

The most successful DevOps implementations focus on people and process first, leveraging the strengths and principles of existing frameworks and building strong collaborative working practices. New tools are going to be an important factor of a system designed with DevOps principles in mind but they need to be leveraged correctly and for the right reasons.


These are some of the common pitfalls that I've seen occur during DevOps implementations, many of which are deeply rooted in the working culture, not the technologies. There is undoubtedly so much to gain by adopting the principles and often it requires organisations to step back and observe their working practices first and spend time exploring the benefits of working with DevOps.

In my next post I'll cover how to address some of these issues and offer some insights into the benefits of building collaborative relationships between data professionals.

The DBA and the Data Platform

I've been consulting now for well over a year, it's been a fantastic experience so far; I've had the pleasure of meeting and working with some truly incredible people and it's also been amazing to be helping organisations get the most from their SQL Server platforms.

The last 12 months have been extremely interesting considering the current technical shift towards a seemingly endless list of new platforms and capabilities. For many organisations this shift has fundamentally changed how they do things (or going to do things) and many are going through their own journey of digital transformation understanding these new technologies and how to leverage them to improve their existing processes.

Right at the centre is data, nowadays considered to be a companies greatest asset, so how we use data or to be more exact how we extract more value from it is a frequent aim of these transformation projects. As a result the data professional roles within an organisation have changed too and many teams and individuals are having to broaden their technical skill set to design, deliver and support these new capabilities.

There is no truer example of this than the role of DBA but yet the question still remains on which direction(s) they should be focusing their future on? By that I mean development; which skills should they be learning, what certification, what products, platforms etc? It's easy to see why it's confusing; there are lots and lots of new technologies available to us but that also means there is no consistent path for administrators to set out on. 

It was easier in the not so distant past; the DBA role tended to come in two distinct flavours; development or operational, but now the line between the two has became far less apparent and in many cases non-existent. The DBA role has without question become much more rounded containing core elements from both "sides" but it goes beyond that. Modern approaches to database administration have reduced the footprint of the operational side of the role so a more DevOps orientated DBA is an essential part of the roadmap, for organisations and individuals alike.

This shared roadmap is actually an integral component of an evolving data platform. I've worked with many different organisations at different stages of development but a key component in each has always been a collaborative working practice between data professionals and I'd say the success of a platform depends on it. Over the past year I've worked alongside many different teams; architects, DBA's, developers, release analysts, change and testing specialists, when working together they all have a great influence of the effectiveness of a data solution. 

Whilst it's fair to say organisations should be encouraging this type of working practice it is very much dependent on individuals to pursue and implement it. For DBA's this means engaging with other teams much more frequently, understanding their skills and processes but also adding their own expertise and skill set to produce a much more co-operative function. 

It might not fully answer this common question of what next for DBA's, there's a lot of factors involved, not least your personal career aspirations but it does show how when looking for your next phase of self development the paths that you need to take could be very close to your current role. 

Your skills as a DBA will always be of paramount importance towards availability, security and performance, but by widening your technical scope by working much more closely with those around you not only improves you as an data professional but also the overall effectiveness your data platform. The starting point is to seek out these opportunities; start building relationships, start knowledge sharing and developing new ideas and different ways of working. 

In many ways the data platform is a reflection of the people tasked with shaping it. If we choose not to broaden ourselves, learn new ideas then at some point we come to a standstill, especially in this rapidly evolving technical landscape. If that happens a data platform stops growing, not in terms of data quantity but most certainly in terms of both capability and perhaps most critical of all, value. 

This puts a big emphasis on self-development but we've always had that, it's nothing new. The key is to seek out those opportunities, start close and work with teams that you will probably already have a working relationship with. As these relationships grow so does the collaborative skill set and as a result business processes improve and technical solutions get faster and more productive.

This also cuts down reactive measures, less time fire fighting means more time delivering enhancements and of course, more learning. Any learning process shouldn't have a cut off point, the more we broaden our horizons the more the effective we become and in turn, our products, our services and our platforms keep on evolving.

This is the true nature of a technical platform and we as data professionals play such an important part not just in the support or development of them but towards shaping their growth, effectiveness and their value. Perhaps the key to all of this is realising the value of our own development alongside it.   

Why I became a SQL Consultant.

This post is kind of a follow up to my recent "How I became a..." article that I wrote about my early days of a DBA. You can read that post and plenty of others from database professions on this page provided by Kevin Hill. The posts are seriously good reads and although needless to say, I cannot recommend them enough!

This post though is centred on the biggest and most difficult decision that I have ever had to make about my career and that is to quit working as an employee and become a consultant. I've been wanting to write this post for some time and because lately I seem to be getting asked at least half a dozen times a day why I made this decision now seems an ideal time to get it out there.

Firstly I need to paint a bit of a picture of my situation prior to making this change. I was in a great place; brilliant role, fantastic manager (you're welcome), using lots and lots of technology, pretty much everything you could want. Which of course does beg the question, why did I decide to move away from this?

Don't get me wrong, I'd had this sort of vague aspiration for a long time, largely because of the amazing people out there doing seriously great things already and whilst they were (and still are) a big influence on me it wasn't just a case of "hey I want to do that" and off I went. 

I did a lot of thinking about what I enjoyed the most from working with SQL Server and how I could take that forward. For me the most appealing thing has always been helping people get the most from their SQL Servers. As a DBA this can take many forms; it could be installing and configuring SQL Server as part of an entire enterprise solution, or it could be an upgrade to a newer version, performance tuning, bug fixing, implementing HA/DR, training, mentoring etc etc. The point being that whatever I was doing or whoever I was working with the motive was always the same, to make a particular SQL platform better in some shape or form.

Which is exactly how I think as a consultant.

In fact as a consultant I operate in a very similar way only now it's on a larger scale. I still have exactly the same motives as before but whereas in a permanent role I was working within a single instance, now my driver is to help as many organisations as I can with their data platforms. 

In many ways it's like scaling out a database (bear with me) but rather than distributing data I'm distributing my services and (hopefully) doing more work. Of course that comes with its own set of challenges which I will go into on another post.

Since I made the move to consultancy the #1 question I have been asked is why, hence this blog post and the answer is always the same. I've always loved working with SQL Server, with different people and different systems etc so becoming a consultant was a way to expand on that and reach out to even more people and help them achieve what they want with their data platforms.

If you'd like to know more about the consultancy and the services we provide then you can follow this link and by all means if you have any questions, feedback then by all means get in touch, be great to hear from you.