If you ask five IT admins the question “What is DevOps?” you maybe get eight different answers. We’ve attempted to define and explain the term DevOps here on DevOps.com a few different ways, but a precise definition is still elusive. One thing is certain, though, DevOps is about more than just automating virtual server deployment and configuration.

At Velocity 2009, John Allspaw and Paul Hammond presented a session titled “10 Deploys Per Day: Dev & Ops Cooperation at Flickr”, which some credit with launching the concept of integrating development and operations—at least to mainstream IT. For many, though—especially those who are still trying to understand what DevOps is, and what it means for their organization—DevOps amounts to tools that simplify the process of implementing tens or hundreds of virtual server instances, and automating the initial configuration.

Automating IT

Tools like those offered by Chef and Puppet Labs are useful for automating routine tasks associated with deploying and configuring the IT infrastructure, as well as deploying and updating applications. These vendors can also help monitor and maintain a consistent, stable environment by enforcing a designated configuration.

To be honest, that sort of automation is more or less table stakes for DevOps. It’s just one small facet of a much larger concept that involves the entire scope of development and operations—agile development and rapid iteration of new versions and features combined with an automated and easily-scalable infrastructure.

Once the virtual server environment is up and running, though, and once the applications are deployed, the work is really just beginning. Part of merging development and operations, and keeping up with a more rapid pace of IT involves ensuring that everything is running smoothly. With frequent updates and rollouts, it becomes even more important to have tools in place to automate monitoring and alert IT admins when something goes awry.

DevOps also involves tools like those from Stackify—tools that keep an eye on the apps running in your environment and let you know when things don’t quite seem to be firing on all cylinders. When something goes wrong, you want to know about it in a few seconds, not a few hours or days. Stackify can monitor and trend important metrics like CPU, memory, and disk utilization on your servers, and alert via email or SMS text when problems arise.

Automating the creation, deployment, and initial configuration of servers is awesome—but you also need tools to address the challenges of maintaining and updating thousands of server instances as well. You need to be able to add or change user privileges, apply patches and updates to the operating systems or applications, change security configurations, enforce compliance policies, and more. When you’re talking about hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of servers, it’s imperative that you have tools like JumpCloud to help automate those tasks across the entire environment.

More than just tools

As great as all of the various DevOps platforms and tools are, though, DevOps is not just a matter of buying or implementing an array of tools to manage your IT environment. As the name implies, and as Allspaw and Hammond spelled out in 2009, it’s about instilling a culture that breaks down traditional barriers and enables developers and operations to work cooperatively and collaboratively.

The traditional roles of developers and ops impose unnecessary friction that gets in the way of being effective. Developers blame problems on the implementation or IT infrastructure. Operations personnel blame problems on poorly developed code. Creating an environment where all appropriate parties work together, and where everyone takes responsibility rather than assigning blame creates an entirely different dynamic for productivity.

When it comes down to it, it’s the culture of DevOps that accelerates the speed of changes and updates that necessitates tools and platforms to automate deployment and infrastructure management. The culture drives the tools, not the other way around.

So, yes, one of the most visible components of DevOps may be tools that automate the deployment and configuration of servers, but that is just one element of DevOps, and it’s just the beginning. Everything that happens after that to monitor, maintain, and update that environment once it’s deployed, and everything that happens outside of the IT infrastructure to streamline productivity and increase efficiency is all part of DevOps as well.