| | November 20159CIOReview· Get everyone on the same page While it's important for the CTO and CIO to be the same page, it's so much more important to have everyone throughout the organization aligned to the mission. Elissa and I each had OpenStack champions on our teams that were instrumental in getting alignment across the teams. · DevOps is the future DevOps leads to better communication, better products, fewer errors and quicker releases. The changes didn't happen overnight, but as the teams started putting the DevOps model into practice, they saw the results, which accelerated the adoption.· Understand your team's concernsAn open, honest dialogue is critical. For most on my team, the transition to OpenStack was a paradigm shift in culture. In the past, they would find out what the developers wanted or needed and went to work to deliver that. In the new model, we are now delivering new technology that changes developer behavior.· Plan, plan, and planWork closely with every team impacted. We had meetings with our network, datacenter and storage teams for infrastructure planning and design to support cloud scenarios. Preparation done at the beginning of the process reduces friction later. · Focus on A+ experiences and early wins Solve a major pain point for your developers and engineers first--it will help accelerate adoption. We sped up infrastructure delivery from weeks to minutes. Once they were able to understand the power of platform, they were much more willing to buy-in.· Shift the Developer mindsetOnce the developers see the benefit of on-demand services, they need to understand how to run it effectively. We set clear expectations that the cloud (public or private) doesn't behave like a five 9s server. Our developers needed to change their design and code of their programs to account for the new architecture. They needed to understand the new system can be more reliable than their previous set up with the right design.· Automation is good for the developer and the businessHave maniacal focus on automating all manual steps across the development, deployment and operational phases. For GoDaddy's culture, this was a huge shift from working in the traditional IT model. We needed to give our engineers the courage to automate their current job functions, with an understanding that their jobs would evolve and add more value and get more interesting.· New hires with the right skill setsWhen bringing in new team members, make sure they are well-skilled in the technology you're moving to, not just the current platform. We made sure to augment the existing talent with folks experienced in cloud-based services helps kick start learnings and brings everyone up to speed quicker.· Rethink your supply chain modelLook for ways to create a new, efficient supply chain model. Previously, servers were ordered ad hoc and in small quantities. Using OpenStack and VMs, GoDaddy was able to build a model with a small set of standard SKUs optimized for our use. Our developers now build services with our standard SKUs in mind. In this new model, we buy servers in bulk and they arrive in preconfigured racks for very quick turn-up. Using this new model, there are significant cost savings from an infrastructure equipment and people perspective.At GoDaddy we are at a fairly early stage of this transformation, and we have more to do. But we have already seen significant benefits, including greatly improved alignment and collaboration across teams. We've also experienced much less friction and higher velocity in creating new features and services for our customers. And we have already seen positive impacts on the operating costs. Getting all these steps right means everything in having a successful cultural shift and a positive developer experience. The only way we could accomplish the change was by having strong alignment at the leadership level, a culture shift and a solid execution planArne Josefsberg
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