DevOps and the New IT

Not that long ago, upgrading enterprise applications was an extremely cumbersome process. Those of us of a certain age remember visits from squirrelly IT guys who would assume control of our computers while they typed some cryptic commands into a Windows terminal window.

My how times have changed.

Traditional IT today does less proper software development and deployment.

Thanks to the popularity of cloud computing and its cousin SaaS, installing and upgrading applications has never been easier for enterprises. In fact, for an application such as Salesforce or Workday, most non-technical users often don't even know when or that they have been upgraded. No longer do IT guys need to visit hundreds of desks or arrange for remote dial-in sessions. Those days have long passed in many mature organizations. For their part, startups embracing lean methods almost never bought on-premise software.