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DevOps Package Introduction

Setting the Stage

Have you or your engineers ever made comments like this?

  • It’s difficult to keep track of what still needs to be done in this project
  • I wish I could develop new features faster
  • I need to somehow figure out how to do more work with less people
  • I’m too busy fighting fires, I don’t have time to improve my processes
  • It takes too long to deploy bugfixes in the field
  • I have a testing process, but it’s tedious and time consuming
  • I don’t have a good systematic process for testing my code before deployment

Well, one way to address these kinds of problems is a set of practices called DevOps.

What is DevOps?

DevOps is the union of development and IT operations to continually, reliably, and quickly provide product to customers.

At B&R:

  • Product = AS project
  • Dev = Applications Engineer tasks
  • Ops = Project Manager / Commissioning Engineer tasks

DevOps involves strategies like increasing the visibility of tasks and metrics, dividing and planning work in measurable chunks, optimizing team and project architecture, automated testing and reporting, etc to accomplish goals such as increasing productivity, increasing the frequency of deployments, increasing code quality, reducing response time for bugfixes, reducing fire-fighting, and so on.

Current Situation

Many people agree that the DevOps mindset is a favorable way to work, but integrating new practices requires bandwidth that most of us don’t have. As a result, inefficient workflows remain in place.

B&R DevOps Package

To address this, B&R has put together this DevOps package. The mission and purpose of this package is:

To significantly reduce the barriers to entry of DevOps strategies into the day-to-day workflow of Automation Studio project development, in order to increase the efficiency, quality, and maintainability of the resulting applications.

Value Proposition

DevOps adds significant value to you in the following ways:

  • Frequent deployments
  • Increased productivity
  • Spend less time fire-fighting
  • Faster time to market
  • Respond rapidly to required changes
  • Higher code quality
  • Quickly deliver bugfixes
  • … and more

B&R has invested the time to research DevOps practices and is ready to incorporate them into the development of your machine software.

Package Contents

The DevOps package includes material for the following subjects:

  • Project Management
  • Version Control
  • Automation & Build Server
  • Testing

For each of these subjects, the package contains reference material and template files.

The reference material explains the conceptual information behind the subject, including what it is, why it’s important, how you can implement it, and other various tips and tricks.

Wherever applicable, we provide template files to expedite your implementation of that part of the DevOps process.

Throughout the package we identify the tools and resources that we use at B&R, but of course you are free to utilize whatever tools you prefer to accomplish each aspect of the DevOps process.

Lastly, everything within the DevOps package is free to use!

Let’s Get Started!

To get started, take a look through the package contents on the left and dive in to your topic of interest. The documentation will guide you through the topic and explain all template files as they come up.

We reserve the right to change the content of any of this material without prior notice. The information contained herein is believed to be accurate as of the date of publication, however, B&R makes no warranty, expressed or implied, with regards to the products or the documentation contained within this document. B&R shall not be liable in the event if incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising from the furnishing, performance or use of these products. The software names\, hardware names and trademarks used in this document are registered by the respective companies.
Copyright © B&R – Subject to change without notice