DevOps is a contraction of two words: Development and Operations. And at the DevOpsDays conference in Boise, the speaker list includes Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Cisco and more, gathered to help Boise's IT pros develop a culture of understanding and more efficient collaboration.
It's more than a place for people who can write code to "upskill" -- it's a place where even a business owner trying to take their product to the next level by "app"-ifying it -- perhaps a gun manufacturer who wants an app for a gun that tells owners on an hourly basis it's location.
The point of a conference is not only so that traditionally isolated parts of the IT side of a business can collaborate better -- those being developers (coders), quality assurance and operations. While traditionally those teams operate from a top-down method, the more information and understanding at the bottom levels makes reaching goals more easily.
And the cultural benefits of DevOps don't stop there, according to conference organisers. They say that DevOps includes extending two-way communication -- bottom-up and top-down -- to the business side that employs IT to drive faster adoption of technology.
Some companies say that they are quicker-to-market with products, and their customers are more satisfied with their products that come from a DevOps environment.
