Industrializing Financial Services with DevOps E-Book

Spyridon Maniotis

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 595

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

In recent years, large financial services institutions have been embracing the concept of DevOps in the core of their digital transformation strategies. This book is inspired by real enterprise DevOps adoptions in the financial services industry and provides a comprehensive proven practice guide on how large corporate organizations can evolve their DevOps operating model.
The book starts by outlining the fundamentals comprising a complete DevOps operating model. It continues with a zoom in on those fundamentals, combining adoption frameworks with real-life examples. You’ll cover the three main themes underpinning the book’s approach that include the concepts of 360°, at relevance, and speeds. You’ll explore how a bank’s corporate and technology strategy links to its enterprise DevOps evolution. The book also provides a rich array of proven practices on how to design and create a harmonious 360° DevOps operating model which should be enabled and adopted at relevance in a multi-speed context. It comes packed with real case studies and examples from the financial services industry that you can adopt in your organization and context.
By the end of this book, you will have plenty of inspiration that you can take back to your organization and be able to apply the learning from pitfalls and success stories covered in the book.

Leseprobe

Industrializing Financial Services with DevOps

Proven 360° DevOps operating model practices for enabling a multi-speed bank

Spyridon Maniotis

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

Industrializing Financial Services with DevOps

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Contributors

About the author

Spyridon Maniotis is an experienced DevOps professional based in London, UK. In recent years, his career focus has been on working with enterprise DevOps transformations in the financial services industry. His financial services DevOps experience includes Nordic, British, and French incumbent banks, as well as European payments and pension fund corporations. He has worked for more than 10 years with financial services technology at Nordea Bank, Danske Bank, Deloitte Consulting, Capco, and Ericsson, serving in several DevOps leadership positions. He is a well-rounded and seasoned practitioner of DevOps, SRE, SDLC, technology strategy, regulatory compliance, as well as agile methodologies. He holds a BSc in computer science, an MSc in software engineering, and an MBA degree.

About the reviewers

Aleksandras Artemjevas worked at an incumbent bank for 4 years. His last role there was DevOps engineer in the DevOps center of excellence. He was part of a team driving the DevOps adoption at scale. Currently, he is working at a banking infrastructure provider as a service reliability engineer.

Michał Gryko has been tinkering with electronics and computers since he was a kid. This led to a career in computer science and eventually various SysAdmin/DevOps/SRE roles. He is always focused on taking code from developers to production as quickly as possible while keeping the company running in the meantime.

Katarzyna Bieszk has 20 years of IT experience in program and project management, leading cross-functional teams to successful implementation according to SAFe/Agile, waterfall, or hybrid standards. Since 2020, she has been acting as a DevOps driver implementing DevOps Health Radar and Value Stream Mapping. She has been a trainer for SAFe DevOps courses as a SAFe Program Consultant. Katarzyna is currently employed by Nordea full time, where she heads the software development team within Group Functions Technology and focuses on increasing cloud maturity.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1: Introduction, Value Proposition, and Foundation

1

The Banking Context and DevOps Value Proposition

Introducing the main actor of the book

Examining the incumbent’s external and internal context at a glance

What does an incumbent bank’s external context look like?

Which are the forces that shape the financial services industry?

What does an incumbent’s internal context look like?

Defining DevOps and its value proposition for banking

What is the importance of adopting DevOps at relevance?

Defining relevance

The relevance of the situation level

The relevance of sub-situation levels

Why have a 360° perspective when adopting DevOps?

Summary

2

The DevOps Multi-Speed Context, Vision, Objectives, and Change Nature

Understanding multi-speed banking

Why multiple speed levels arise out of different situations and ambitions

What is the role of circumstances in enabling multi-speed?

The role of individuals in multi-speed

Understanding multi-speed banking in a DevOps adoption context

Understanding your state-of-art DevOps context

Why examining your state-of-art DevOps context is vital

Once upon a time in Berlin

Why industry imitation is decisive in shaping DevOps adoptions

Are there several DevOps “states of the art” within an incumbent’s context?

What does a representative state of art DevOps adoption look like for an incumbent bank?

Enterprise DevOps vision and objectives

Recapping the forces and qualities that shape the DevOps vision

Examining the incumbent’s corporate and technology strategies

Shaping the DevOps vision

Defining the DevOps enterprise OKRs

Deciding on the nature and extent of your DevOps adoption

Why is it important to define and weigh the forces of your evolution?

Summary

Part 2: The 360° DevOps Operating Model, Governance, and Orchestration Mechanisms

3

The DevOps 360° Operating Model Pillars and Governance Model

Defining the DevOps 360° operating model core pillars

The evolution’s core governance

Establishing a DevOps 360° vision authority group

Establishing a DevOps 360° design and advocacy group

Defining your DevOps enterprise evolution ecosystem

Who should be considered as key stakeholders?

Defining the evolution’s workstreams

Bringing it together

Understanding the governing dynamics

Understanding the balance of power in the governing bodies

Bringing two different worlds together

Speaking the same DevOps language

Understanding your organizational structure dynamics

What to look for in your organizational structure

Use case 1 – segregated business technology lines and group technology

Use case 2 – segregated business and technology

Use case 3 – consolidated business and technology domains segregated from the core technology

Summary

4

Enterprise Architecture and the DevOps Center of Excellence

Enterprise architecture

What is the banking DevOps EA value proposition?

Defining the critical path of the banking portfolio

Mastering the strategy of platform modernization

The reference architecture proposition in banking DevOps

Going further in the EA value proposition

The EA assembly

DevOps Center of Excellence

What is the value proposition for the CoE and its potential roles?

An example of getting the most out of your service catalog

Staffing and funding the CoE

Four incumbent banks – four different use cases

Summary

5

Business Enterprise Agility and DevOps Ways of Working Reconciliation

Business enterprise agility and DevOps reconciliation

Why the interrelation of Agile and DevOps is natural and inevitable

Four business enterprise agility methodologies

Basic agility – the greenfield paradigm

Scaled business enterprise agility

Spotify model

Agile value streams or clusters

Business enterprise agility field guides and playbooks

DevOps and business enterprise agility agnosticness

Bringing clarity to the autonomy and self-organization paradox

The pragmatic conclusion

What are the reconciliation agnosticness dimensions?

Agile DevOps teams – organizing principles design

Step 1 – defining the core capabilities and actors

Step 2 – capturing the detailed business enterprise agility model

Step 3 – capturing the detailed regulatory/compliance context

Step 4 – capturing the current Agile DevOps teams’ topologies

Step 5 – getting the notation and templates defined

Step 6 – setting the approach and principles of the design

Step 7 – conducting the actual design

Step 8 – evaluating based on predefined criteria

Step 9 – feasibility study and compliance foundation

Step 10 – defining the basis for a job description

Step 11 – defining the DevOps WoW white paper

Summary

Part 3: Capability Engineering, Enablement, and Launch

6

DevOps Software Development Life Cycle 360° Evolution and Engineering

Defining the DevOps SDLC

What is DevOps SDLC 360° evolution and engineering?

Why you need a DevOps SDLC

Why is it important to understand the DevOps SDLC anatomy?

What is the anatomy of the DevOps SDLC continuity phases?

What is the anatomy of a DevOps SDLC framework?

What is the anatomy of the DevOps SDLC capability?

Going deeper into the SDLC anatomy levels

A proven practice for defining your DevOps SDLC

Step 1 – define the actors and respective DevOps domains

Step 2 – define the evolution tactic in alignment and consensus with everyone

Step 3 – define the portfolio under scope

Step 4 – get the background work done

Step 5 – get your logistics in order

Step 6 – first iteration and respective guidelines

Step 7 – second iteration – scenario-driven end-to-end value stream

Step 8 – define the ownership demarcation

The importance of different views

The alternative method

What about the portfolio of mainframes and decoupled legacy components?

Summary

7

The DevOps 360° Technological Ecosystem as a Service

The technology value proposition in the DevOps evolution

The DevOps 360° technological ecosystem as a service

The misunderstood relationship between DevOps and technology

Why incumbents combine an engineering transformation with their DevOps evolution

Why technology standardization is the new black for incumbents

Precautions and circumstances for standardization

Standardization “clean cuts” is the most sustainable way

Standardization named “technology sustainability”

The main DevOps technological ecosystem partners

The DevOps platform teams

What is the value proposition of DevOps platform teams?

How does a proven operating model of DevOps platform teams look?

The DevOps platform product and service catalog

From DevOps platforms’ catalogs to enterprise technology menus

Why is the demarcation of responsibilities important for DevOps platforms?

Why you need a “DevOps platform – tenant” social contract

How can you enable DevOps journeys, productivity, and experience?

How technology consumption defines the organizing principles of Agile DevOps teams

What to look for in DevOps technological utility due diligence

The industry’s platforms versus direct cloud native dilemma

How communities of practice strengthen DevOps platforms

The main five strategic platforms incumbents focus on

The ITSM platform

The CI/CD pipeline platform

The testing services platform

The observability platform – telemetry

Private cloud platforms

Public cloud platforms

Summary

8

360° Regulatory Compliance as Code

Setting the regulatory compliance scene in the FSI

What are the regulatory compliance categories?

What can the impact of not being “compliant” be?

What is the compliance value proposition in relation to the DevOps 360° evolution?

Story 1 – the European Central Bank audit on technology operations

Story 2 – the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) ecosystem

Story 3 – the Fundamental Review of the Trading Book (FRTB) platform modernization

Story 4 – the IT controls framework for the financial supervisory authority

What are the core DevOps-related regulatory compliance domains of the incumbent’s focus?

The DevOps controls

Separation/segregation of duties

How to manage the relationship with your regulator

Summary

Part 4: Adopt, Scale, and Sustain

9

The DevOps Portfolio Classification and Governance

What is the value proposition of portfolio classification in the DevOps 360° evolution?

What do the terms portfolio and classification mean?

What is the difference between business applications and services?

How does a pragmatic classification of an incumbent’s business application portfolio look?

Portfolio classification criticality and the DevOps speed formula

What about the classification of the secondary portfolio?

The LCD

Portfolio registry, governance, and readiness

Portfolio registry and governance

The production readiness review

Summary

10

Tactical and Organic Enterprise Portfolio Planning and Adoption

What is the value proposition of enterprise portfolio planning and adoption in the DevOps 360° evolution?

Why you should balance a tactical and an organic approach

The tactical adoption value proposition

What are the predominant tactical strategic domains?

All hands on deck

The enterprise portfolio planning mechanism

What a pragmatic mechanism can look like

What are the very important considerations when designing and enabling the mechanism?

The tactic of DevOps minimum viable adoption

Go by the DevOps equilibrium parameters and set objectives

DevOps controls as the foundation of the evolution

Shape it as a formal framework

Where to start on the DevOps minimum viable adoption

Summary

11

Benefit Measurement and Realization

What is the value proposition of benefit measurement and realization for DevOps?

Deviating from the mainstream of DevOps benefits

What is the difference between a KPT and a metric?

What is the difference between an indicator and a proof?

The importance of capturing the collective interest

A pragmatic three-tier approach to DevOps KPTs and metrics

A proven proposal for DevOps KPTs and metrics

You need to agree on the mathematics and risk appetite

Dashboarding is gold

Some very important considerations

The funniest of the DevOps KPTs and metrics

Summary

12

People Hiring, Incubation, and Mobility

The value proposition of people in the DevOps 360° evolution

The importance of creating Π-shaped profiles

Comparing Π-shaped profiles to other profiles

The importance of predicting role evolution

Strategic considerations in DevOps hiring

Starting by defining your hiring strategy

Introducing 360° interviews

On using third parties to scale fast

DevOps incubation recommendations

Focusing equally on leaders and people on the ground

Being targeted and driven by real work

Utilizing your organization’s graduates

Incubating at relevance – eliminating the incubation red tape

The inability to incubate will severely jeopardize evolution

Practical DevOps mobility cases and precautions

Minding the mobility gap

Summary

13

Site Reliability Engineering in the FSI

What is the value proposition of SRE for the DevOps 360° evolution?

How does Google define SRE?

What is the concrete and pragmatic value proposition of SRE to the DevOps 360° evolution?

The SRE balance – 50%-50%

What are the fundamental “tenets”?

What are the foundational elements of SRE adoption “at relevance”?

SRE eligibility

Tactical versus organic SRE adoption

The engagement model mechanism

Reconciling SRE and ITIL

The most dominant SRE professions

What are the dominant SRE operating models in the financial services industry?

Use case 1 – the SRE task force model

Use case 2 – the “triangular” SRE CoE and tactical hiring

Use case 3 – business applications and platform SRE

Use case 4 – “baptized” and/or “random” SRE enablement

Summary

14

360° Recap, Staying Relevant, and Final Remarks

Recapping the DevOps 360° operating model phases

Context and DevOps value proposition

“Multi-speed,” vision, objectives, and change elements

The 360° DevOps operating model skeleton and governance

Enterprise architecture and the DevOps center of excellence

Business enterprise agility and DevOps ways of working

DevOps SDLC 360° evolution and engineering

The DevOps 360° technological ecosystem as a service

360° regulatory compliance as code

The DevOps portfolio classification and governance

Benefit measurement and realization

Hiring people, incubation, and mobility

Site reliability engineering

Final remarks

Do not use DevOps to mask cost-cutting initiatives

Manage uncertainty and the people exodus

Balance “changing people” with “changing the people”

Manage your budget wisely

Summary

Index

Other Books You May Enjoy

Preface

In recent years, large financial services institutions have been embracing the concept of DevOps at the core of their digital transformation strategies.

This book is inspired by real enterprise DevOps adoptions in the financial services industry and provides a comprehensive and proven practical guide on how large corporate organizations can evolve their DevOps operating model. The three main themes underpinning the book’s approach are the ones of 360°, at relevance, and speeds. Starting with how a bank’s corporate and technology strategy links to its enterprise DevOps evolution, we provide a rich array of proven practices for designing and creating a harmonious 360° DevOps operating model that should be enabled and adopted at relevance in a multi-speed context.

The book is packed with real case studies and examples from the financial services industry, as we have learned lessons and used tools that the reader can adopt in their organization and context.

Who this book is for

This book is for DevOps practitioners, banking technologists, technology managers, business directors, and transformation leads. Readers should have knowledge and experience of fundamental DevOps terminology and concepts and ideally have been involved in practicing DevOps in large organizations.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, The Banking Context and DevOps Value Proposition, provides an introduction to the main actor of the book, which is an incumbent bank. Its external and internal contexts in relation to DevOps are discussed in depth. In this chapter, we also provide our DevOps definition and the banking value proposition. Two important elements of the book are also introduced: relevanceand 360°.

Chapter 2, The DevOps Multi-Speed Context, Vision, Objectives, and Change Nature, presents the concept of multi-speed in banking, with examples. The importance of understanding the DevOps context will also be discussed with representative examples from incumbents. Afterward, we will discuss how DevOps is linked to the enterprise vision and strategic corporate and technological objectives, and how enterprise DevOps OKRs can be created. We will also outline elements of the nature of DevOps change.

Chapter 3, The 360° DevOps Operating Model Pillars and Governance Model, proposes a governance model for defining the 360° operating model and its enablement and launch mechanisms. Governance bodies such as vision and design authorities as well as workstreams will be defined and their roles discussed in detail. The governing dynamics of those bodies will be discussed based on the influence that they can have on the DevOps evolution. Closing the chapter, we will focus on three industry use cases that will reveal how organizational structures can potentially influence the DevOps evolution.

Chapter 4, Enterprise Architecture and the DevOps Center of Excellence, discusses the vital role of enterprise architecture, anchored to banking business domains and critical flows, as well as modernization strategies and reference architectures. The various roles that the DevOps CoE can have in the evolution along with potential operating and service models will be outlined. At the end of the chapter, we will provide four use cases of incumbent banks that have deployed DevOps CoEs in different ways.

Chapter 5, Business Enterprise Agility and DevOps Ways of Working Reconciliation, analyzes the relation of DevOps with Enterprise Agility overall and their points of reconciliation. We will deep dive and discuss how DevOps can be reconciled in an agnostic way with business enterprise agility models. The business enterprise agility models we will use are basic agile, the Spotify model, value streams, and the Scaled Agile Framework, as they have been adopted by several incumbents. In the second part of the chapter, a proven and detailed technique will be provided on how to design the DevOps organizing principles at relevance in your agile DevOps teams. Several complementary recommendations are embedded in the technique.

Chapter 6, DevOps Software Development Life Cycle 360° Evolution and Engineering, focuses on defining the heart of the DevOps model, which is the engineered and evolved software development life cycle. We will start by analyzing the SDLC anatomy in terms of phases, frameworks, and capabilities. A technique of collecting and consolidating capabilities will be presented, along with how to engage the relevant stakeholder and eventually, through value stream mapping and flows, define the future way of designing, building, deploying, and running software. This chapter will provide a proven step-by-step technique to define your future SDLC.

Chapter 7, The DevOps 360° Technological Ecosystem as a Service, focuses on the main parts of the technological ecosystem that will contribute to the adoption. We will discuss the relationship between DevOps and technology and make a case for technology standardization. The main focus in the chapter will be the DevOps platform teams, which we will cover from an operating and service model perspective. Special reference will be made to specific platform teams that incumbents establish.

Chapter 8, 360° Regulatory Compliance as Code, discusses the regulatory environment around DevOps, taking a globally systemically important bank’s point of view. The compliance value proposition for DevOps will be discussed through four real industry stories. These four stories will serve as a justification for the book’s argument that compliance is a DevOps enabler and vice versa. Special focus will be placed on discussing the topics of DevOps controls and segregation/separation of duties. We will also provide several tips in the chapter on how to manage the relationship with your regulator.

Chapter 9, The DevOps Portfolio Classification and Governance, discusses methods to classify your DevOps portfolio based on criticality and impact and technology and architecture. We will also examine how speeds are shaped based on those categories and how concepts such as licenses to continuously deliver can help certain parts of your portfolio to move faster. In the second part of the chapter, we will discuss important aspects of portfolio governance, placing special focus on application DevOps attributes and the mechanism of the production readiness assessment.

Chapter 10, Tactical and Organic Enterprise Portfolio Planning and Adoption, discusses how the adoption will be embedded in the enterprise’s annual and quarterly portfolio planning, from the corporate strategy to the Enterprise DevOps OKRs, to initiatives, epics, and stories in the backlogs of the enablement and adoption teams. Special reference will be made to the concepts of tactical and organic adoption, which must be balanced. A core part of the book that is included in this chapter is the concept of DevOps minimum viable adoption.

Chapter 11, Benefit Measurement and Realization, focuses on recommendations for how to measure and realize the benefits of the evolution. We will introduce the concepts of key performance targets and metrics and why it is important to distinguish the two. Afterward, we will provide practical recommendations on how to define your KPTs and metrics, providing some practical inspiration. The rest of the chapter will be full of advice that you can consider during the process.

Chapter 12, People Hiring, Incubation, and Mobility, focuses on DevOps hiring, incubation, and mobility. The initial focus will be on the importance of Π-shaped DevOps professionals. Key aspects to consider in your hiring strategy will be outlined by real lessons learned. Moving to incubation, we will discuss several recommendations on how to make it more effective. We will close the chapter by making a case for people mobility.

Chapter 13, Site Reliability Engineering in the FSI, starts by defining SRE and relating it to DevOps. Afterward, we will outline the fundamental SRE responsibilities as we propose them to be defined based on real industry experiences. We will make several at relevance recommendations focusing on SRE eligibility, engagement models, and reconciliation with ITIL. Closing the chapter, we will outline four industry use cases on how different incumbents have adopted SRE.

Chapter 14, 360° Recap, Staying Relevant, and Final Remarks, recaps the core DevOps operating model aspects, focusing on the relevant elements that we highlighted in each chapter. Some final concluding remarks will be provided.

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Part 1:Introduction, Value Proposition, and Foundation

This part provides an introduction to the value proposition of DevOps in banking and introduces three core elements of the book: DevOps 360° qualities, relevance, and multi-speeds. It also provides an overview of how the corporate and technology strategies of an incumbent bank can be reconciled and how enterprise DevOps OKRs can be defined.

This part of the book comprises the following chapters:

Chapter 1, The Banking Context and DevOps Value PropositionChapter 2, The DevOps Multi-Speed Context, Vision, Objectives, and Change Nature