DevOps

Security industry conferences and articles in the trade press
are fond of harping on the broken IT security model. They
point to growing breach statistics, embarrassing configuration
and patch management practices, and mounting vulnerability
exploits as ample evidence of the problems plaguing infosec.
It’s easy to point out problems,
but what about solutions?
Interestingly, as scary as DevOps may be
to the typical security pro, its fast iterations
and continuous delivery patterns may be just
the solution to fixing what’s broken in today’s
security model.
“Security pros need to understand that
this is the future of IT and of IT security,” says
Rich Mogull, analyst and CEO at security
analyst firm Securosis. “I see DevOps doing
nothing but improving security when done
right. Not only is software going to be more
secure, but if you learn from these techniques
it can help you get your day-to-day security
more efficient.”
But the devil is in the details. What exactly
does it take to do it right? How can security
operate within the DevOps context in order
to ensure a more sustainable and less
risky continuous delivery value chain? The
complete answers to those questions are
still being written. But the innovators in the
security and DevOps communities are finding
early success with a number of key practices
that contribute to what many security
pundits call a Rugged DevOps experience.