Most teams find it hard to “do DevOps” in the DB for several reasons. This talk summarizes what I’ve learned over the last decade, studying teams that succeeded as well as those that tried. I’ve distilled it all into concrete, practical steps you can take to improve.

Databases are special because they’re stateful, and DevOps reflects this: in practice, databases are a lot harder to “DevOps” (as a verb) than other parts of the stack. In this talk you’ll learn why Databases are “hard to DevOps,” but also why it’s valuable enough to keep trying‚ and smarter ways to try. There’s some theory/discussion, but not much; there’s more focus on case studies, commonalities between lots of teams/companies, and common approaches that I’ve seen work really well. In more detail,

• What research shows about DevOps, databases, and company performance
• Current and emerging trends in how we build/manage data tiers, and implications
• Elevation of the traditional dedicated DBA role and what’s happening as a result
• Driving cultural change towards distributed database competency and responsibility
• Why some teams succeed in this transformation, while others fail
• How to improve your chances of succeeding (or avoiding pitfalls others have already found)