Chris Riley former GigaOm analyst, O’Reilly author, DevOps.com featured writer and founder of Fixate I/O has written an outstanding report on the key role documentation must play in the modern software development lifecyle. Agile or DevOps, automated or not, we live in a continuous IT era. So why shouldn’t documentation be continuous as well? Riley’s analysis includes key findings including:
- Even the definition of documentation is subjective. Despite several decades of implementation, the methods, drivers, and even language of documentation are nearly limitless. Standards such as ITSM help stabilize the look, feel, and process of documentation, but it does not help an organization understand how to use that documentation and integrate it into development.
- The modern software delivery pipeline introduces new complexities in administration. New tooling in the DevOps space has improved application efficiency and quality, but in some cases, this has also reduced the manageability of the environment. This creates new challenges to knowing what you have, how it functions, and how to extend it into the future.
- As the delivery pipeline moves to a continuous stream of releases, classic documentation processes become impossible. Documentation must happen automatically within the process, or not at all.
- In order for documentation to be useful, it needs to be actionable.
Download the complete report on continuous documentation for an in depth analysis, conclusions and guidance:
Documenting DevOps
