As a framework for building and deploying applications as fast as possible, DevOps has always been in a constant state of evolution. Over the past 10 years, there have been many seminal moments where major leaps forward have been made. As we near the end of 2023, it’s apparent we are collectively experiencing one of those times right now.

During multiple in-person DevOps World events taking place over the next several months in New York, Chicago, Santa Clara, Singapore and London, we’ll be exploring these advances as we celebrate all things DevOps. It’s always been our great privilege to host the DevOps community, and bringing that community back together to share insights and see first-hand how the latest and greatest technologies are transforming DevOps is an experience that no virtual meeting can ever replace.

DevOps is, above all else, a commitment to learning. The DevOps community is driving changes in the way applications are built and delivered that transform society. DevOps World creates an opportunity for the DevOps professionals at the forefront of those efforts to see for themselves how a raft of emerging innovations will take DevOps to the next level.

DevOps World attendees, for example, will be discussing topics ranging from how generative AI will be applied to how changing compliance requirements will impact software delivery. In addition, there will be deep dives into the impact advanced analytics are having on breaking logjams. There will even be demos showing how digital twin technologies will be used to modernize DevOps workflows.

Just as important, DevOps World provides an opportunity for attendees of all skill levels to network with their peers and advance their education. We all know that virtual training can be challenging. In many instances, there simply is no substitute for being in a classroom with an instructor and fellow students all focused on the same topic at the same time. Careers are made at our DevOps World events. In fact, several sessions will show how investments in the venerable Jenkins continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform will be carried forward into the next era of application development and deployment. 

Naturally, many of us wonder what our future career paths will look like in the age of AI. It’s already been shown that natural language interfaces will make AI a lot more accessible to everyone in IT. More and more, the bottlenecks and associated manual effort that often conspire to adversely impact DevOps productivity are about to be eliminated. For example: 

• The days when an engineer was required to create a simple script are coming to an end.
• The average IT administrator should be able to automate a process using a few simple prompts.
• Tools will become increasingly intelligent in their ability to detect the root cause of issues without causing alert storms.

The challenge now is training the large language models (LLMs) needed to apply generative AI to the DevOps domain. CloudBees is proud to be at the forefront of an effort to enable organizations to safely apply AI to DevOps workflows at scale in a way that can be trusted.

In the meantime, DevOps teams should be evaluating which tasks AI will be able to automate both today and tomorrow. Roles and job functions will evolve accordingly, but DevOps engineer roles are not going to be made obsolete any time soon. Instead, AI will free DevOps engineers to spend more time solving complex issues rather than performing rote tasks that are better handled by machines. A commitment to automation remains a foundational DevOps principle. Anything that can be automated should be.

As always, luminaries from the global DevOps ecosystem will present at DevOps World. The best and brightest practitioners from across the DevOps spectrum, along with our premier technology vendor partners, will be readily accessible to attendees. The opportunity to learn from others is the whole reason DevOps World events exist in the first place. More than 40 speakers, including DevOps experts from Argonne National Labs, Autodesk, Fidelity Investments, GitHub, Gradle, M&T Bank, MFS, Postman, Software Engineering Institute/Carnegie Mellon, Sonatype and Veeam Technologies have already committed to sharing their insights, and we expect many more as the event approaches. 

DevOps has never been more crucial for any organization that is dependent on software to modernize than it is right now. The pace at which applications will be built and deployed in the AI era is about to exponentially increase. There will always be a need for DevOps engineers to manage application development and deployment. The opportunity for attendees at DevOps World is to collectively define the next generation of DevOps best practices with AI in mind. Reserve your metro New York, Chicago, Santa Clara, Singapore or London spot at DevOps World today!