Large organisations are ready to use DevOps practices to respond better to business needs - but they are still using the ideas in a limited way, according to a survey.

DevOps is set to impact on big enterprises and their data centers by better connecting the operations part of the organisation with the development division, so applications can be delivered better, and resources used more effectively. Large enteprises understand this, according to a new survey, but they are focusing on limited aspects of the new methodology and missing the larger benefits according to a survey.

Meanwhile, commentators have warned that, lacking a coherenet movement, DevOps is in danger of being forgotten by the industry at large. The movement lacks a manifesto and could become a footnote to history, like the Occupy moveement of 2011, according to Baron Schwartz, an influential software engineer who contributed to the MySQL open source database.

Fragmented movement

“Although its moment has arrived, DevOps is in serious trouble,” Schwartz says in a blog at O’Reilly Radar. “The movement is fragmented and weakly defined, and is being usurped by those who care more about short-term opportunities than the long-term viability of DevOps.”

If Operations acts as a service provider, developers can work on their applications within a platform-as-a-service environment. In principle, applications can then be shifted to actual use and supported without a complex porting process.

Enterpr5ises normally lag behind mid-size companies, but nearly two thirds (63 percent) of UK enterprises are familiar with the concept of DevOps, according to a study which polled 700 IT decision-makers in the UK, US and Australia. Mid-size organisations are more aware at 73 percent, but both groups are still considering the technology: 38 percent of large organizations and 42 percent of smaller businesses have implemented DevOps practices.

Enterprises have a limited view, however, and use DevOps for application monitoring and production support, but are not so likely to integrate the two department5s fully, according to the survey, which was carried out for Rackspace by Vanson Bourne. Among the reasons for dragging their feet, businesses cited other priorities and a lackof understanding of what DevOps entails.

“DevOps has a messaging and positioning problem, and it hurts the movement,” says Schwartz. Essentially, most of the messages around DevOps are restatements of promises from earlier software development movements and gurus, he says, with the Six Sigma movement addressing quality control, Peter Drucker talking about aligning technology with business, and Patrick Lencioni urging businesses to break down silos.

And, ironically for a movement that wants to break down silos, DevOps has fragmented into cliques that only talk amongst themselves, warns Schwartz.

“I am unable to find anything in anyone’s definition of DevOps that isn’t a restatement of an established idea or practice,” he says. “I think this is a serious challenge. It means that DevOps can be forgotten as quickly as it arose — perhaps replaced by another movement that’s similar but has stronger messaging, positioning, and unique value propositions.”