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Automic Software: Global Research Reveals IT Toolchain Sprawl Significantly Impacts DevOpsTeams'
[May 17, 2016]

Automic Software: Global Research Reveals IT Toolchain Sprawl Significantly Impacts DevOpsTeams'


Automic, the leader in Business Automation Software, today announced the results of a global survey examining the selection, adoption and impact of developer tools within organizations. Launched in partnership with DevOps.com, the study surveyed more than 225 IT and business professionals. Key findings indicate steady growth of the tool stack, how unstable and unrealistic vendor lock-in has become and the importance of managing a coherent deployment pipeline, especially as many organizations begin to adopt and implement DevOps focused initiatives.

The "Managing Your DevOps Tool Chest: The Complexity of Herding Kittens" survey found that 69 percent of respondents reported that their tool stack is steadily increasing. Moreover, 82 percent said that while the stack is growing, many of the tools being used are outside of the officially supported tool stack. Ultimately, new tools are being utilized much more quickly than they are approved by organizations, leading to increased IT toolchain sprawl and shadow IT issues which significantly affect DevOps teams.

For example, for every one or two tools development or operations teams add, this will effectively double the numbers of tools DevOps teams have to account for in their deployment pipelines. In order to maintain a coherent deployment pipeline, these tools must be integrated and orchestrated.

Chris Boorman, CMO of Automic Software, stated, "Through this piece of research, unlike any in the market, we sought to uncover the complexity of IT sprawl and how it is affecting the adoption of DevOps initiatives across the globe. Given the current IT environment, we hypothesized that the rate of tools being added to enterprise toolchains is escalating at a pretty significant rate and our survey results confirm this theory - more and more tools are being added and the potential for escalating IT sprawl is highly likely."

Booman continued, "Our conclusion is that these findings make a compelling case for the use of agnostic Application Release Automation (ARA) tools, such as Automic's Release Automation, which can be used in conjunction and integrated with all of the new open source technology in the market. IT teams, with Dev in particular, do not want to be tied to one toolset, and it is clear that the best way to engender the DevOps revolution is to allow the use of a diverse, but contrlled, tool stack within your organization. Automic's ARA product lets your team do just that. "



Alan Shimel, Editor of DevOps.com remarked, "As we continue to see, the DevOps movement is growing rapidly across the globe and it is becoming increasingly hard to 'keep all the kittens in the box'. Dev wants to use every tool available to engender faster innovation. Ops wants stability and the use of specific, reliable tooling. Our results indicate that IT sprawl is not going to cease and that organization must be flexible with regards to how their IT teams use diverse tool sets. The overall message is that developers like to use their chosen tools. It's time to empower your teams and not limit them - this could have a dramatic impact on your IT team and its productivity."

Key Findings


Tool Standardization:

53 percent of respondents said development teams do not standardize on the same tools

  • Nearly 40 percent of respondents said their company currently uses 5 to 10
  • However, for large organizations, over 53% use 20 or more tools.

Key results from the survey suggest that:

  • There is an even distribution of DevOps titled roles and cross-functional teams across all sized organizations. Across the board, all companies see the need for a specialized DevOps team.
  • Small companies (less than 200 people) do a better job of standardizing on tools than larger companies. The larger you are the less standardized the toolset is.
  • Small companies have 5 to 10 development related tools in use. Midsized companies have up to 20 and large enterprises have over 20 tools.
  • 16 percent of respondents say 75 percent to 100 percent of their tool stack is open source. Mostly smaller organizations with the percentage of open source use decreasing with increased customer size.

Survey Methodology

In February/March, 2016 , IT and business professionals were invited to participate in a survey on the topic of the selection and use of developer tools within organizations. The study surveyed more than 225 respondents from the US, Canada, UK, France and Germany from a range of company sizes across a variety of industry verticals including energy and utilities, financial services, retail, manufacturing and telecommunications.

On Demand Webcast Information

Missed the webinar? Listen to our on-demand "Managing Your DevOps Tool Chest: The Complexity of Herding Kittens" webcast.

Tweet this:

Global survey sponsored by @Automic & @devopsdotcom reveals increased IT toolchain sprawl significantly impacts #DevOps bit.ly/1smiLzN

Supporting Resources

About Automic:

Automic, the leader in business automation, helps enterprises drive competitive advantage by automating their IT and business systems - from on-premise to the Cloud, Big Data and the Internet of Things. With offices worldwide, Automic powers over 2,600 customers including AMC Theatres, Bosch, Carphone Warehouse, eBay, ExxonMobil, General Electric, Netflix, NHS SBS, Société Générale, Swisscom IT and Vodafone (News - Alert). More information can be found at www.automic.com.


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