From TicketOps Tedium to Transformational DevEx

In the day-to-day grind of software development, developers are often caught between a rock and a hard place: the rock being the complexity required to create and operate the infrastructure that powers their code and the hard place being insufficient abstraction from that complexity. This dilemma gives rise to what's known in the industry as 'TicketOps'—a cycle of dependency where developers must constantly submit tickets for even the smallest of tasks related to creating something new or common “day 2” operations. 

TicketOps not only squanders an otherwise talented Ops team’s time with a relentless stream of mundane, repetitive requests but also ensnares developers in lengthy wait times while their tickets are processed, which disrupts developers’ concentration and blocks their velocity. This logjam prolongs feature delivery timelines and depresses morale across development and Ops teams. 

Worse, organizations that lack a library of “Golden Paths,” or templates that predefine the right way to execute a common operation using the organization’s tooling, face elevated risks of deployment mishaps, inconsistent architectural patterns, security issues,  and limited visibility for management to detect non-standard patterns.

What if you could create a great developer experience by turning this quagmire of constraints into a playground of innovation?

Creating An Unrivaled Developer Experience

configure8 introduces a streamlined approach to cut through the TicketOps tangle and unlock a superior developer experience. configure8's developer portal is the interface for your developer platform, and it is carefully calibrated to meet developers' needs. It enables centralized discovery of all available actions, and a no code UI that is advanced enough for developers to manage the most complex tasks while being delightfully intuitive to use so as to avoid support from Ops.

This approach not only simplifies the developers' day-to-day activities but also shifts the Ops team's focus to more strategic tasks. They can concentrate on collating feedback from internal stakeholders, which in turn helps prioritize and refine best practices—what we call 'Golden Paths'. These 'Golden Paths' are essential in standardizing efficient processes and removing obstacles for developers throughout your organization, further smoothing the path from concept to code.

Let's explore how configure8 can streamline your workflow, cut down on the ticket clutter, and get your teams back to doing what they do best.

Tailored Abstraction for Diverse Needs

The conundrum of TicketOps often stems from a mismatch in abstraction levels. configure8 acknowledges the diversity within your team — some developers delve into the minutiae, while others prefer a bird's-eye view. Developers that want to stay high-level and focus on business logic can do so in configure8’s no code UI. Those that want to get into the weeds can do so, the platform engineering team can simply expose optional, fine-grained controls via our role-based access control model. This provides the perfect balance of abstraction for the team and minimizes the risk of having to file a ticket because your developer platform’s back-end is too complex for most developers to directly operate safely.

A Conduit for Standardization

configure8 allows you to establish and enforce best practices. With configure8, developers can easily discover the right way to accomplish common tasks simply by searching a centralized, self-service library of these actions, configuring these actions in a powerful no code UI that enables platform engineers and Ops teams to cater to developers requiring simplicity while optionally exposing more fine grained controls where needed. configure8 also offers Scorecards, which enable managers to unearth when developers have gone “offroading,” or have deviated from established architectural patterns. This combination of making Golden Paths easy to discover and use via a centralized, self-serve developer portal and Scorecards to find instances of offroading helps organizations drive adoption as well as standardization and reuse.

Seamless Integration and Robust Governance

configure8 serves as an enhancement to your existing tool chain and Golden Paths, not a replacement. configure8 is a front-end that loosely couples with existing infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD, serverless functions, and other workflow automation tools. This approach enables you to leverage your existing investments in automation while maintaining the flexibility to select other tools as jobs-to-be-done within your enterprise as well as the tooling market evolve over time.

configure8 works by securely passing in parameters, payloads, and headers without requiring write access. You progressively post back results, which are presented in an execution log. It is ridiculously easy to integrate, and via this loose coupling configure8 seamlessly meshes with your existing governance and approval mechanisms so you don’t need to train teams on entirely new approval flows. 

Finally, it supports the most security-conscious enterprises with robust Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), comprehensive audit logs, and on-premise or SaaS hosted deployment options.

Securing Your Success

Navigating change is a complex endeavor. It's not just about selecting the right tool; it's about mastering the art of change and product management to catalyze true transformation. configure8 mitigates the risk associated with this journey, offering more than a mere tool—we provide a partnership. 

Our consultative approach layers your transformation with expertise, to identify and prioritize stakeholder needs, to implement a viable solution on a timeline you control, and to help you create and nurture an internal feedback loop that propels departmental adoption and transformation. configure8 and our partner network can even craft custom Golden Path solutions designed for your enterprise, because not every enterprise has the capacity to deliver 24 months of Golden Path development on a tight timeframe.

With configure8, you're purchasing success, not a tool or framework to build a tool.

Summary

In the quest to improve the developer experience by liberating developers (and Ops) from the shackles of TicketOps, configure8 is an ally helping you pave the way for a future where innovation is not just a buzzword but a daily reality.

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