Automating Complex Deployment Processes – Jorge Robledo, KinderSystems and Harsh Sabikhi, Octopus Deploy

This is texturing TV. Hi everyone. Welcome back to Tech strong TV.

We have a double barrel dose here for our next interview. Let me introduce you to our next two guests. They're gonna talk about a pretty cool new partnership.

That's just been brought to Market first in the blue background with the octopus is Harsh Sabikhi harsh. Welcome to techstroke TV. Thank you for having me Alan.

We're gonna come back to you just a second. I want to introduce you to our second guest and that is Jorge Robledo. And Jorge is with Kinder systems.

Hey, Jorge. Hey, welcome to Tech strong TV. Hey Alan.

Thanks for having us today. Pleasure to have you on so harsh we started with you. So I'm gonna come back here.

Why not? If you don't mind just if we get out of the way give our audience a little bit of your personal background. It may be a little bit about octopus to play.

Sure. Yeah, happy to Alan and this is the second time. I'm on the show.

So thank you for having me again. My name is Harsh as you mentioned. I've now been with octopus deploy for about nine months.

I had up all of our the revenue organization. This includes customer success support Solutions engineering technical account management essentially all customer and field facing functions within the organization. I may be someone new to octopus, but definitely on you to the industry.

I've been in the industry for about 20 years now or two decades and majority of that has been in software development and I've followed the evolution of the sdlc from waterfall to Agile to devops development prior to octopus. I was at how she Corp and prior to that at GitHub. Sure to two companies very familiar to our audience harsh.

I actually remember what didn't you had just like just started the last time you are. You did. Yeah, I think I was yeah week four something like that.

Yeah, we broke your head. But anyway, you know, not everyone in our audience is gonna be as familiar. Maybe with octopus deploy.

Why don't you if you don't mind a little background on the company. Yeah, no happy to so octopus deploy is as the name suggests. We're continues delivery and deployment solution.

We fit nicely with the organizations existing ci/cd pipelines to us. We focus on the cd part of the the devops tool chain, and because of that we integrate nicely with your existing CI solutions that you may have in place like get of actions or Jenkins a team city as well as integrating with Version Control Systems GitHub get lab and others and the beauty of octopus deploy is we can then take those built artifacts and take them from your CS system and deploy them to wherever you need to put them that could be on your own internal on-prem Solutions systems public Cloud private Cloud Mainframe and even databases. So we we are a vendor and platform agnostic diploma solution.

Love it. Actually, all right Jorge. Let's turn over to you.

Now same kind of thing. Give us a little bit of your background and then a little bit about Kinder. Thanks Alan.

So I've I am the Vice President of Operations here Kinder systems and what that means is that I'm in charge of infrastructure stay and Head Start customer success as well as state operations in our our Logistics department, and I've been here roughly four years prior to joining Kinder systems. I worked the news in broadcasting the street and prior to that. I spent a little bit of time in the nonprofit sector as well as information security prior to that and you know a little bit of background even before then is I used to run a hosting company where the paid customers subsidized the free users.

In other words. We provided an environment for people to learn about Linux completely free of charge. It's great.

Excellent. You know why I got into Tech originally with what became a hosting company too so I can understand that. Alright, what about Kinder systems though?

I you know again I've heard of them, but I'm sure people in our audience are not familiar. Of course course Alan so Kinder systems was formerly known as controltech and you know, we started really in in 1993. But you know, what we do today is we are the leading provider of subsidy management software in the state agency and Head Start program as well as for childcare providers and you know, I say we started in 1993 but control Tech back then did on related work to the industry.

So really our start in this industry was in 1997. And what we do today is we help agencies child care providers to ensure that they're in compliance would stay regulations Head Start regulations. We also help, you know, streamline operations.

So everything from the capture of time and attendance to subsidy reporting payment calculation. Those are things that we do in-house and You know, I guess to explain the scale of what we do. It would be safe to say that as of today.

We've processed roughly half a billion attendance transactions Alan. So that means that when you drop off your kid or you pick up your kid from daycare, you may be using our software and so that number of transactions is approximately half a billion up to today. We've also calculated roughly about three billion dollars in subsidy payments for providers who are helping the state provide child care services for on their serve populations throughout the United States.

I love it. It's a great great great great stuff. All right.

So we've got this out of the way gentlemen who wants to take the lead here and talking about this great new partnership you guys ever announcing You're gonna make me pick I was gonna set you. Maybe how about Jorge? You start maybe explaining how to the audience how you guys are using octopus deploying and I cannot some color commentary.

Thanks harsh. I agree. Well, I guess before we talk about what it looks like today.

Let me explain what it looked like four years ago, right and, you know four years ago with a little over. few hundred customers are Engineers would do deployments by so that meant that we had a release ready to go out the door and you know, a couple Engineers will work for a few hours after business hours every day for a couple weeks. Sometimes a month to make sure that everybody got the latest code.

So, you know, they would deploy the web app it would deployed the database changes the reporting changes any API changes and then they would smoke test besides one at a time. So, you know extremely painful process. And so what we've done is in partnership with octopus we have completely on automated our deployment process.

So that means everything that I just mentioned for example that deployment that took multiple weeks to do today. We can do deployments a couple hundred sites in a matter of two of three hours completely on attended and You know again that means updating the database updating the web applications underlying API components reports and we're also in the process of adding smoke testing to the octopus deploy pipeline. So we we are very very excited.

You know, we've increased our speed about 2,000 percent in four years, which is very significant. Another way to say the same thing would be that our Peak number of the deployments for last year was roughly 500. Right?

So this process that would have taken, you know, several weeks to a couple months to do now we do it without even really thinking about it which has ultimately allowed us to focus on bringing new features to Market quicker and essentially you know reducing staff burnout because as I mentioned a couple Engineers working after hours, well that tends to get Very tiring and and also anytime you have people doing manual steps performing manual steps, you're introducing the risk right of human error. And so, you know our philosophy at the organizational level is the more automation the better if you're doing anything more than once we should be investing time. It's making sure that we're automating it and that it scales well.

Love it. Harsh yeah, a lot of additional comments of that the use case Jorge described is actually the perfect use case for octopus deploy customers and he mentioned sites these are end customers that they're deploying the software to and that is possible with a unique feature to octopus called multi-tenancy. So that allows organizations like Kinder systems to utilize octopus deploy in a consistent manner, but then change a few variable sets to mimic the various sites that they're trying to deploy the software to it could be the same software version, but then it changes slightly and that's the the benefit of multi-tenancy where the developers and engineers build a software once but they can deploy to many sites By changes a few variables.

The other also is where though that software will be running which environments then being. Of the government ages or working with government clients. They've got AWS government gov cloud or an Azure gov Cloud, but not everybody's on the cloud.

Right a lot of the their end customers that they're utilizing the software. They some of them are still running on-prem or are running Mainframe or other Legacy systems. So the beauty of octopus is we help in that hybrid environment.

We know organizations are on a different stages of their maturity when it comes to the utilization of the public Cloud. So we help organizations who are still on Prem hybrid or fully on fully in the cloud. And if I could harsh one other area that we are.

A very thankful for in terms of support is you know, when we started using octopus octopus had a little bit of support for Linux. But today Linux is really just as well supported as Windows environments and that has been a a critical benefit for us because we acquired a head start company called Copa and not too long ago and they're strictly Linux based and and octopus allowed us to leverage the same platform the same best practices like variable sets which allow us to stand arise the variables for deployments, you know, multi-tenant environment like harsh stated and it allows us to do that in Linux too. So the tools that are Engineers are familiar with today are the same tools that we leverage on that side of the house, which means that we can literally deploy to any Cloud environment any on-prem environment with any OS we can Average cloud-native functionality like containers or Azure container registry and so octopus is really sort of where our deployments begin and where they end and to that effects.

You know, it's become this this really amazing tool in terms of cost optimization because well, we may have our devops Engineers to sign on deployment process everybody throughout the organization understands what's going on in the deployment process, which means that we can also have other teams like our help desk team do deployments and that allows our developers to focus on what they do best, which is bringing features to Market and troubleshooting complex issues. So it's sort of created a culture shift here where everybody has a baseline understanding of deployments and that means that you know a lot of groups And make suggestions and and it's all in the name of continuous Improvement. Right?

We're always constantly evolving and bringing in new features that octopus deploy provides so that we can continue to optimize what we do. Jorge hit on two really important points that I want to just double click further on Alan. I'm sure you've had other companies devops companies come on your your show and talk about kubernetes containers and serverless, right?

That's the the new buzzword or a lot of organizations are shipped into that. But we have octopus. We we support all those emerging Technologies, but we have not forgotten about the Legacy systems like Linux and windows because we know in organizations hardly any organization out there is gonna be 100% containers.

That's a gradual transition that transition is going to take Celtic years and for good reasons. Some organizations will probably decide to stay on VMS or Windows or Linux systems. Don't fix what's not broke.

You know, it's interesting. I was just on the phone with the manager of a PR agency asking us You know, what kind of stories are interesting to us here at Tech stock and I was trying to explain to them, you know, for instance next month in May. We're doing a show called a virtual event and all day event called devops on ramp.

It's not aimed at sort of cutting-edge devops or you know, it's aimed at. People who are just starting their devops Journeys now who are just contemplating and taking those first steps because we we forget the lessons and actually are you know can do is a great example of this, you know, things get built organically. Sometimes by acquisition emerges sometimes.

You know just the way of things and we move from Windows to Linux to Cloud native architectures and all this and and the other thing is the way them, you know, we seem to have lost sight the crossing the chasm Market model, right you have 15% of the market that are these early adopters the cool kids and the cool kids are always adopting the cool things and using the cool Technologies. And and we everybody wants to be a cool kid or most a lot of people want to be and we tend to focus on those cool kids, but then we forget that beyond that 15% There's 85% more in the market and there's 35% of the mainstream that will adopt stuff fairly earlier not as early as the cool kids, but Pharrell and then the 35% of the main Market. Of the mainstream that is they just coming on to kubernetes.

They're just starting to look at the devops stuff. And then there's 15% that a lagrance who knows if they ever will. adopt that right, but we can't you can't build a successful company in my mind.

Just catering to the cool kids. It you know it because you're limited to 15% by almost by definition. So I you know what?

Harsh that's a great point and Jorge. I think Kinder system. You know, I'm not saying you're a laggard by any means.

but a lot of solid companies aren't really interested in being. That 15% you know trendsetters who are taking their chances with kind of untested stuff. They they want to make sure if they adopt something it is it's solid right and it's mainstream.

So I I think this is a great great example of that. Right cicds now been around 10 12 years at least right? But it's really getting solidified.

It's really become mainstream with some of the stuff like companies like octopus deploy. are using I we don't have a lot of time left, but I wanted to ask for hey. This isn't the only technology you've ever adopted up.

Sure and how how has the The the graph if you will of adopting deploying and and accelerating. You know the the octopus deploy deployment or Universal deployment automation solution. How is that you know measured up for you?

I gotta tell you Alan that it's been a really awesome Journey with octopus deploy it in a sense. We can their systems organically understood that we were lacking Automation. And so what that cost was a Sort of that top to bottom understanding on the value that octopus brought to the table.

And so not only were we growing but octopus deploy was also continuing to morph alongside of us. And so it's been really awesome in terms of The Experience, there's a huge Community for octopus deploy that that basically helps provide each other support and so I can tell you that in the beginning stages. I spent a couple hours of not a little bit more talking to other customers and trying to understand patterns for Best Practices now.

It is true octopus deployed provides really good documentation. So in terms of like what best practices are a lot of this is on their website, but you know, once you get into some new ones says, it's always helpful to see how other folks are are doing some of the same tasks. So it's been a really awesome journey and you know just a minute ago.

I alluded to octopus deploy morphing alongside of us, you know, there is now these really really cool feature which is called Dora metrics and octopus. And if I'm not mistaken, it's a Enterprise only feature, but with your metrics allows us to do is basically quantify. Success between the various development teams.

And so now we're able to compare practices internally in determine. What is working? Well what is not and so, you know, we talked a little bit about Cutting Edge, but there's also a lot to say in in process Improvement and just every day practices, right and so octopus while it was only continues delivery tool has now sort of reached into a critical part of our business which is process improvements.

And so, you know, we have a long path ahead but just being able to access those metrics and give teams and insight into what's working. Well and what is not that is really really huge for us. Absolutely.

That's great. Gentlemen, I'd love to talk to you about this more but I think we're kind of over and we've got people in the waiting room here. Just real quick Jorge for people who want to find out more about Kinder systems.

What's the website? com Absolutely. Thank you harsh for people who want to you know, get one of the better see one of the best CD Solutions out there find out more about octopus deploy.

Where can they go? com. Love it gentlemen.

Thank you. Congratulations on this. This sounds like a real win-win kind of you guys.

You know, I found a key here Jorge to really accelerating your go-to-market making a better experience for your customers and at the end of the day, that's what those Dora metrics are all about right pleasing your customers high performance teams. We're going to take a break here. We'll be back on texture on TV in just a second.