Financial services firms shouldn't shy away from DevOps

Financial sector has as much to gain from DevOps as other industries, says Puppet Labs' Tim Zonca

Financial services firms shouldn't steer clear of instilling a DevOps culture into their organisations, as they are just as likely as firms from other sectors to thrive from such an approach.

That is the view of Tim Zonca, director of product marketing at Puppet Labs, who said that many of the financial services organisations that he works with actually tend to be early adopters of technologies and practices such as DevOps.

DevOps is the integration of developers who build and test IT services, and the teams that are responsible for deploying and maintaining IT operations. Recently, CIOs of major organisations such as Specsavers and John Lewis have explained how their companies could benefit from DevOps, while the executive director of the Government Digital Service (GDS) Stephen Foreshew-Cain and CIO of the Great London Authority, David Munn, have stated how their particular organisations are using DevOps to great effect.

But while financial services organisations are often linked with legacy systems and older approaches to IT, Zonca doesn't believe that there is anything inherently different about financial services organisations that prevents them from adopting a DevOps approach, or that suggests they'll have a harder time doing it.

Zonca said that financial institutions may have to take into account legislation or other frameworks that companies in other industries don't need to consider, but that aside, any challenges will be similar to those facing companies in healthcare, retail or biotech.

"I don't see that differentiating too much until the market matures more, and until then [DevOps] practices will largely be the same," he said.

"We found that people who practised DevOps tend to be able to move faster, deliver better software to users and do it more securely, and all of that translates to better quality apps in the hands of users to impact the business," he added.

Interested in DevOps in the financial services sector? Come along to the IT Leaders Forum tomorrow at Andaz London Liverpool Street EC2M 7QN. For the full agenda and details click here.