If you can’t ‘shift-left’ any further, try ‘shift-right’ software deployment practices

Shift-Right SiliconANGLE JE Intellyx storyJason English Article for SiliconANGLE

Why are “shift-right” practices of monitoring, testing and remediation of software and system issues starting to appear? Because they’re the next stage in the ongoing quest to improve software — not just before deployment but after it’s in production.

Shift-right is a byproduct of the DevOps movement, in which software developers and information technology staff collaborate closely to produce better code faster, and the rapid delivery of software into elastic cloud structures. Shift-right is a newer set of practices for observing and testing the behavior and performance of systems already delivered in production, in order to improve the customer experience of the applications they support.

That’s in contrast to shift-left, an approach in which software and system testing are done earlier in the development lifecycle. The shift-left mantra is almost sacrosanct for agile dev shops and collaborative information technology organizations espousing the modern DevOps movement, and with good reason: It reliably returns value and speeds successful feature delivery.

If you want to deliver software faster, with better quality, then automate and shift-left as much of the configuration, build, testing and security screening as you can. Getting it all done as close to requirements — and as early as possible in the software delivery lifecycle — makes issues quicker to find and easier to fix, well before they appear in front of customers.

Shift-left just makes sense — yet an increasing number of enterprises and vendors are taking heretical steps toward shift-right. Should shift-left move over for shift-right now?

Has shift-left become passé?

Since I first editorialized about the shift-right versus shift-left testing divide, I’ve taken in quite a lot of feedback (and some criticism) from experts with a stake in the broader argument about these approaches for software delivery and operation.

Read the whole story in SiliconANGLE here: https://siliconangle.com/2021/04/16/cant-shift-left-try-shift-right-software-deployment-practices/

 

Jason English is principal analyst and chief marketing officer at Intellyx LLC, an analyst firm that advises enterprises on their digital transformation initiatives, and publishes the weekly Cortex and BrainCandy newsletters. He wrote this article for SiliconANGLE. (* Disclosure: New Relic is an Intellyx customer, Gremlin and Kobiton are former Intellyx customers and the author advises Speedscale. No other parties mentioned in this story are Intellyx customers.) Image: Sayam GearspecErik F. Brandsborg/Flickr

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Principal Analyst & CMO, Intellyx. Twitter: @bluefug