It may be summer, but nothing is hotter than the DevOps market right now.

For more than a decade, enterprise companies and the vendors that service their IT needs having been touting the DevOps mantra as the definitive way to increase agility, shorten development cycle time, increase quality and automate processes, all while mapping to business objectives.  Is the market all the way there yet?  No.  But given the recent round of investments from VC and PE firms, those in the know are betting big that the promise of DevOps is soon to come to fruition.

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“Software is everywhere, making every business a software business whether they realize it or not. This new business reality is what is driving the DevOps market. Software development teams are implementing DevOps practices to deliver software faster, with quality and confidence,” Andre Pino, CMO at CloudBees, told us.  The company – a PAN client for more than 5 years – just announced a new round of funding to the tune of $62M.  The company is now setting its sights on the annual DevOps World/JenkinsWorld conference in September, recognized as one of the industry’s premier gatherings for developers and architects.

Companies that are turning to DevOps to drive digital transformation initiatives are leveraging other technologies, as well. One is low code rapid app development platforms. OutSystems, the global leader in low code, recently raised $360 million in an investment round from KKR and Goldman Sachs. The company is now valued at well over $1B and plans to accelerate its business expansion and for R&D in new advancements in software automation.

“Our 2018 research makes it clear — IT departments are at a crisis point when it comes to digital transformation and application development,” explained Steve Rotter, OutSystems’ CMO. “The high failure rate of digital transformation projects, increasing project backlogs, and the scarcity of developer talent are critical concerns. The shift toward DevOps and low-code platforms are a direct result of these challenges.”

Another PAN client, NGINX, Inc. raised $43M in Series C funding led by Goldman Sachs just last week, citing 100 percent YoY growth for four years running. They are gearing up for their annual user conference as well. The NGINX Conf 2018 “The Journey to Microservices” is ideal for individual contributors, teams, and leaders of application development, operations, DevOps, and technical architecture.  It’s taking place in Atlanta this October.

The DevOps movement doesn’t stop at the financials.  Security appears to be generating the hottest buzz right now, with the rise of DevSecOps as a new topic of discussion among security vendors. Monitoring, analytics and visibility is becoming paramount in the next evolution of products to hit the market, and of course we can look for artificial intelligence and machine learning/deep learning as part of future products as well.

But the path to reaching DevOps nirvana doesn’t just stop with technology.  The culture shift may be the biggest obstacle, argues one notable industry pundit.

“DevOps success ultimately depends on much more than just having the right technology tools – this is only one side of the triangle,” said Ed Featherston, VP Principal Architect at Cloud Technology Partners. “Organizations must find a balance between the people, process and tech – and be warned, the cultural change that comes with this shift in mindset can often be the most difficult (and slow-moving) part. With this recent wave of DevOps funding we are seeing a growing sea of stakeholders recognize – and become champions for – the tech, which is ultimately the critical element needed for the promise of DevOps to come to fruition.” By the way, if you haven’t signed up for CTP’s Doppler, what are you waiting for?

Our team of DevOps domain experts is going to further explore these and other topics to help marketers on the vendor side get the information, ideas and strategies behind successful campaigns to technical audiences.  So, stay tuned and check back often. It’s a great time to be in the marketing mix of the DevOps movement.