---
title: The Convergence of DevOps
description: "John Willis's history of how DevOps came together: Agile Infrastructure, Velocity, and Lean Startup as the three threads that converged."
doc_version: "1.0"
last_updated: 2012-03-30
slug: convergence-of-devops-itrevolution
outlet: IT Revolution
author: John Willis
date: 2012-03-30
url: https://itrevolution.com/articles/the-convergence-of-devops/
type: Article
excerpt: "John Willis's history of how DevOps came together: Agile Infrastructure, Velocity, and Lean Startup as the three threads that converged."
tags:
  - DevOps
  - DevOps History
  - John Willis
  - Velocity Conference
  - DevOps Days
  - Operations
---

John traces three threads that ran in parallel in the late 2000s and converged into the DevOps movement: Agile Infrastructure, Velocity, and Lean Startup. Patrick Debois, Andrew Clay Shafer, and the agile system administration community on one strand. The Velocity Conference at O'Reilly on another. Eric Ries and the Lean Startup community on a third.

The Velocity strand at O'Reilly grew out of a 2007 Radar post I wrote applying the technical-debt frame to operations and a Tim O'Reilly follow-up titled "Operations: The New Secret Sauce." DevOps Days Mountain View 2010, organized by Patrick Debois, John Willis, Andrew Clay Shafer, and Damon Edwards, was the first US DevOps Days. I was honored to be there.

## Further Reading

- [Operations Is a Competitive Advantage](/mentions/operations-competitive-advantage-oreilly-radar/) — The 2007 O'Reilly Radar post in the Velocity thread
- [The Art of Web Operations](/mentions/velocity-art-of-web-operations-oreilly-radar/) — Jesse Robbins and John Allspaw at Velocity 2009
- [GameDay: Creating Resiliency Through Destruction](/mentions/gameday-creating-resiliency-through-destruction-usenix/) — USENIX LISA'11
- [5 Pivotal Documents in the Evolution of the DevOps Movement](/mentions/five-pivotal-documents-devops-movement-devopsangle/) — DevOpsANGLE's analysis

## Also Mentioned

- John Willis (person)
- John Allspaw (person)
- Patrick Debois (person)
- Tim O'Reilly (person)
- Damon Edwards (person)
- [IT Revolution](https://itrevolution.com/) (company)

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