Welcome to the jOOQ Tuesdays series. In this series, we’ll publish an article on the third Tuesday every other month where we interview someone we find exciting in our industry from a jOOQ perspective. This includes people who work with SQL, Java, Open Source, and a variety of other related topics.
We have the pleasure of talking to Axel Fontaine in this fourth edition who will be telling us about the exciting times that are ahead as our industry is maturing.
Hi Axel – Citing your website: From “Software is what I do” to “Architecting for Continuous Delivery & Zero Downtime”. Where did your personal passion for devops come from?
Over the last 18 years in our industry I have seen a lot of projects for numerous clients in many different sectors. And it always struck me. The intersection between development and operations was almost invariably the place where the largest efficiency gains could be realized. Over time this then became the place where I naturally started to focus my attention, initially for consultancy and training, and then later also for public speaking and the product business.
Very interesting! I suspect that the Flyway download rates also confirm the increasing need for devops tooling, right?
I am glad you mentioned it. Yes, Flyway download numbers have been going through the roof. In March we had one download every 42 seconds and we are well on track to break the 1 million mark in 2015! This picture actually tells us a number of things. First of all it confirms that the need for database migrations is a very widespread itch and that Flyway’s no-nonsense pragmatic and lightweight approach to scratch it resonates with the industry. The other thing this tells us, is that our industry as a whole is maturing and continuous delivery and deployment in particular is becoming more mainstream. This increased pace of delivery comes with a pressing need for a higher level of automation. And modern lightweight tools like Flyway are a great fit for this.
Now, you are converting that passion into a product called Boxfuse. Can you tell us a little more about it?
I have always been a strong believer in lightweight and open solutions that are a pleasure to use and minimize lock-in. When it comes to deploying an application to the cloud, so far you had to choose one or the other. You could either have something that is a joy to use (PaaS), but leaving you stuck in a walled garden. Or you could have something open (IaaS) that unfortunately leaves you with a lot of operational concerns to deal with. Boxfuse aims for a fresh new middle ground: the convenience of PaaS with the freedom of IaaS. To achieve that Boxfuse does away with a bunch of cargo cult. No more general purpose operation system, no more traditional provisioning. Instead Boxfuse analyses your application and in just a few seconds, fuses it into a tiny bootable image that is about 1% percent of the size of a regular system. Boxfuse then offers you a sophisticated blue/green deployment process for zero downtime updates. All of this, out of the box and with a single command.
We’re entrepreneurs ourselves. Marketing a product is a long road. What are your own key takeaways from your experience as both a consultant and entrepreneur?
I couldn’t agree more. What marketing really is is competing for attention, and turning that attention into mind share through a series of arguments, both technical and emotional. It is an exercise that is often overlooked in our technical circles, where the code is front and center. But the best technology in the world isn’t worth a dime if you can’t convince someone else to use it. And that takes perseverance, drive, and dedication. What seems easy on the outside of often the fruit of lots of hard labor behind the scenes. Eventually you will succeed, but give it a little time. Overnight success takes years.
Where do you see the future of our industry, from your perspective?
Believe me when I say these are exciting times. While it still feels like a big adventure with great new frontiers to explore, our industry is maturing rapidly. Overly complex tools are going the way of the dodo. User expectations are rising fast. And the only way to meet them is through modern lightweight tools and services that integrate seamlessly with our workflow and perform the undifferentiated heavy lifting for us. We need to eliminate all unnecessary complexity and so we can focus on what matters most: delighting our customers.