DevOps at large: Modernizing apps and infrastructure in the federal government

The DevOps movement has changed the way that businesses handle the development, deployment, and operations of their systems. Like so many other advances in technology, however, this evolution is coming to government last. Aidan Feldman discusses the challenges of introducing modern processes and infrastructure at the federal level and looks at specific ways that 18F is tackling this problem.

Launching a web application in the federal government is a uniquely arduous process that involves most if not all of the following obstacles: a lack of in-house technical expertise; expensive contractors of varying quality; an extensive, inflexible waterfall of requirements; thousands of pages of compliance documents; rigid infrastructure agreements; and a culture of risk aversion. With these barriers, it’s no wonder that government software is notoriously unpleasant to build and use. 18F is a digital services agency in and for the federal government, working to improve experiences for citizens and make the government function more efficiently. Building applications in an agile fashion, constantly iterating on our software based on user research, means we need a deployment environment to match. DevOps culture is about reducing friction and overhead. While we normally think about this as a bridge between the developer and operations teams, the government has additional layers of bureaucracy and regulation that need to be considered. Aidan Feldman discusses 18F’s various efforts to improve infrastructure options across the federal government and explains how they lead to a more transparent, more effective, more efficient government for all of us. Key questions include: