Why Working with Developer is Hard as a DevOps Engineer
Recently, I found myself in a familiar DevOps scenario: working with a client and their developer to troubleshoot a production issue. The frontend was displaying inconsistent results in production, while staging worked perfectly.
Logs across the application, database, and web server showed no errors, pointing toward a configuration inconsistency between environments.
After investigating, I found that CSS was conditionally loading only for stage and dev — meaning it wasn’t loading properly in production. This was likely the root cause (opening the door to potential further issues). However, instead of applying a quick configuration fix, the developer insisted on reproducing the issue — a time-consuming task that added cost and slowed down resolution due to the random and unpredictable nature of the problem.
When dealing with random issues, environment consistency checks and fast configuration fixes are often the best path forward. We could easily remove the staging configuration to reproduce the issue later, prioritizing stability in production by adding the necessary prod variable now.
Explaining this to the developer proved challenging.
Key Insights:
1. Time & Cost Efficiency: Reproducing intricate issues consumes valuable resources. Swift, proactive configuration adjustments can prevent further disruptions and reduce troubleshooting costs.
2. Environment Consistency: Ensuring that staging closely mirrors production is crucial. Discrepancies between the two environments often point to configuration misalignments.
3. Prioritizing Stability: In critical environments, immediate fixes that mitigate risks should take precedence. Testing reproductions can be safely conducted in the staging environment.
4. Being a DevOps engineer involves striking a balance between speed, cost-effectiveness, and stability, especially when production stability is on the line.
𝙃𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙛𝙖𝙘𝙚𝙙 𝙨𝙞𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙖𝙧 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙨 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙙𝙞𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙢𝙨 𝙤𝙣 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙙𝙪𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙞𝙨𝙨𝙪𝙚𝙨? 𝙄’𝙙 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪’𝙫𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙚𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚!
