Shift-left involves moving tasks, particularly testing, to earlier stages in the development pipeline instead of leaving them for the end. Traditionally, late-stage testing has proven problematic, as time and resource constraints often lead to skipping comprehensive tests or overlooking edge cases. Even when issues are identified late, they become costly to fix, as the implementation is already complete and has passed through most of the pipeline.
To address these challenges, the shift-left approach emphasizes testing earlier and more frequently. This allows teams to catch and resolve issues while they are still easy and inexpensive to fix. However, the implications of shift-left extend far beyond early testing. Let’s explore these broader impacts.
Making People Owners
Shifting tasks to the left fosters greater ownership. Testing requires a deep understanding of the systems being tested, as developers cannot effectively test what they do not comprehend or lack access to. This necessitates that developers gain a solid understanding and hands-on knowledge of the systems they work with.
This shift brings significant changes, particularly for databases. Developers must understand how databases function and how to optimize their performance. By developing this expertise, developers can take full ownership of databases and manage them comprehensively, from design to maintenance.
To support this, developers need tools that enable them to work with databases independently. These tools should provide visibility into the database state, deliver meaningful metrics, and offer insights into database internals. They must also integrate seamlessly with the developer's ecosystem, including CI/CD pipelines, IDEs, and other development tools. Developers need resources that allow them to build and maintain databases just as they do with applications.
Reducing Communication
Shifting tasks to the left reduces the need for excessive communication. Developers must take full ownership of their databases, managing every aspect, including performance tuning and schema optimization, from initial deployment to final maintenance.
To achieve this, developers must work efficiently, and excessive communication often hampers efficiency. Tasks like opening tickets, sharing logs, seeking assistance, explaining issues, or attending meetings consume valuable time and slow progress. The solution is to minimize communication overhead by bringing teams closer together and, ideally, merging responsibilities to eliminate these inefficiencies—a principle central to the rise of DevOps culture over the past decade.
Developers need tools and processes that provide comprehensive visibility into database performance. This includes access to metrics, logs, performance indicators, historical data, and configurations. These tools must be developer-friendly, seamlessly integrate into their workflows, and support independent operations within their teams.
Allowing People to Self-Serve Their Issues
Finally, shift-left necessitates self-service capabilities. Developers cannot rely on other teams for input or manual responses; everything must be automated and directly accessible to them. Automated solutions and self-service platforms are essential to empower developers to resolve issues and progress independently, without waiting for external intervention.
This shift is critical for the entire industry. Manual processes—such as registration forms, onboarding spreadsheets, or other forms requiring human processing—must be replaced with automation. By automating these workflows, developers can independently configure and optimize their databases, increasing development velocity and reducing mean time to recovery (MTTR).
Summary
To stay ahead in the DevOps movement, embracing an extreme shift-left approach is essential. Empower your developers to take full ownership of their databases, resolve issues independently through self-service, and collaborate within their teams to minimize communication overhead. Equip them with tools that seamlessly integrate into their environments, including IDEs and CI/CD pipelines. This represents a significant cultural transformation for developers, database management, and your entire organization. Metis is here to help you lead this change.
