Your data is your dogfood: DevOps in the astronomical observatory
This work addresses operational efficiency for astronomical observatories, but it is incremental as it adapts existing DevOps methods to a new domain.
The paper applies DevOps software engineering practices to astronomical observatories, aiming to improve IT operations by treating infrastructure as code and using internal tools.
DevOps is the contemporary term for a software development culture that purposefully blurs distinction between software development and IT operations by treating "infrastructure as code." DevOps teams typically implement practices summarised by the colloquial directive to "eat your own dogfood;" meaning that software tools developed by a team should be used internally rather thrown over the fence to operations or users. We present a brief overview of how DevOps techniques bring proven software engineering practices to IT operations. We then discuss the application of these practices to astronomical observatories.