The Incredible True Story of How DevOps Got Its Name

The term "DevOps" emerged from a series of events and discussions that began with system administrator Patrick Debois's frustration over developer and system admin conflicts during a 2007 data center migration for the Belgium government. At the 2008 Agile Conference in Toronto, Debois and software developer Andrew Shafer initiated a conversation that led to the formation of the Agile Systems Administration Group after Shafer's session on "Agile Infrastructure" was sparsely attended. Inspired by a talk by John Allspaw and Paul Hammond at the 2009 O’Reilly Velocity conference, Debois organized the first DevOpsDays in Belgium in October 2009, coining the term "DevOps" as a shorthand for development and operations collaboration. Although there is still some debate over the spelling, the term has widely been adopted, signifying a movement that continues to evolve and adapt. Patrick Debois is now a senior consultant in Belgium, while Andrew Shafer describes himself as a "Human Swiss Army Knife" seeking engaging challenges.