The DevOps Assessment
Pipelines, platform and cloud spend, reviewed with the people who run them
The DevOps assessment is where every ITECS DevOps engagement starts. It covers your pipelines, platform, infrastructure code, cloud spend, on-call, release practice and AI features, and ends in a written plan that sets the order of work. Nothing is built until you approve it.
- Starts with
- A call that sets the scope and the price before any work starts
- Covers
- Pipelines, platform, infrastructure code, cloud spend, on-call, release practice and AI features
- Ends with
- A written plan that sets the order of work
- Next
- Build work or managed DevOps, scoped and quoted after the assessment
Scope
What the assessment covers
ITECS reads each area from the systems themselves and from the engineers who work in them.
- Pipelines
- How code reaches production, who approves it, and how it rolls back.
- Platform
- The Kubernetes clusters or cloud services underneath, and how far behind their upgrades are.
- Infrastructure code
- What is defined in code, what was built by hand, and where staging has drifted from production.
- Cloud spend
- What each service costs to run, and which costs nobody owns.
- On-call
- Which alerts page someone at night, and which ones get ignored.
- Release practice
- How often you release, and which steps still wait on one person.
- AI features
- How prompt and model changes are tested before they reach production.
Process
How the assessment runs
Kickoff call
You and ITECS list the pipelines, environments, clusters and cloud accounts in scope, and who takes part.
Access and review
ITECS reviews your repositories, pipelines, cloud accounts and monitoring with the people who run them, through the access your team grants.
Findings review
Your engineers see the findings before the plan is written, and correct anything ITECS read wrong.
Plan delivery
You receive the written plan: what to fix first, what to leave alone, what each change costs to run, and who owns it. A quote for the first piece of work comes with it.
Participants
Who should be in the room
ITECS needs time with each of these people and access to the systems they own.
- The engineering lead
- The CTO, VP of Engineering or head of platform who owns the outcome and approves the plan.
- The engineers on call
- They know which alerts are noise, which deploy steps are manual, and where the workarounds live.
- The owner of the cloud bill
- Finance or IT, so spend can be tied to the services that generate it.
- Security or compliance
- Any audit or approval step that gates a release belongs in the plan.
What happens next
After the plan
You choose who carries out each piece of the plan.
Build work
ITECS quotes each piece from the plan you approve, starting with the first.
See how an engagement runsManaged DevOps
ITECS runs the pipelines and platforms after the build, on a retainer scoped from the plan.
How managed DevOps is pricedYour own team
Your engineers can carry out any piece themselves, with the order and the reasons written down.
FAQ
DevOps assessment FAQ
What is a DevOps assessment?
A DevOps assessment reviews how your software is built, tested, released and run, and ends with a written plan. ITECS covers pipelines, platform, infrastructure code, cloud spend, on-call, release practice and AI features, with the engineers who run them.
What does the DevOps assessment cost?
ITECS sets the scope and the price of the assessment with you on the first call, before any work starts. The price follows the size of what is in scope: how many pipelines, environments, clusters and cloud accounts ITECS reviews. Build work and managed DevOps are quoted separately, from the plan you approve.
What do we get at the end?
A written plan that sets the order of work: what to fix first, what to leave alone, what each change costs to run, and who owns it. A quote for the first piece of work comes with it.
Do we have to hire ITECS to carry out the plan?
No. Your team can carry out any part of the plan itself. If ITECS builds or runs a part of it, that work is quoted from the plan you approve.
What access does ITECS need?
Access to your repositories, CI system, cloud accounts and monitoring, at the level your team grants. Nothing in your systems changes during the assessment.
Which tools and clouds do you work with?
The assessment starts from the tools you already run, such as GitHub Actions or Azure DevOps, on AWS, Azure or your own hardware. It recommends a new tool only where the plan calls for one.
Do you assess teams outside Dallas?
Yes. ITECS is based in Dallas and works with software teams across the United States. Calls run over video, and the review uses the access your team grants.
Start with the first call
Tell us what you ship, where it runs and what keeps breaking. ITECS replies by email to book the call that sets the scope and the price.