A development team had a problem. They were in need of a manageable production environment. "I know," the Chief Developer said, "We'll use Chef!". Now they had two problems.
However, I agree with the basic contention - that the role of a pure, old-school, risk-averse sysadmin is obsolete. In a world of Agile developers practising continuous delivery (or hoping to), the system engineer is now another cog in the development machine; not part of a separate machine.
The resulting closeness does wonders for understanding and quality of the result. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, system engineers who speak Developer are relatively few & far between.
However, I agree with the basic contention - that the role of a pure, old-school, risk-averse sysadmin is obsolete. In a world of Agile developers practising continuous delivery (or hoping to), the system engineer is now another cog in the development machine; not part of a separate machine.
The resulting closeness does wonders for understanding and quality of the result. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, system engineers who speak Developer are relatively few & far between.