Podcasts are popular ways for DevOps Leaders and Practitioners to keep current. This award recognizes the most educational, informative and inspirational DevOps video or audio podcast series – those with the most engaging and highest-quality content that keeps listeners coming back for more.

“BMC’s mainframe podcast, The Modern Mainframe is one of the leading podcasts helping to keep the mainframe relevant. With news and analysis of DevOps topics across the mainframe it has something for everyone. Keep it up!”
Alan Shimel, Techstrong Group Founder & CEO

The Modern Mainframe – The Modern Mainframe shares the perspectives of executives, practitioners, DevOps evangelists, and industry analysts, covering current practices and future trends affecting mainframe tools, processes, and strategies. From AI-powered innovations to regulatory compliance, The Modern Mainframe offers fresh insights on DevOps topics across the mainframe, including application development, operations, database DevOps, and more.

DevOps.com publishes multiple new articles every day. This award recognizes the best article from this year. Let us know so we can recognize the author.

“Dinesh Chacko’s DevOps.com article, Five Powerful Ways AI Is Transforming the DevOps Playbooks shows readers why AI should be adopted in DevOps, and the benefits that could be realized. A critical read in this day and age!”
Alan Shimel, Techstrong Group Founder & CEO

Five Powerful Ways AI Is Transforming the DevOps Playbook by Dinesh Chacko – I am nominating Dinesh’s article, “Five Powerful Ways AI Is Transforming the DevOps Playbook”, for Best DevOps.com Article of the Year. Unlike many articles about AI, Dinesh’s article is easy-to-read and provides actionable steps a manager can take to integrate the use of AI in DevOps processes. It makes valid points as to why AI should be adopted in DevOps, and the benefits that could be realized. It also provides guidance as to how to overcome challenges to AI adoption. Very practical!

Each year sees a number of well-crafted DevOps-related books. This category recognizes the most popular and best read of the year.

“This book by an all-star cast of authors offers technology leaders a fresh perspective on the question of, bridging the gap between software delivery and business value by examining if they are delivering the right thing to the right person at the right time.”
Alan Shimel, Techstrong Group Founder & CEO

Progressive Delivery: Build the Right Thing for the Right People at the Right Time by James Governor, Kim Harrison, Heidi Waterhouse, Adam Zimman – Progressive Delivery takes the benefits of DevOps, and includes the user experience. How to not only deliver and maintain features, but make sure you’re delivering the right thing, at the right time, to the right person.

Every community has those who standout as leaders in their field who spread the DevOps gospel everyday. This award recognizes the individual whose peers in the DevOps community recognize for outstanding leadership, knowledge and communication.

“For over a decade Nathen has embodied the spirit of a true community evangelist. His active participation has fostered a culture of continuous improvement and knowledge sharing. His dedication to advancing the state of the art in DevOps makes him truly deserving of this award.”
Alan Shimel, Techstrong Group Founder & CEO

Nathen Harvey, Developer Relations Engineer, DORA Lead at Google Cloud – A cornerstone of the DevOps community, Nathen Harvey leads the DORA research program and Community. In 2025, he continues to guide the industry with work like the “State of AI-Assisted Software Development” report. His approachable, insightful style makes complex topics accessible, fostering a vibrant space for practitioners to learn and grow. He is a dedicated evangelist committed to uplifting the entire DevOps ecosystem.

An organization’s leadership plays a critical role in shepherding its team through innovation and change.This award recognizes a strong DevOps leader who guides their team through the challenges of developing and implementing DevOps strategies, policies, culture and practices to improve software development and delivery.

“As Director of DevOps Engineering at Toyota his leadership and DevOps vision drove enterprise-wide transformation through automation, reliability, and innovation. His unwavering commitment to operational excellence, his success in leading global teams, and his recognized thought leadership make him a truly deserving recipient of the DevOps Enterprise Leader of the Year award.”
Alan Shimel, Techstrong Group Founder & CEO

Kumar Singirikonda, Director of DevOps Engineering, Toyota – Ekambar Kumar Singirikonda is a visionary DevOps leader driving enterprise-wide transformation through automation, reliability, and innovation. As Director of DevOps Engineering at Toyota, he leads 150+ global engineers, achieving 60% faster provisioning, 90% MTTR reduction, and $1.2M annual savings. His leadership in building resilient, AI-driven DevOps platforms defines him as a true Enterprise DevOps Leader of the Year.

Ongoing research in the application of DevOps tracks trends and provides standards that organizations can use to measure themselves. This award recognizes industry research, reporting and analysis that has significantly and positively impacted the DevOps community.

” The 2025 DORA report is more than just a survey; it is a critical piece of research that provides the standards, trends, and actionable guidance the DevOps community needs to navigate the complexities of today’s software development challenges.Leaders and practitioners alike can benefit by making data-informed decisions.”
Alan Shimel, Techstrong Group Founder & CEO

2025 DORA report: State of AI-assisted Software Development by Google Cloud – Building on its legacy as the gold standard for DevOps research, the 2025 DORA report tackles AI’s impact on software development. Based on nearly 5,000 responses, it provides the critical insight that “AI is an amplifier.” The report introduces the DORA AI Capabilities Model a new standard identifying 7 practices that unlock AI’s potential. This framework allows organizations to track trends and measure themselves, providing data-driven guidance to navigate the industry’s biggest shift.

Events and conferences are an important part of IT life. This category includes both in-person and virtual events. Which DevOps event stands out from the others and delivers the best content, speakers and attendee experience?

“With its blend of great content, strong community spirit, and reach across Europe, DevOpsDays Zurich has proven to be a cornerstone of the DevOps movement. More than a conference; it has proven to be a catalyst for change and a hub for innovation across the DevOps community there.”
Alan Shimel, Techstrong Group Founder & CEO

DevOpsDays Zurich 2025 – DevOpsDays Zurich is one of Europe’s most impactful DevOps community events. Entirely volunteer-driven, it blends high-quality talks, open spaces, and vibrant community engagement in an inclusive atmosphere. Featuring practitioners, thought leaders, and enterprises, it shares cutting-edge knowledge on DevOps, Platform Engineering, and AI practices while fostering lasting connections across the Swiss and international tech community.

Open source software is an important part of every organization’s set of development assets promoting innovation, velocity, quality and efficiency. This award recognizes the open source project that delivers the greatest value through a community of people who work on and with the open source technology and support each other.

“With the goal of a unified AI operations platform, the Canada DevOps Community of Practice launched this project with a hackathon to deliver a single of glass view into AI operations, offering unified monitoring, alerting, and accessibility management for all GenAI assets. We look forward to great things from this community.”
Alan Shimel, Techstrong Group Founder & CEO

DevOps for GenAI Hackathon – Winning projects – Their project featured real-time dashboards, intelligent alerting, and open-source contributions. Curious to know what we did together: DevOps for Gen AI Hackathon Ottawa.

Leading enterprises are integrating the use of AI within their DevOps practices at an incredible pace. This award recognizes the organization that has applied AI in the most interesting and productive way to accelerate and improve various aspects of software delivery, leading to increased efficiency, higher quality, and faster time-to-market.

“LPL Financial is certainly leading the charge in evolving CI-CD pipelines into an intelligent AI-powered delivery engine. With a multi-agent architecture, AI agents collaborate to enhance every phase of software development and its delivery pipeline. Well done!”
Alan Shimel, Techstrong Group Founder & CEO

AI Agents in DevOps by LPL Financial – The Rise of an AI Workforce in CI/CD Pipelines.