[darkarmani]

I will admit that I have a fuzzy understanding as well. My take on it is a holistic view and integration between development and operations instead of formal or informal walls between the two.

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devops

In small companies it usually always exists by accident. I think the "hype" is more around large companies that have huge barriers and sometimes friction between development and IT or sustaining Operations.