According to the Atlassian DevOps Trends Survey 2020, almost all interviewed respondents say DevOps has had a significant impact on their organization, from influencing careers to ensuring faster and better deliverables. Adopting the DevOps practice is essential, but determining when a team or organization should leverage and implement it is equally important.
The image illustrates a summary of the positive impacts of DevOps
As an informed player in the IT industry, we are currently using DevOps to improve our team’s interaction and assure successful software project delivery. In this guide, our experts will provide insights into the true meaning of DevOps, how teams can manage it, when and why you might need it, and some challenges to be aware of ahead of time.
What is DevOps?
According to Amazon, it is a combination of practice and tools…’ for Microsoft, it is ‘a culture….’ Ernest Mueller from the agile admin calls it a ‘practice…’ whatever you choose to call it along these lines, you are right.
According to James Turnbull, VP of Engineering at Sotheby, DevOps is a new way of thinking about cooperation and coordination between the people who made the software and those who run it.
We define DevOps as a culture, a working practice or tool that integrates the formerly distinctive units of development, operations, and Quality Assurance into one collaborative force working simultaneously and interdependently to enhance productivity and optimize the value chain of software development.
The main goal of DevOps is to remove organizational bottlenecks that impede workflow and bridge independent structures, promoting bureaucracy rather than efficiency in the software development process. In simple terms, DevOps saves time and ensures quality output in the software development cycle. Turnbull asserts that DevOps is about ‘avoiding an epic failure and working smarter.’
Who manages the DevOp Process?
Tech enthusiast and writer Ember Deboer assert that DevOps is not a person or a team. Rightly so, DevOp is intentionally adopted and practiced by imbibing its principles in an organization’s workflow. Management would have to restructure different process units to reflect Continuous Integration, continuous testing, continuous monitoring, Continuous Delivery, and deployment.
However, it is important to have a DevOp engineer, consultant, or personnel supervise the entire process and check the theDevop boxes to ensure a smooth transition. Also, every member of the organization or project, from development engineers to Quality analysts and testers, would have to be trained on how to adopt DevOps practices while working to eliminate tackiness and ensure frictionless collaboration amongst the disparate units.
A DevOp expert ensures that all stakeholders, from leadership to operations, share the same value and common goal while exercising their individual expertise interdependently.
When do Businesses need DevOps?
While some industry experts like Fin Goulding have argued that every business should implement DevOps, others have suggested that DevOps may not be necessary for all cadres or types of businesses. Industry expert Andy Cureton aired this view in a report when he pointed out that DevOps doesn’t apply to businesses that are simply users of I.T. services designed and supplied by others.
To refute Cureton’s position, it is widely accepted that DevOps generally enhance efficiency and breeds innovation; hence, the general benefits of adopting a DevOps culture transcend the field of software development and I.T. Every organization needs efficiency and innovation to thrive and compete.
Admittedly though, the popular view is that tech-inclined or I.T.-focused businesses – particularly those in the software and web development niche should strongly consider adopting DevOps culture and implementing the same within their work system.
Why do Businesses need DevOps?
According to a report on Statista, a survey revealed that just about nine percent of tech experts admitted not to have adopted DevOps. This indicates that DevOps is widely being embraced and implemented by developers around the globe. If it weren’t beneficial, there wouldn’t be this massive adoption.
The image illustrates the adoption of DevOps among software engineers globally in 2017 and 2018.
Other reports have also highlighted the benefits of DevOps. For instance, the Atlassian DevOps trends survey of 2020 has indicated that 99 percent of respondents who have implemented DevOps admitted that it positively influences their organization.
Another study, the popular State of DevOps reports, has revealed that the best implementers of DevOps deploy codes faster, encounter much fewer problems, and address challenges more swiftly than their non-adopting counterparts.
Here are other benefits of DevOps you should know and why your business needs this.
Software development cycles become shorter
The integration of agility is one of the most significant benefits of DevOps adoption for the organization. As software development cycles are shorter, the capacity to implement modifications and execute credible feedback is improved.
Also, speed to market is a high priority while building a software product; this is to sustain relevance and prevent being outrun by competitors. A more swift development cycle means expediting the product’s deployment, correcting errors and bugs more quickly.
Improved collaboration and communication among teams
DevOps adoption leads to the dismantling of the conventional bottlenecks between development and operations teams, improving team interaction.
DevOps enables technical and business teams to collaborate more seamlessly, leading to shorter feedback mechanisms and increasing company growth. The development activities operate in close synchronization with the business goals.
Continuous deployments and releases
The actual delivery of software is much accelerated when using DevOps’ continuous integration and continuous delivery approach. The development process consists of faster development time, resulting in speedier production. Improved efficiency is also achieved by synchronizing manufacturing cycles with other technical and non-technical systems.
Another significant benefit of DevOps usage is the embedding of automation into the development process. Automation enables faster development and increases the system’s effectiveness, allowing for more inventive techniques.
Timely fault detection
The all-inclusive DevOps model enables team members to share their knowledge. The code is continuously monitored and tested, which helps to optimize quality and reliability. Teams are given the freedom to exchange their thoughts and observation with one another, allowing for early detection and resolution of errors.
Breeding innovation and increasing productivity
DevOps culture reduces the individual workload of team members, ensuring that they are less stressed and more focused on important issues. Further, it enables teams to stimulate innovation, resulting in a more satisfied and productive workforce.
User satisfaction is ensured
Every user hopes for a satisfactory and bug-free experience when using the software. DevOps makes this possible by reducing errors and ensuring that client needs and feedback are quickly addressed and implemented.
Implementing DevOps
The widespread usage of DevOps by most enterprises worldwide demonstrates its viability as a significant enabler for attaining scale. As already noted, DevOps principles enable a business to develop faster and more dependable software by fostering a culture of cooperation and collaboration across all areas. Implementing DevOps would normally require a cultural, structural, and also technical change within the work environment.
In summary, team members must be trained on collaborative execution, structural barriers and divisions should be removed, and the right tools that promote DevOps practices should be acquired.
At this point, you may be considering adopting DevOps; here are important tips that would help you transition seamlessly.
Identify your DevOps needs and objectives
The first step in creating your DevOps blueprint is to determine your DevOps goals and needs. Although there are some general goals, it is essential to determine the DevOps goals and objectives relevant to the current product and project. This aids in the formation of a broad consensus within the DevOps team.
Establish a working strategy
At this stage, you have to establish a working strategy that is based on the core principles of DevOps but tailored to fit the uniqueness and characteristics of your organization. You should use best practices to establish an effective DevOps approach to promote cross-functional collaboration and enable new software development and testing methods.
Your strategy should include the following practices
- Continuous Integration: Continuous Integration is a software development strategy that encourages programmers to integrate their code into a centralized software database. This ensures that you do not lose time and the development process can be ongoing. In the end, the entire bits are combined for the desired output.
- Consistent Deliveries: This is another DevOps strategy whereby automation is utilized to test and prepare each code check-in for release. As a result, deployment is expedited, and any delays are eliminated.
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is another DevOps technique that combines all infrastructure components into a single code base rather than maintaining them separately. It makes things a lot easier and more efficient.
Remove organizational barriers and unnecessary differentiating structures
DevOps is a practice that synchronizes the development, operations, and other distinct units; hence it necessitates the dismantling of delineating structures and strict independence among teams.
Removing differentiating structural barriers enhances communication within teams, which aids in better decision-making, and increased productivity.
Employ Automation
Automation allows for accelerated execution throughout the formation process, allowing for the optimization of DevOps practices. Automation can be deployed in Code development, usability and penetration testing, network testing, among others.
Develop an efficient monitoring and feedback mechanism
Continuous monitoring is required to determine if the program or application is working as expected in an unchanging environment. The Operations team is responsible for ensuring that the applications are working at their best. They might collaborate with the development group to include monitoring and analytics tools in the applications they’re working on.
Challenges of Implementing DevOps
Despite the fact that businesses face numerous bottlenecks, implementing DevOps is the most difficult.
Atlassian’s survey reveals some of the most significant challenges in DevOps practice.
In fact, industry expert and Worldwide Lead for DevOps adoption IBM Peter Eeles has admitted that many teams find it quite confusing and challenging to transition from the conventional working system to DevOps, especially for inexperienced teams. He went further to mention some of the recurring problems and challenges faced by teams. Here are a few.
- Environment conditioning optimizing the work environment to meet DevOps standards
- Lack of DevOps metrics or standards
- No clearly spelled out DevOps strategy
- Difficulty in integrating tools to optimize DevOp practice
- Lack of required skill set
- No standard repository
- Resistance to change among team members
- Sustained reliance on an older working structure
- Wrong choice of tools
Example of DevOps
As already asserted, DevOps is not a technology or some form of programming or scripting language. It is a way of working reciprocally to achieve the common goal of fast deployment and client satisfaction. An example of DevOp is continuous development; in fact, continuous development represents the core of DevOps.
Continuous development is an expression of the other DevOp processes illustrating that every aspect of a software development cycle has to be continuous and complementing one another, rather than having one unit wait for the other to round off before executing their tasks.
Under continuous development, we have
- Continuous testing
- Continuous integration
- Continuous monitoring
- Continuous deployment
- Continuous delivery
- Continuous feedback
Conclusion
Undoubtedly, adopting a DevOp practice is highly beneficial; however, it is important first to discover its need and learn how to implement its principles. This guide has revealed all the important points you will need to know about implementing DevOps.
