DevOps - The Buzzword for 2020

If you ask 10 experts for the definition of DevOps, you may very well get 12!

As per Wikipedia: “DevOps is a software development method that stresses communication, collaboration and integration between software developers and information technology (IT) professionals.”

Well, the above is an assorted definition mostly understood by the professional.

So, What is DevOps?

It’s a new term that has emerged from a clash of two big trends: ‘Agile Ops/Infrastructure’, and a deep understanding of the value of increased collaboration between developers and operations staff.

To put it in simple terms, DevOps is the practice of operations and development professionals collaborating in the entire service lifecycle, or through all stages of the development lifecycle, right from design up to production support.

It is also characterized by the use of developers’ techniques by Ops staff for their systems tasks.

In-depth Understanding of DevOps

DevOps means different things to different people, and it covers a huge base. For example, DevOps is (according to various professionals) -

Developer and Operations collaboration
Treating code as infrastructure
Using automation
Implementing Kanban
Toolchain approach
A whole work culture

To understand DevOps properly, let’s look at ‘Agile’ development. As per its manifesto, there are certain levels of concern, and these can be related to DevOps too.

Understanding Agile

Agile Values

or the top-level philosophy, embodied in the manifesto; the core values of Agile

Agile Principles

is the strategic approach agreed upon that support the values

Agile Methods

are the specific process implementations of the principles; these could be Scrum, XP, or something you can develop yourself

Agile Practices

include specific strategic techniques that are used together with Agile implementations. Artifacts like standups, backlog, CI, etc. used by developers to do their jobs

Agile Tools

are responsible for the technical implementations of the practices teams will use to enable working as per the Agile principles: JIRA, planning poker, and so on

Ideally, the lower levels are informed by the higher levels; organizations that adopt methodologies without understanding the basics may not achieve optimal results.

Mapping DevOps to the Same Level As Agile

DevOps Values - The basic values in DevOps are almost the same as in the Agile Manifesto; probably the only difference is Agile talks about ‘working software’ but DevOps is concerned with the overall service or the software delivered in its entirety to the customer.
DevOps Principles - Though opinions differ regarding this, the most commonly stressed is ‘infrastructure as code. Ernest Mueller says that at the concepts level, DevOps is simply a broadening of Agile Principles, including systems and operations, rather than ending at code checking.
DevOps Methods - Again, it uses pretty much the same methods like Scrum, Kanban, only that there is more focus on integrating Ops and development, QA and product in the product teams. Then there are distinct methods like visible ops-style change control, and the use of Incident Command System for responding to incidents.
DevOps Practices - The techniques used by teams to implement the concepts and processes of DevOps: continuous integration, continuous deployment, configuration management, metrics, tracking methods, toolchain approach, virtualization, and so on.
DevOps Tools - Tools used to implement DevOps principle and processes. These include tools in a release like TeamCity, Jenkins; configuration management tools like Ansible, Puppet; orchestration tools like Apache Mesos, and Zookeeper; tools for virtualization, monitoring and containerization like OpenStack, vagrant, AWS, and so on. It is important to remember that a tool by itself will not help you create DevOps environment; a comprehensive understanding of DevOps is crucial, and the above-mentioned principles, values, and methods need to be implemented to achieve DevOps.

The Need for DevOps

As mentioned earlier, DevOps emerged as a method to resolve several issues developers and organizations faced, primarily where large distributed apps where concerned, as the Ops become extremely complex. The issues were -

Provisioning virtual machines
Configuring servers and network devices
Method of deploying apps
Collecting and aggregating logs
Monitoring services
Tracking the performance of the network
Monitoring performance of the application
How to set alerts and find resolutions to problems

Many professionals began to feel that these issues could be handled better if the power developers and Ops staff were combined. This provided a whole new approach for dealing with complex real-world ops.

7 Key Benefits of DevOps

To put it bluntly, companies that implement DevOps, get more done. One team comprised of cross-functional experts, all collaborating can deliver quickly, with maximum functionality, and be innovative too.

Technical Benefits of DevOps
- Continuous delivery of software
- Simplifies complexity
- Quicker resolution of issues
Cultural Benefits
- Teams are happier and more productive
- High degree of employee engagement
- Increased opportunities for professional growth
Business Benefits
- Speedy delivery of features
- Stable Operating environment
- Greater collaboration and better communication
- Instead of mere maintenance or troubleshooting, time can be allocated for innovation
Stability and New Features go Hand-in-hand

In the conventional environment, the release of new features and stability often clashed; developers were responsible for delivering updates to users, and ops teams were tasked with maintaining system stability.

However, in DevOps, the whole team is responsible for both - there is no clash. As the code isn’t just tossed to the Ops team at the end, any problems, whether in the configuration, infrastructure or app code, are detected very early in the process. This is brought about by a mixture of continuous testing, sharing the code base, continuous integration, and automatic deployment.

With smaller sets, problems are not as complicated, and DevOps professionals are able to understand how any change would impact the application, and issues can be resolved quickly as the whole team works to fix it - no waiting for another team for troubleshooting.
Increased effectiveness

In the conventional IT environment, professionals often have to wait for other people or machines or are stuck trying to solve the same issues again and again. This can be very frustrating; DevOps enables employees to do away with this frustration and helps them contribute productively to the organization - a win-win situation. Thanks to standardized production environments and automated installations, deployments are predictable, and the staff is freed from performing repetitive tasks; they can do something more creative instead.
Improved ROI

DevOps also helps to ensure quicker time-to-market, which increases ROI; as DevOps is fundamentally applying Agile principles, it eventually results in quicker software development, ensuring more frequent delivery.
Stable Operating Environment

Through practices like continuous testing, monitoring, release and so on, the release cycles are shorter, and teams have more stable and reliable environments to work in. With more time to focus, it ensures a higher quality of the software product.

Other Services You Can Benefit From

Contact Outsource2india for DevOps

There is no doubt that DevOps is here to stay; while it may not be suitable for every type of project or company, it’s benefits for most IT projects are impressive as we have seen above, and this is exactly why we’re likely to see more companies adopting DevOps in 2020.

Outsource2india is one of the leading Software development companies in India developing AI-rich custom mobile, web, hybrid, desktop, and stand-alone software applications for over 20 years. Our team can handle any kind of DevOps or software development requirement and will be glad to schedule an appointment to discuss your project requirements.