DevOps from the terms, development, and operations and is described as a culture rather than a technique or standard. This concept represents a change in the IT culture which focuses on the rapid delivery system through the integration of agile and lean practices in a system-oriented approach.
This culture emphasizes the people and culture and aims to improve the collaboration between development and operations teams. The successful implementation of DevOps depends on various factors including technology and automation tools which can leverage a programmable as well as dynamic infrastructure. It is used to shorten the software development life cycle through the use of fast feedback loops to deliver resolutions, features, and updates on a timely basis and more frequently.
DevOps History Explained
The concept of DevOps started long ago and was not created in one instance. Instead, it has been nurtured by IT experts in several disciplines. The two primary antecedents of DevOps include enterprise systems management and agile development.
Enterprise systems management or ESM is one of the foundations of the practices involved with DevOps. In fact, system administrators or operations experts as the primary developer of DevOps has incorporated ESM practices including system monitoring, configuration management, toolchain approach, and automated provisioning into the core of DevOps.
On the other hand, agile development is also associated with DevOps. In fact, DevOps can be interpreted as an outgrowth of agile development, as it involves close collaboration with product management, developers, and customers to fill in gaps, resolve issues, and rapidly deliver better products and services.
Problems Encountered During the Creation of DevOps
Development and operations teams do not always see eye to eye on various things. However, they do agree that the business aspect of the line pulls them in different directions. For instance, end-users often demand change involving new features, new revenue streams, and new services. At the same time, end users also want a system that is stable and free from any interruptions and outages. That said, on the business side of the line, companies are often faced with the dilemma on whether to deliver quick changes with unstable production environment or to maintain a stable but rather stale environment. Neither choice is acceptable to enterprise executives.
Developers would want to push out the software the quickest possible way. On the other hand, the operations team knows that these quick changes have the tendency to destabilize the system. DevOps culture was created to resolve such dilemma through the integration of everyone associated with development and deployment into a single as well as a highly automated workflow with the focus of rapid delivery of high quality and stable software which meets all user requirements.
To minimize problems with DevOps, there is a set of principles that must be considered. These principles include the following:
- Set expectations as well as priorities well.
- Determine the fundamental beliefs that guide the expectations and priorities set.
- Collaborate within as well as between different teams, especially in terms of problem-solving.
- Use automation on common as well as repetitive processes to maximize time and effort.
- Integrate feedback and monitor processes and output.
- Share information with everyone to foster a more effective working environment.
- Allow open communication in one channel.
How Does DevOps Work?
Now that the history, as well as problems encountered in the creation of DevOps, has been explained, it is now time to answer the question – how does DevOps work?
Like other cultures, DevOps incorporates various capabilities into one culture. These capabilities include collaboration, continuous integration, automation, continuous delivery, continuous monitoring, continuous testing, and rapid remediation.
- Collaboration. Instead of finger-pointing, both the development and operations team along with other teams (from creation to implementation) collaborate or work together. Basically, the success of DevOps will depend on how well the teams collaborate across the entire company to get things done efficiently, rapidly, and effectively.
- Automation. DevOps relies on automation which means that you need the right tools that can help transition end to end software development to deployment process smoothly.
- Continuous Integration. Like the agile culture, continuous integration is essential in DevOps culture. In fact, it is one of the fundamentals of DevOps. The continual merging of source codes from all develop into a shared mainline allows the smooth flow of workload even when a new code is added and prevents any catastrophic merge conflicts.
- Continuous Testing. Continuous testing allows the creation of a central system of decision which will help assess business risks associated with every application involved in your organization. When this concept is applied consistently, it can guide the entire team to meet business expectations and provides executives to make informed decisions to optimized business output.
- Continuous Delivery. When continuous delivery is implemented properly, multiple deployments may be achieved that has passed through a standardized test process.
- Continuous Monitoring. Continuous monitoring is essential to detect failures and resolve them in real-time. With continuous monitoring, performance, availability, and stability of software are measured. Root causes of issues are quickly identified and resolved to prevent outages and other complications.
What about DevSecOps?
With DevOps, there is debate on whether it has offered security to applications. With the rapid changes surrounding the concept of DevOps, many security tools as well as compliance monitoring tools are not able to keep up. That said, it cannot be denied that security is one of the biggest obstacle to rapid application development and IT innovation.
DevSecOps is the introduction of security earlier in the application development ensuring that application vulnerabilities are minimized. It aims to embed security in every aspect of the application development process. Core security tasks are automated through embedding security controls and processes early on in the DevOps workflow.
Why Opt for DevOps?
Implementing DevOps allows enterprises to get more done, plain and simple. It offers various benefits including continuous software delivery, quicker resolution time, and less complexity to handle. It also offers team benefits which include higher employee engagement, more productive teams, and more professional opportunities. On the business aspect, DevOps offers faster delivery of features, stability, improved communication and collaboration, and more time to innovate.
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