DevOps is referred to as a combination of practices, philosophies, and tools which improve the ability of an organization to deliver applications and services efficiently and rapidly. It allows organizations to improve products at a faster rate compared to using traditional infrastructure processes and software development. With the practice of DevOps, organizations can better serve their customers, reach out to potential customers and compete efficiently in the market.
The practice of DevOps enables a smoother and continuous collaboration, communication, and integration between the Dev aspect or application development team and the Ops or the IT operations team.
With a close relationship between the Dev and the Ops teams, it can impact every phase of the DevOps lifecycle which would include from the initial phase of software planning, building, coding, testing, releasing, deployment, operation, and monitoring. One great result that one can get from investing in DevOps services is a more rapid and continuous release of changes, improvements, and necessary features of applications, products, and services.
Why DevOps Matter
DevOps are initiated in order to break down barriers in collaboration and communication between the development team and the IT operations team. In addition, DevOps is also designed to enhance business innovation, drive for continuous improvement, improve customer satisfaction, and ensure faster delivery of products and services.
Yes, DevOps does matter because it encourages better, more secure, and faster delivery of business value to the end-users which are the business customers. This value comes in different forms like frequent updates, features, and product releases. This can mean that product release or new features can get into the customer’s hands quickly, securely, and efficiently. This can also mean how quickly errors are identified and resolved without having to disrupt normal business operations.
DevOps Toolchain
DevOps best practices often make use of useful tools as part of their DevOps toolchain. These tools help to further streamline and automate the various stages of software delivery workflow.
The tools also promote the DevOps principles of collaboration, automation, and integration between the operations team and the development team. Here is an example of an efficient DevOps toolchain:
- Plan. The planning phase helps define the value and requirements of a business. Sample tools under this phase include Jira and Git which both helps identify known issues and accomplish project management tasks
- Code. The coding phase is all about the creation of software code and software design. Sample tools under this phase include Bitbucket, Stash, and GitHub.
- Build. The building phase is the phase where you manage software builds and versions. Automated tools are often used in this phase to compile and package code intended for future release as well as production. The sample tools that can be used in this phase include Docker, Gradle, Maven, and Puppet.
- Test. The testing phase involves continuous manual or automated testing to guarantee ideal code quality. Sample tools under this phase include Selenium, Codeception, and Vagrant.
- Deploy. The deployment phase includes those tools that can help coordinate, manage, schedule, and ultimately automate product releases into production. Under this phase, the sample tools include OpenShift, Jira, and Jenkins.
- Operate. The operating phase manages the software during the production process. The sample tools under this phase include Chef, Otter, and Salt.
- Monitor. The monitoring phase involves collecting information and identifying issues from specific software releases in production. Under this phase, the sample tools include Splunk, Wireshark, and Datadog.
DevOps Best Practices
The DevOp practices mirror the idea of having continuous automation and improvement. Many of these practices under DevOps focus on one or perhaps more development cycle phases.
- Continuous Development. This practice in DevOps extends to the coding phase and planning phase of the DevOps lifecycle.
- Continuous Testing. This DevOps practice incorporates prescheduled, automated, and continuous code testing as application code is written or updated. These tests can speed the delivery of the code to the production stage.
- Continuous Integration. This practice brings CM or configuration management tools together with other development tools for the purpose of tracking how much of the developed code is ready for production. This includes rapid feedback between the testing and development to rapidly identify code issues and resolve them at the same time.
- Continuous Delivery. This DevOps practice automates the delivery of the changes of coding after the testing phase to the preproduction phase.
- Continuous Deployment. This DevOps practice is similar to continuous delivery, as this automates the release of new or perhaps a changed code into the production phase.
- Continuous Monitoring. This DevOps practice involves ongoing monitoring of both the code in the underlying infrastructure and the code in operation.
DevOps really has a lot of great benefits especially if performed with best practices. DevOps as a service promotes faster as well as better product delivery, greater scalability, and availability, and faster resolution to identified issues. It reduces complexity in issue resolution as well and promotes a more stable operating environment. Ultimately, it can improve business operations and delivery and make the customer experience more efficient and pleasant.
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