What is DevOps and should your business implement it?

Nathan Sykes -

DevOps is an organizational structure that continuously updates and improves processes that deliver better software products to market. At its core, DevOps is an information technology methodology that helps streamline processes and updates software rapidly to help businesses function more efficiently. This modern software philosophy helps products perform at a high level in a market that is full competition. It is a shift to continuous improvement and deployment of products, which equates to fast launch times.

Benefits of DevOps

DevOps has numerous benefits for an organization that utilizes it correctly:

  • Bridges communication gaps within departments of an organization.
  • Software is continuously improved through speed, resolution and quality to ensure customers are receiving value.
  • Streamlines software release cycles within a company.
  • Increases software security and adds new security features.
  • Product feedback is streamlined for faster response times.
  • Automation tools and processes are made readily available to make development and release of products happen faster.

Principles behind DevOps

The three main domains of DevOps are people, processes and tools:

  • People: DevOps’ goal is to provide organizations with continuity between departments that are all working towards a common goal. During a product’s life cycle, it will experience many tweaks and changes that will be accomplished by developers, engineers and testers. DevOps helps each department of the organization work cohesively together to ensure the product can be delivered to market faster.
  • Process: DevOps streamlines the processes of every department within an organization. This allows all parties involved to work simultaneously while actively reducing inefficiencies and bottlenecks. Systems and applications are actively improved throughout all departments to ensure processes are running at their best.
  • Tools: DevOps reconstructs all internal devices of a company to ensure that all software is being improved. It starts with restructuring source control tools, automated tools, and testing tools, as well as project management and collaborative tools. DevOps looks at the entirety of the company and actively searches for any tools that can be improved.

Is DevOps right for you?

DevOps is a collaborative endeavor, which means that all parties involved need to be onboard, since they will work with each other. It is essential to define what the company wants to achieve by implementing DevOps, what the purpose of changing the old system is, and why DevOps is the solution to the problem.

DevOps is a shift in culture at its core, and it will require time, energy and money to accomplish a successful implementation. It is also worth noting that if your team is stuck continuously on manual maintenance, deployment and server issues, they may not be ready to implement DevOps. There must be tools and processes in place currently to allow DevOps to be most beneficial. However, if you have automated tools in place, and your team has eliminated constant bottlenecks, DevOps would be extremely helpful for taking the next step towards efficiency in an organization.

Implementation of DevOps

DevOps is unique in the sense that there is no one-size-fits-all application. DevOps seeks to reduce bottlenecks, introduce automated tools and create meaningful processes that help your business run more efficiently. This means DevOps will look very different for each business that seeks to use it. However, there are common methodologies that are used:

  1. DevOps Foundations teaches the core principles, objectives, performance indicators and benefits that it can have on a business. This training is hands-on and provides a certification when training is complete.
  2. DevSecOps teaches the principles and workflows of the foundation course while adding a section on software security. The benefit of this training is that it provides new software security approaches that can bolster a company’s security.
  3. DevOps Test Engineering teaches all the ways it can revolutionize test and model practices. The benefit of this training is understanding specific testing strategies, workflows, and analyses that can help streamline processes in a company.

Once a company identifies which training they believe will benefit them, they can begin implementing DevOps into their day-to-day business. The company should select which team they will start with, and they should establish specific goals and metrics to help them measure their success in implementing it. After working out the different constraints involved with the first team, the company can scale DevOps to the rest of the company as they see fit.

DevOps should be implemented thoroughly with each department to ensure that it has the best chance at succeeding. DevOps doesn’t have any specific tools tied to it, because companies should identify tools that incorporate into their teams rather than force a particular tool upon them. Collaborative tools such as Basecamp or Asana are great examples of DevOps tools that can be used to help streamline processes within a company.

Next steps with DevOps

If DevOps appears to be a good fit for your team, there are companies out there that provide certified training that can kick-start the implementation process. Don’t put off improving your company — begin your DevOps journey today.