DevOps is an acronym for Development and Operations. This movement originated in the IT industry to align development and operations teams. Early in software development, module integration often failed and caused a great deal of frustration. Several approaches have been proposed to address this issue, such as Continuous Integration, which incorporates module integration frequently throughout a project’s lifecycle. Several large software companies have begun implementing DevOps practices to reduce the gap between development and deployment. DevOps processes, such as continuous microservices, support agile software development lifecycles. Initially, the goal of collaboration between development and operations was to resolve misunderstandings and confusion between the two groups. As the organisation grew, it incorporated integration, quality, deliverables, assurance, development, operations, and other relevant aspects.
In 2018, Gartner estimated that “DevOps processes would drive over 80% of the industrial-strength technology on the market”. There are countless job postings available for DevOps professionals. It is becoming increasingly important for IT professionals to have a strong understanding of DevOps. The emerging field represents an innovative way of bringing intelligence to software development. Software developers are increasingly using this method. As a solution to web service problems such as Google, Netflix, Amazon, and others, DevOps was first coined between 2007 and 2008.
By leveraging DevOps, businesses can overcome today’s limitations and frustrations. Additionally, the adoption of DevOps was driven by the need to improve agility and competitiveness. During a study conducted by World Quality Report, they discovered that: 49% of organisations complain that still largely manual testing phases are a bottleneck in speeding up the development time. 33% of organisations have difficulty in determining the proper coverage of quality validation checks in Agile and DevOps processes. 31% of organisations claim that test environments and test data sets must be more flexible to test micro-services quickly. The proliferation of third-party services integrated into applications increases the risk that changes in these services cause unexpected failures
Organisations that fail to address these challenges will be at greater risk of IT product release failures. Such losses can severely impact corporate image and business operations. If organisations do not adopt upcoming technologies quickly, they will be at a competitive disadvantage. Consequently, organisations need to address these challenges quickly to ensure their success.
Achieving a shared understanding of DevOps capabilities, traits and behaviours, such as team ownership and responsibility, as well as technological tools and practices relating to automation, monitoring, and deployment, is crucial. In contrast to traditional IT or scrum teams, DevOps teams are engineering-centric. The focus is on optimising the delivery of products and the value they provide to customers over the long term.
The nature of DevOps is nimble and flexible. Each team member is responsible for achieving quality, value, and time commitments. They strive for continuous improvement by constantly receiving feedback about performance, progress, and obstacles. It is self-organising. Besides having a clear vision and goal definition, the team operates autonomously within defined boundaries while maintaining an interdependent relationship. Cross-functionality is a crucial characteristic. Each team member must possess all the necessary competencies to develop and manage products. Furthermore, team members must continuously collaborate and share knowledge. Neither a sub-team nor a sub-group exists. Concerns are addressed effectively by the team members as a whole.
Six fundamental principles underlie DevOps: Investing continuously in their products and services to meet the needs of their customers. Develop a lifetime commitment to improving the quality of the products you create. Develop products and services more quickly and minimise waste. Everything is automated. Work as a single team with perfect cooperation. Follow steps that provide robust monitoring and testing of the procedures.
There is a difference between DevOps education and other technical training. There is much more to DevOps than just a specific technology. IT practitioners describe DevOps as a cultural, procedural, and technological movement.
Benefits of DevOps include: Lowers the failure rate of newly developed products through QA automated testing. Reduces the earlier versions and ensures real-time visualisation of the pipeline. Does an effortless recovery process. Reduces time-to-market. Improves application quality, reduces defects. Provides an OS with more stable, secure and unauditable changes. Improves software development cost efficiency. Improves processing speed. Enhances communication and collaboration. Improves efficiency and minimises error through regular feedback and dynamic learning. Develops a good working environment, continuous innovation and planning
Disadvantages include: It lacks a clear definition. Lacks solution references. Does not have standardised results. Exerts extensive effort on data protection. The complexity of tool integration. Dependence on too many tools. Requires separate toolsets and metrics. Incompatible with mission-critical applications. Lack of standard repositories. Lack of service visualisation
DevOps is undeniably the key to successful software delivery. Businesses that have adopted this methodology have enjoyed impressive benefits, such as improved performance from developers and administrators. However, DevOps tools and languages alone cannot achieve continuous delivery and total agility. Companies must shift from waterfall development practices to agile workflow stages to reach this efficiency level. To achieve this, developers need an extensive set of DevOps tools. Automated testing is vital for any organisation looking to achieve continuous delivery, regardless of the instrument used.
