DevOps Revolution: a Guide to Meeting Your Business Needs

What Is DevOps and How Does It Work? 

DevOps, or development and operations, is the combination of both of these practices and it looks to improve a company’s ability to deliver products and services at a faster pace which, in turn, allows them to focus on things like customer service and market competitiveness.  This collaborative approach is the product of the synergy created between a company’s development and IT operations teams, and it looks to provide a shared approach to tasks, problems and goals within an enterprise. The approach could involve software development, automation and the deployment and maintenance of programmable infrastructure. DevOps isn’t a technology per se, but these methodologies generally adopt and apply methodologies which can include things like continuous integration, delivery and/or deployment tools, systems to help support DevOps implementation, cloud computing and other services to help implement these practices, etc. The implementation of a DevOps strategy can bring changes to how a company delivers its products and services, job roles, and things like IT tools and best practices. Finally, a DevOps approach can coexist with Agile software development, IT service management frameworks, project management programs and other strategies as well and it can serve as a growth strategy because it helps maximize time and efficiency and allows a company to focus on other important aspects of their business. 

When a DevOps strategy is implemented, development and operations teams and practices are no longer separate. These two teams begin to function as a whole, with engineers present across every step of the process, from development to testing to deployment. It also allows teams to develop and put into practice a much wider set of skills than they originally would have been required to tap into should they have been working in a more siloed manner. 

Some DevOps models also closely integrate quality and assurance teams and practices to help improve the application lifecycle even more. Security can also be added to the mix. One of the more obvious benefits of integrating these teams and practices is that it speeds up processes that have always been slower and more tedious. Engineers are also able to operate more effectively and reliably, and they can accomplish tasks that would have otherwise required help from other areas independently.

The Benefits of DevOps

Problems surrounding speed are some of the main issues that companies face today. Releases that take too long, IT issues that prove limiting to company growth, etc. Since DevOps helps streamline processes, projects move along quickly and more efficiently. It can also help solve issues with communication because the entire team is able to understand what is needed and what changes, simplifying the entire process without isolating IT. Companies are able to focus on growth and market opportunities with faster, more efficient processes in place, meaning that a DevOps strategy can provide a competitive edge for businesses. At Avalith, we count on a team of experts to help you solve any related issue you may have!

Let’s take a look at some of the specific benefits provided by DevOps:

• Speed: because you’re saving time, you can focus on implementing changes that will help you reach your customers in more effective ways, adapt to an ever-evolving market, and grow your business. 

• Fast Delivery: the DevOps model lets you increase the speed of your releases so you can constantly innovate and improve your products and services. This means you’ll fix bugs more quickly, integrate new and necessary features, and stay attuned to customer demands overall. 

• Reliability: you can ensure that updates and changes are always of the highest quality, meaning your customers will always have a positive experience. Continuous integration and delivery practices help ensure that changes work and are safe, and you can stay in the loop on performance with real-time monitoring and logging. 

• Scale: DevOps helps you operate your infrastructure and processes at scale thanks to automation and consistency, which help you reduce risk and manage your various environments in a way that’s more efficient. 

• Collaboration: the DevOps model prioritizes project ownership and accountability, and it encourages employees to be an active part of each step of the process. Developers and ops teams work closely together and responsibilities are shared across these teams, saving time and maximizing efficiency. 

• Security: control and compliance are big components of the DevOps model, helping you keep your processes secure from start to finish. 

How To Implement Your DevOps Strategy

Adopting a DevOps model means understanding the entire software project process and identifying pain points and growth or improvement opportunities throughout it. It’s important that you can identify the main KPIs for your enterprise and establish the groundwork for the processes to help you reach your goals. Something you could also consider is establishing one DevOps pipeline for your entire organization, which would help employees move smoothly between projects. 

Once your organization has already thought about what it needs from a DevOps model and how it can implement it, you can begin to track performance and success rates through metrics. Focus on best practices for your projects, how to improve knowledge sharing across teams and how to optimize skill development for all employees to ensure that your enterprise continues to grow and your processes are more efficient each day. Making small but frequent updates to your processes will also make your deployments less risky. This is because teams can address bugs faster since identifying the last deployment that caused an error is easier. Finally, automation practices like infrastructure as code and configuration management can help keep your computing resources flexible and responsive to changes. 

Overall, DevOps is definitely a model to consider if you’re looking to streamline processes, save time, guarantee reliability and a positive experience for your customers and focus on growing your business and staying competitive in today’s market. There are several ways to begin implementing one at your company. Once you identify your needs and goals, finding the DevOps model that’s right for you is easy, and all that’s left is seeing the positive results it will start to have on your business.