DevOps has grown in popularity in recent years, and for a good reason. And its integration with Agile methodology is becoming a standard practice for quick and efficient software delivery. With the advantages of DevOps far surpassing the disadvantages, it’s no wonder every smart business out there is trying to join the DevOps party. But while this may not efficiently resolve all your efficiency issues, Agile methodology with DevOps practices in software development can significantly boost operational productivity and quality. It’s clear that DevOps is not going out of trend anytime soon and is likely to be a common way of developing software.
What is DevOps?
According to Mezmo, DevOps is the combination of software development and IT operations into one process. This improves the speed and quality of software development and minimizes the risk of errors by automating vital operational capabilities, like testing and deployment. Think of DevOps to bring previously “siloed” operations, engineering, and testing teams together via collaboration, constant learning, and sharing of knowledge.
One benefit of employing DevOps engineers is that they automate building software, including development, testing, deployment, support, and monitoring. Another advantage is creating a link between support and professionals who review the system to find out possible issues and engineers who can fix those problems.
What are the benefits?
The adoption of DevOps practices can benefit businesses in many ways. While the advantage may vary based on each team’s priorities, incorporating DevOps practices into current working habits will significantly improve the teams and their operations and the software offered to the end-users.
We will look at the advantages and disadvantages of DevOps, so you can know how it works in real life.
Quality
Since DevOps combines operations and development, incorporating the DevOps principles enables teams to share knowledge and data, leading to better build quality. Note that DevOps demands regular code reviews from different units to ensure code maintainability.
Additionally, DevOps puts together dev-centric metrics, such as performance, functionality, and reusability, and ops-centric features like development and maintenance, improving code build quality. It has also been shown that DevOps improves code quality in terms of deployment frequency, lead time, and average recovery time and makes it easier for the IT team to carry out testing.
DevOps analytics also contributes to code quality and reliability, as it helps shift the mindset toward continuous improvement in delivery.
The culture of innovation
If an idea doesn’t work out, it does not necessarily mean the system has an error with the system and implies that the system could be improved. Smart developers don’t see it as “Who came up with this idea, how we get ourselves out of this, and how we can enhance the system to forestall failures. DevOps culture promotes discovery and innovation without blaming anyone.
Continuous deployment
DevOps adoption changes the focus of your organization from integration, delivery, and deployment to continuous integration and deployment. This means that every single code your developers write for a project will be regularly updated and tested to make sure it’s ready to be delivered to the customers at any time. The real deployment occurs in the background only when needed without affecting the application’s operation.
In situations where there’s a problem with the build, all concerned developers will receive alerts via a message application, email, or any other method to fit the issue as soon as possible.
Customers’ point of view
All the stakeholders of an organization reap the benefits of DevOps adoption somehow. However, the customers enjoy the most benefit from DevOps when it comes to processes, such as continuous integration and continuous deployment. The end-users can see the results when an IT team adopts DevOps methods. DevOps allows teams to focus on satisfying the customers’ needs, and by uniting the developers with operational teams, it strengthens the bond between them and their products. The adoption of DevOps principles also helps the IT team better understand the expectations of the customers and the modifications that should be made to improve the product.
DevSecOps
DevSecOps increases the primary development and operations components of DevOps by introducing a security component into the mix. The premise of DevSecOps is that security is a shared responsibility and should not be left to the security professionals alone. DevSecOps helps reduce costs as it enables you to track and figure out security risks during the development stage instead of spending a bundle on security after the product has been unveiled.
Also, DevSecOps promotes a culture of continuous, iterative improvements, making the entire security management process easier. It also speeds up the recovery process in a security breach. Adopting DevSecOps also enhances code coverage, rejuvenates secure design principles, and lowers the risk of vulnerabilities and insecure defaults.
Conclusion
DevOps can make things easier and improve efficiency, especially when handling big, continuously expanding projects. However, it will take some time before you can measure and reap the long-term benefits of DevOps for your business. Note that you need to follow no one particular way or specific rules when adopting DevOps in your organization. DevOps is a way of working that focuses on continuous development, collaboration, and transparency between teams to achieve success and deliver value to their customers – success in developing reliable software products, using agile methodologies, generating more revenue, and increasing the operational efficiency of all team members.
