For many years now, the companies have had operations and development teams function as different entities. With changing times and technology, companies have realized the need to establish an integrated operating model which guides necessitates the development of a DevOps program.
What is DevOps?
DevOps – Development and Operations, is an amalgamation of operations and tools designed to increase the company’s potential to achieve applications and services quicker than traditional software development processes. DevOps speed aids companies to offer better services to their customers and thrive in the market.
What we know in general is that DevOps works on Agile Methodology. But the fact is, DevOps model is much more than deployment of Agile program to manage the infrastructure. In simple words, DevOps can be described as CAMS – a union of Culture, Automation, Measurement and Sharing. Evidently, DevOps is the need of the hour. It not only overcomes the barriers of business goals, business functionality and geographical location but brings the teams closer on many aspects.
Benefits of DevOps
- Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery
- Microservices
- Reliability
- Security
- Bettered Collaboration
CI/CD practices of DevOps helps the teams to deliver safely and rapidly.
CI (Continuous Integration) is a software development method where developers often merge the code changes into a central registry, during automated builds and tests. The principal purpose of CI is to fix the bugs quickly, improve the quality of software and minimize the time taken to approve and release new software updates.
CD (Continuous Delivery) is a software development method where code changes are automatically built, tested and prepared for a release. CD expands on CI by adopting all code changes to a production or testing site after the build stage.
CI/CD helps to maintain quality of applications, updates and any infrastructure changes, while developers can deliver a flawless customer experience.
DevOps methodologies support and follow the purpose of breaking large problems into smaller parts and handling them one at a time. Microservices blends well into this methodology.
The architecture of microservices is built in a way that it works as a single application with a set of small services. Each service is paired with a small agile team who has the freehold on the service. Microservices can quickly and easily scale up or down without hindering resources or infrastructure of the system.
Automated operations empower microservices. Different frameworks or programming languages can be used to write microservices and install them independently as single service or group of services.
Follow Monitoring and Logging practices. Once the software is installed and moved into production, it must be monitored to establish stable performance and increase customer satisfaction. At this stage, performance analysis and logging, raising tickets or alerts on various issues, collecting customer feedback, etc. also happen to give a better customer experience.
Companies should monitor metrics and logs to check the impact of infrastructure and application performance on the end users and user experience.
DevOps teams get a better understanding (of any software changes or updates that could affect the users) by analyzing the logs produced by applications. Since the services/applications are used 24/7, Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery are good practices to follow and ensure reliability.
Adopting DevOps model enables security by using automated compliance policies, fine-grained control, and configuration management techniques without any implications. One of the best practices is to use infrastructure and policy as a code. It helps in defining and tracking compliance at scale.
DevOps ensures that development, operations and security teams will adhere to the security and compliance regulations with good and quicker service.
DevOps paves the way for better collaboration between developers and operations teams. Since the responsibilities are shared and workflows are symbiotic, the handover period is minimized. It proves to be timesaving and reduces inefficiencies. Build productive teams under DevOps cultural model for better ownership and accountability!
Role of DevOps in Cloud Development
The objective is to enable developers to respond to business requirements in real-time. The relationship between DevOps and Cloud development is like the wheels of a cycle – interdependent and equally important. DevOps is all about the process and process improvement, while cloud is about technology and services. DevOps cuts out most of the latency that is associated with software development. Now it is up to the companies on how they can reap the benefits by aligning them together.
DevOps – The Game Changer
Before we go further, an interesting fact that most of us are not aware of is, it’s not the cloud that’s driving DevOps. Instead, DevOps is driving the interest and growth of the cloud.
- Centralized Platform – The centralized nature of cloud development aids DevOps automation. DevOps automation is supported with a standard and centralized framework for integration, production and testing.
Earlier, the distributed nature of some enterprise systems could not be aligned well with centralized software integration. Now, cloud application development platform resolves all hiccups w.r.t distributed ERPs and its complexities. - Economical – DevOps automation is adapting being cloud-centric (commonly called cloud-native and cloud-ready – this application is developed based on cloud principles I.e., easy integration, multitenancy and scaling). Centralized execution and control proved to be cost-effective and provides secure integration with on-premises DevOps automation technology. Developers who are accustomed to this process advocate that it is easier with centralized control through cloud.
Most public and private cloud applications development providers engage in DevOps deployment on their platforms. All thanks to CI and CD tools (Continuous Integration and Continuous Development). - Resource Leverage – Cloud based apps reduces the need for resource purchases. Resource accounting is done based on the usage. Traditional systems lack this feature.
Accounting and tracking costs are done based on usability of resources like developers, applications, users, data etc. - Speed – Software applications can be developed rapidly on cloud than ever before to meet the requirements of the business. The complete life cycle can now be accomplished at lesser time with lesser costs and seamlessly.
Handling Cloud Application Development
The benefits of cloud application development using new age DevOps tools should be realized by everyone involved in the process. Not including all stakeholders will only lead to confusion and take more time and efforts to understand and implement the procedure.
Both the DevOps and Cloud processes should be initiated at the same time. The cloud platform is generally chosen before setting up the DevOps process. Instead, DevOps and Cloud(private/public) applications should be developed at the same time. Adoption of Agile methodology using Cloud and non-Cloud DevOps tools must happen simultaneously. We must ensure that these DevOps processes are extended and automated into cloud environments (public/private).
The DevOps tools might be new for businesses and it can be taxing to achieve results without encountering any issues. However, the following measures will ease out the probability of errors and aids in seamless working of the processes:
- Decide your development objectives.
- Determine the ROI.
- Verify the initiation of DevOps processes.
- Lead the DevOps outcomes and connections to the Cloud platforms. (Synergy of CAMS – culture, automation, measurement and sharing)
- Deduce CloudOps – Visibility on how applications operate on cloud.
- Leadership – Include everyone who is part of the processes. Motivation to learn and adapt to dynamic conditions is what is expected from the developers.
DevOps Will Set a Trend
If enterprises want cloud application development to be productive then it is DevOps that will lead them there. The utility and function of DevOps and Cloud development are co-efficient, equally important and can work together harmoniously.
Many businesses do not have the system and tools that make DevOps work. This makes them go for tried and tested old practices. This might actually restrict their business from exploring new avenues for improving efficiency. It is high time that businesses take the plunge!
The fundamentals of DevOps and Cloud might be different but when brought together, they work wonders for businesses. The only setback might be the changes that occur quickly and at the same time.
Future and DevOps
DevOps and Cloud are adding immense value for businesses through their successful collaboration. No wonder, the tech-leads and CTOs are now strategizing their goals and making way to incorporate these processes into the system.
Continuous Agile implementation is the mantra that should be followed by developers. Unfortunately, it is less understood and feared by the developers who claim it lowers the quality and productivity of the applications. This is when businesses should go for third-party assistance or detailed training of the practices that work in real-time, seamlessly and successfully.
We at Embitel, offer DevOps consulting services to improve operational efficiency of businesses. Embitel will fast track your software release cycles, and achieve agility in projects, all by leveraging DevOps on Cloud.
If you are still thinking about it, it is time to stop thinking and start planning. This is the future – DevOps with Cloud!
