DevOps is the latest trend in software development lifecycle. It involves the developers and operations staff working in harmony to make sure that software runs correctly. Many organizations have already adopted the DevOps process into their software development processes. This has aided them in providing good quality code in a quicker agile way.
DevOps is a combination of ‘Dev’ and ‘Ops’ teams who deal with software development and operations and services. It calls for the need of collaboration, communication, and greater integration between information technology operations personnel and software developers. The aim of developers is continuous change and consistently adding new features to the software development. The aim of operations team is to have sustained stability and creating new services.
Impediments to DevOps process
Previously there was increased conflict which is better now. The conflict was between the development and operations team who were working to achieve the common aim of providing good software to clients without enough required co-operation. Operations team did not want to change the production systems frequently as they wanted stability. Developers had the great zest to deliver software to their clients quickly with all the changes they made.
There was quite a difference on various levels between development and operations :
1) Development and operations essentially have varied goals.
2) To accomplish their goals development and operations use their own distinct tools which the other is not familiar with.
3) Development and operations often have different approaches as to how to deal with changes in the system, bringing and maintaining them in production.
These are reasons why Dev and Ops team work in silos. The Dev team wants to see the changes they made to the software to be in production as rapidly as possible. The Ops team however is reluctant to make changes to the software as it affects the stability of the software system.
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Need for DevOps
DevOps is a set of cultural principles aimed at bringing down the silos. It is about culture, automation, measurement and sharing (CAMS).
1. Culture
Automation endeavors fail miserably if you don’t have culture. Process and people are a primary consideration here. It includes breaking down silos, stopping pinpointing each other in case untoward happens, increased engagement within the team and between various teams, and the ability to absorb ideas. It also includes keeping asking relevant questions, toning down the mindset of negativity, making everyone’s opinions heard in making important processes, and having frequent meets.
2. Automation
The need for automation is because it is fast and efficient; machines are efficient at performing similar tasks again and again. It saves huge time and the output is clearly defined and known. The things that can be automated are monitoring, testing, builds, deployment, system rollouts, self-healing, and system configuration.
3. Measurement
There can be no improvement if you can’t measure the performance of a build. Therefore a competent DevOps implementation is good at measuring various things like plotted graph over a time period, metrics on process, performance, and even individuals.
4. Sharing
In the CAMS cycle it is the loopback. Firms should induce an environment where professionals share issues and ideas. Exposing ideas to create a good feedback culture is key to improve and share metrics and ideas. As an example the Operations can give shell access to the development team and the developers can show what technology to use to the operations team.
Why should we learn DevOps?
It has various technical benefits like
1) Optimal software process through CI/CD model
2) Issues can be resolved faster
3) You can avoid a lot of sophisticated problems
Its business benefits are:
1) The OS (operating systems) are stable
2) Faster delivery of features
3) It’s great to add value to the product as there is more time
Conclusion
You may be startled knowing that operations was the team which saw most of the successful DevOps transitions and not development. Not all IT executives are directly involved in bringing DevOps to their firms. CIOs play a vital role in clearing obstacles and setting up DevOps teams. Another important aspect of DevOps is that for it to be successful the DevOps and the cloud should work hand in hand. DevOps is the key culture which has removed the latency that prevailed in the software development. DevOps is therefore the automation of agile methodology. The goal behind DevOps is making the Dev team skilled enough that they may address the business need in almost real-time and in making the Ops capable enough that they provide stability to the underlying system.