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Blog AuthorSiva Prasad
PublishedSep 06, 2024
Views2,225
Read Time15 mins
Companies looking to embrace agility in their software development process know the immense value of DevOps experts. These skilled tech masters help ensure better collaboration between discrete teams. This helps the organization to deliver software and services faster. The reduced time-to-market allows them to quickly respond to changing market demands.
Being an expert in this methodology delivers multiple advantages. But how do they do this? To bring you the answer, I have dived into my own professional experience. This post is a result of my 10+ years of experience in DevOps. I have structured it in such a way that it will help you know the gist of the basics behind this ultra-popular methodology.
The goal of this content is to help you implement DevOps successfully at your company and emerge as a go-to employee for complex projects.
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The combination of the words development and operations gives you DevOps. It refers to a set of protocols that unifies work between IT and software development teams. This method places a strong emphasis on teamwork and communication.
The approach focuses on automation to reduce the time taken for creating and deploying software. Adhering to this methodology will help companies. They can consistently produce top-notch quality software and applications, and release them faster.
The development and operations teams often work in silos. This results in a lot of ineffectiveness. They also lead to hold-ups and a lack of responsibility. DevOps seeks to get rid of the boundaries between the development and operations teams. This is perhaps why this methodology has become a prominent part of the software development process.
In a nutshell, I see the below advantages of DevOps:
1. Enhance Delivery: It quickens the time-to-market by quickening the release cycle.
2. Boost Stability: The approach leads to stable software releases with better quality.
3. Raise Efficiency: This can automate routine procedures to reduce human error. You can free up resources through this for more useful activities.
4. Improve Teamwork: It is a way to eliminate team-level silos. This promotes better collaboration and communication.
These points give a leading indicator for companies about when to use DevOps.
5. Lower Risk: DevOps uses continuous integration and testing to find and address problems early in the development cycle.
Also Read: State of DevOps Report
Implementing DevOps takes rigorous preparation and execution. You need to know how to leverage this methodology smartly so that you can see massive gains from it. Here are some steps to implement this innovative process the right way-
Technology and culture play equal roles in DevOps. Hence, it seeks to dismantle the silos between the two teams. The process establishes a mentality that values shared ownership and cooperation. This also leads to a higher degree of collaboration among all team members. Within this first step are two vital parts to take care of-
a. Encourage Collaboration: You need to motivate candid dialogue and teamwork among all groups. The implementation of frequent meetings and fostering a climate that values and acts upon input may all help to promote this cultural shift.
b. Embrace Continuous Improvement: Get in the frame of mind that favors constant improvement. You should encourage teams to examine their processes so that they can make small changes toward this goal.
With this approach, you can bring diverse perspectives to the table. So, the second step would be to build a team that includes members from development and operations. It will work on two main aspects -
a. Roles and duties: In this step, you need to set out roles and responsibilities for team members. This can be done by clarifying every team member’s role in the process and how they relate to organizational goals.
b. Creating a Joint Team: Here, you can create cross-functional teams. In this team, members from different disciplines work together towards a common goal. This is essential for DevOps success.
The third step is to enable continuous integration techniques like Travis CI. Developers can use it to regularly merge their work into a common repository. The action can trigger automatic builds and testing whenever new code is committed to the repository. This way, they do not damage the current codebase. The two areas of focus here are -
a. Rapid Acts: Encourage developers to commit code changes regularly. This helps find problems early on.
b. Automated Builds: You can configure build systems to compile and package code automatically when changes are made. Automating this process is possible with tools like CircleCI and Jenkins.
Code changes are automatically prepared for deployment to production with Continuous Delivery (CD). It is an extension of Continuous Integration. Developers use this technique to make sure the program is constantly in a state of ‘ready for release’. You can automate this step with Spinnaker. You can accomplish success in this step with two main factors
a. Automated Deployment Routes: At this stage, you need to build routes that automatically deploy code to production space. This covers procedures like deployment and packaging.
b. Staging Setups: It is a smart move to test deployments before they go live by using staging areas that are similar to production. When you do this, you can identify problems that arise in a production-like domain.
Your DevOps certification will cover this point as the 5th step in successful DevOps implementation. You can use automated testing to maintain software reliability and quality. Using this method, teams can swiftly evaluate changes so that they can identify problems early in the development cycle. Here, you can focus on -
a. Functional Tests: You need to run functional tests. These verify how the program behaves from the viewpoint of the end user. For this, you can use automated UI testing tools like Cypress or Selenium.
b. Performance Testing: Verify that the application satisfies performance requirements in a range of scenarios. You can do this verification with the help of performance tests using tools like Gatling and JMeter.
You should strive to use machine-readable details files instead of physical hardware configuration. This is known as Infrastructure as Code. It is a method of controlling and supplying computer infrastructure. In this step, you can take care of two key points -
a. Version Control: Use Git or other version control systems to keep track of network configurations. This step makes it possible to collaborate on infrastructure modifications and version infrastructure.
b. Automation: You need to automate the setup and use of infrastructure. For this, you can use programs like Terraform or Chef. This step ensures reproducibility and consistency in various conditions.
The upkeep of applications and infrastructure performance depends heavily on monitoring and logging. It is a key step in implementing DevOps. In this step, you can diagnose problems promptly and get visibility into system activities.
a. Real-Time Monitoring: You can gather and evaluate metrics instantly via monitoring tools like Prometheus or Datadog. They help in determining resource utilization and performance bottlenecks.
b. Logging: To gather and present log data, use logging solutions such as Splunk or the ELK Stack. Such logs offer full information on system problems and behavior.
c. Alerting: Install alert systems to inform groups of problems. You can manage alerts using programs like PagerDuty or Opsgenie.
You need to get real-time and ongoing feedback when the product is live in the market. It also helps to know about its performance after release. You can also use it to make updates backed by data.
Also Read: Feature Flags in DevOps
DevOps might be difficult to start with. However, a disciplined strategy can help the move go more smoothly for the use of DevOps.
You must know which tools will help you in what manner. I will point out some tools that will power up your work. This will include:
My suggestion is that you start with senior buy-in first. Then, you can work your way down to specific teams. The steps are as follows:
Also Read: DevOps Transformation
Also Read: DevOps Change Management
As a methodology, this approach has a lot of advantages. The points below will explain why use DevOps in your projects.
1. Quicker Product Release: The method makes certain of faster software release.
2. Enhanced Quality: Its constant testing and integration help you to improve the quality of software. In my experience, this is one of the core USPs of this methodology.
3. Increased Efficiency: The team can rely on DevOps to automate repetitive operations and free up their time. This way, they can focus on more complex work.
4. Lower Risk: It will lower the chance of production failures by identifying and fixing problems early in the development phase.
5. Scalability: Your company can grow and manage higher volumes of work.
6. Client Delight: You can enable high customer satisfaction by providing dependable software that does not compromise on quality.
Real-Life Examples:
Now, I will share examples of DevOps integration done right. This will explain to you how it can be used in your work.
1. Amazon: My opinion is that Amazon has used this technique smartly. It has achieved phenomenal reliability and speedy deployment by effectively applying DevOps. The company can properly respond to customer requests with its services. They have managed to deploy new features and updates often throughout the day. I think they achieve this primarily by using CI/CD pipelines. They also applied automated testing and monitoring.
2. Netflix: Another great example of DevOps in action is Netflix. It uses tools such as Spinnaker for continuous delivery. They used Chaos Monkey for resilience testing. It had a major emphasis on automation. With this strategy, Netflix can ensure high service uptime. It also facilitates a high degree of innovation.
3. Etsy: It embraced DevOps to enhance its setup procedure and decrease downtime. Etsy's deployment frequency and reliability have greatly increased with CI/CD. Even automated testing and monitoring helped in constantly delivering new features and fixing issues.
I would end by saying DevOps is truly revolutionary. It seamlessly unites development and operations by promoting automation and teamwork. Organizations may speed up software delivery and improve quality by putting DevOps into practice.
Some of the top companies that use DevOps are Amazon, Netflix, and Etsy. They have shown that introducing the DevOps course and techniques may produce noteworthy outcomes. The first step is going for a mindset shift in favor of DevOps practices. This action will benefit both the team and the firm.
When you implement DevOps, you do more than merely adopting new technology. Rather, you end up transforming how teams collaborate successfully to provide value to clients.
Hope this post has given you the impetus to pivot to DevOps. You can take the first step toward this goal by going for a DevOps course at Star Agile.
You can carry out these tasks to incorporate DevOps:
[1] Learn the Basics: You will know about the basic DevOps concepts.
[2] Get Training: You can sharpen your knowledge with a DevOps certification from Star Agile or by attending workshops.
[3] Build a Team: Get the best talent from operations and development to form a new team.
[4] Start Small: You may implement DevOps principles on a smaller project and gauge its efficacy before going bigger.
[5] Put CI/CD into Practice: You can focus on building pipelines for continuous delivery and continuous integration.
[6] Gain Mastery over Tools: Expand your knowledge on solutions like Docker and Git.
[7] Go for Automation: Try integrating IaC and automated testing to optimize workflows.
[8] Monitoring: Keep track of the implementation and its impact. Such tracking will provide valuable feedback that will serve you well when you expand the scope of DevOps within the company.
You may find a certain complexity at first primarily because of the update in culture. It may also happen due to the adoption of new technologies and procedures. It does get simpler with the right instruction and practice. The shift can go more smoothly if you begin with small projects and then scale up.
DevOps brings together development and operation teams. You should bring them together to collaborate for success. It will ensure an effective software development and deployment process. It also makes certain of quick and consistent software releases. This is made easy by utilizing techniques like IaC and Continuous Integration.
You can also use Continuous Delivery (CD) and automated testing. Teams can enhance their work and react promptly to problems with the help of DevOps. Lastly, you need to track its progress for better outcomes in the long run.
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18 May 2020
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