WHAT IS DEVOPS?
DevOps is a software development life cycle model that focuses on the collaboration of the development and operations teams, which allows projects to move at a faster pace. This is achieved by combining different phases of the life cycle and working through continuous iterations of improvement based on feedback.
Built from the same mindset as the Agile model, the DevOps strategy adopts agility, scalability, and continuous innovation to build, test, and deliver high-quality products. Due to its collaborative nature, this method encourages a culture of communication, experimentation, and improvement.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
The DevOps model provides a quicker and more successful software development life cycle, giving you a competitive advantage and increasing client satisfaction. Here are just some of the potential benefits your company could experience by implementing the DevOps approach:
- Faster responses to business needs
- Increased team collaboration and communication
- Shorter development cycles
- Improved efficiency
- Presents a data-driven approach and culture to your company
The increasing relevance of DevOps practices proves its potential for success, as it boosts a company’s ability to produce high-quality software in a shorter amount of time. For a successful DevOps implementation, your company must have a culture of collaboration across all your teams.
BENEFITS OF DEVOPS
Utilizing the DevOps implementation phases connects teams that are typically separated to enhance the software development process. Because each team has strict roles in a traditional software development life cycle, success has been measured by individual deliverables instead of the collaborative team’s success in delivering the final product. Using the DevOps strategy will intentionally bring teams together, ensuring the success of all teams by achieving the project’s goals together.
Designed to meet the increasing requests for improved client experience in a competitive environment, more organizations are using DevOps methodology to provide clients with continuous delivery. The DevOps strategy strives for a production-first approach that secures:
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A lower failure rate of new releases
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A structured set of environments
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A shorter recovery time between releases
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A shortened lead time between releases
GUIDE TO DEVOPS IMPLEMENTATION
The DevOps strategy enhances the start-to-finish process through continuous development, providing quicker delivery times. To deliver results in a timely manner, it’s vital that the DevOps team thoroughly understands the DevOps implementation plan. If there is a misunderstanding of the phases, the process can quickly become complicated and time-consuming.
The DevOps implementation roadmap typically includes the following six steps that are continuously completed until the project is finished.
Continuous Development
The continuous development phase focuses on the planning and coding of the software. The entire process will typically be broken down into manageable development cycles that are easy to track. By working in smaller cycles, the DevOps team will have an easier time tracking the progress and ensuring that the project is on schedule.
As a part of continuous development, effectively mapping out your software development process is crucial, as this will show you how well-planned your releases are, how realistic your iteration commitments are, and what your key performance indicator baselines are.
This phase is critical in planning the vision for the complete development life cycle, allowing the development team to clearly understand the project requirements and expectations.
Continuous Integration
The continuous integration phase involves multiple steps tied to the test process execution. Since most changes to the source code occur during this phase, continuous integration serves as the home for resolving frequent changes on a regular basis. At the same time, clients will typically provide what information they want to be incorporated while adding new features and functionality.
Without the option to continuously integrate the developed code, it would be impossible to complete the remaining DevOps implementation phases successfully. To take full advantage of the DevOps practice, it’s important for your company to have an effective CI server that centralizes the build environment. This will decrease the wait times between phases and allow all teams to work together efficiently.
Continuous Testing
The developed code is tested for bugs and errors in the continuous testing phase. In this phase, quality analysis plays a large role in testing the comprehensive usability and functionality of the developed software.
Continuous testing aims to ensure the code being deployed will work across all staging environments and production without any bugs that negatively impact the user experience. Successfully completing the quality analysis process is critical to determine if the software meets the client’s expectations and requirements.
Continuous Deployment
Continuous deployment is where your team’s hard work in creating the product is delivered to the client. At the deployment stage, your team continuously develops code into releases across the staging environments and tests it to ensure the user experience is seamless. The continuous deployment phase allows a more straightforward product deployment without risking the application’s performance.
In this phase, it’s important to ensure the code is deployed on all available servers. This rules out the need for scheduled releases, allowing the development team to resolve issues more quickly.
Continuous Monitoring
Despite being close to the end of the DevOps implementation roadmap, the continuous monitoring phase is crucial, as this is where you can determine the effectiveness of the product. In this phase, your team can identify patterns and gray areas where additional effort may be needed.
The purpose of this phase is to enhance the efficiency and performance of the product, making it one of the more important phases in the life cycle. By proactively monitoring the product, you can ensure you’re delivering a reliable and productive product to your clients.
Continuous Feedback
Continuous feedback is an essential part of the life cycle, as it is where your team can analyze the final product. This is when client and stakeholder feedback is typically provided, allowing the team to improve and produce the final version of the product. The feedback provided by the client is meaningful, as they can provide information on the product’s performance and the related issues as seen by the end user.
BEST PRACTICES
DevOps implementation has transformed the way custom software products are developed across the industry. Companies have brought their development and operations teams together to build products in a collaborative practice that allows the company to thrive. Taking the next step to implement DevOps practices for your company can be worth the effort as long as you are able to set your company up for success.
Transforming your software development plan is a large feat, and it’s important to consider some best practices to leverage all the benefits of the DevOps model.
Collaborative Team Culture
Using the DevOps approach requires separate teams to work together in a more collaborative environment than most traditional approaches. Because of this, it’s crucial to create a team culture that encourages improved communication, collaboration, and continuous improvement. Doing so will set your team up for success and increase the quality of the final products.
Performance Metrics
Defining the performance metrics and objectives of the project will contribute to an ideal start to the DevOps implementation. The DevOps strategy requires goal-setting, as starting a project without any goals in place will leave your team wandering without any next steps. By setting performance metrics at the start of the project, your teams can work with the client and stakeholders to outline the project and timeline.
Long-Term Goals
If your company is looking to switch to using the DevOps model, it’s important to note that this is a long-term solution, and the results of the change will not appear all at once. Larger projects typically take a lot of time and resources to complete, so it’s important to understand your requirements and capabilities before making the switch.
WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM DEVOPS
With the continuous iterations of the DevOps lifecycle, your development and operations teams will spend less time performing insignificant and repetitive tasks. With this increase in productivity, your teams will be able to release increasingly valuable software at a faster rate. By utilizing a faster and stronger lifecycle, your company gains a competitive advantage and a more satisfied client and employee base.
IS IT RIGHT FOR YOU?
If your company is looking to improve the quality of your products and services at a lower cost, the DevOps model could be the right solution. The predominant goal of implementing DevOps is to equip the development and operations teams with the skills and knowledge to develop software faster. Having the steps and tools in place to have better control of frequent software releases allows your team to have an improved response time to errors.
When teams come together to complete a project using the DevOps framework, the entire process is more streamlined and can lead to a lower development cost. Being able to deliver software at a quicker rate and lower cost will put your company in a better position and give you an edge against the competition.
LEARN MORE WITH GENECA
The DevOps principles were created with efficiency and collaboration in mind to improve the software development process and software quality. For a successful DevOps implementation, it’s essential to follow the best practices and make sure all team members completely understand the DevOps implementation roadmap. If you’re ready to transition your team and want to partner with a team already experienced with DevOps, reach out to Geneca today.