The DevOps Landscape
Over the last decade, software development has gone through a quantum change from its traditional waterfall model of distinct development phases to the more dynamic and overlapping Agile framework.
Today’s rapidly changing business climate requires that software development companies adopt a more dynamic approach to releasing software products. According to a cloud report by RightScale 71% of respondents have acknowledged using DevOps with cloud to accelerate software development. The adoption of Agile project management practices, which is an efficient method for software delivery in a short period is also driving Digital Transformation.
Agile practices, which essentially started in software development cycles, have expanded to other organizational areas including IT and operations. Processes, which involve multiple organizational functions, have been streamlined (thanks to Agile), leading to improvement in feedback loops in multiple departments, thus having an impact on the entire organization.
About DevOps
DevOps (or Development Operations) is convergence of development and IT - operations that enables software organizations to build software using effective collaboration and communication among software developers and other IT functions. It creates an efficient process of automating software deliveries, more frequently and with more reliability.
DevOps is viewed by the industry as a critical building block with the trend of providing digitized services, such as the Uber cab booking service and the Airbnb rental service, which require shorter release cycles and flexibility. Software-driven industry sectors such as banking, retail, and telecom are also driving the demand for DevOps practices.
DevOps ensures the practice of setting and configuring the organization’s physical and development environment, and its processes, in order to deliver product builds into production as quickly as possible.
In addition to writing code, DevOps engineers perform additional roles including:
- Assisting QA engineers with the setting up and configuring of a test server for the testing of a software product
- Building and configuring servers for continuous integration of code
- Enabling an automated build process, which merges code to create product builds multiple times in a day
- Writing custom scripts to perform any development function
- Designing an effective infrastructure for the software project
- Building more automation into the process
A 2014 DevOps report reveals that IT companies are deploying software code 30 times more frequently using DevOps practices, and encountering 50% less failures than conventional product builds. The demand for DevOps skills is also increasing in the industry, and DevOps engineers are in the higher end of the compensation bracket today.
About Continuous Delivery
Continuous Delivery is the next step in software practices, following the successful implementation of DevOps in the software company. Continuous Delivery is the application development practice that enables the automatic rolling of a completed product feature into production. Amazon’s Velocity Culture presentation reveals that the company used continuous delivery to roll out a new feature to production every 11 seconds.
Continuous Delivery includes the following key attributes:
- Enhanced product quality: The rapid rate of product releases ensures earlier customer feedbacks, which contributes to a better finished product
- Shorter incremental product builds, with each feature thoroughly tested
- Ideal for today’s competitive environment
DevOps - What’s Next?
To maintain its competitive edge and deliver high-quality software products, software companies must constantly seek better delivery models for the timely release of their products. Software engineering has undergone tremendous change where the waterfall model is now giving way to other models of delivery such as Agile which has gained in popularity. Agile has evolved to become a key component in DevOps and Continuous delivery methods.
CSS Corp Leverages DevOps to Power Next Gen Digital Solutions
According to a Gartner report, DevOps is the tool-centric philosophy that supports a Continuous Delivery value chain. DevOps with its various methods of software product delivery methodologies delivers products with smaller and faster changes, bug free and of high fidelity.
The evolution of the DevOps approach, along with the increasing trend toward Continuous Delivery, will continue to shape the product development landscape in the IT world for the next 10 years.
With digital transformation becoming the corner stone for growth, DevOps and Agile methods will play a key role in reimagining digital solutions.
Find out how CSS Corp is transforming companies digitally at CSS Corp Digital
