Research suggests that the global DevOps market is expected to reach USD 51.18 billion by 2030 growing at a CAGR of 24.7%. DevOps has been gaining a lot of importance among new-age enterprises and tech leaders. In this blog, we shall cover some of the top DevOps trends in 2023. But first, let’s understand what exactly DevOps means. Read on.
What is DevOps?
DevOps is defined as a set of tools, practices, and cultural philosophy that tend to automate and integrate different software development practices. The development and operations teams are not siloed under a DevOps model. It helps you innovate better and optimize business productivity.
Gartner defines DevOps in the following way:
“DevOps represents a change in the IT culture, focusing on rapid IT service delivery through the adoption of agile, lean practices in the context of a system oriented approach.”
Latest trends in DevOps
Serverless computing
It is certain that the DevOps market will witness a rise in the usage of serverless computing. Now, serverless architecture is the method of offering backend services on an as-used basis. It enables flexible use of resources that can be scaled in real-time.
Some of the leading cloud service providers including Google, Microsoft , and others offer serverless architecture to users
With serverless computing, businesses can streamline all DevOps operations – right from software development to deployment. Simply put, serverless computing brings Dev and Ops teams together.
DevSecOps
Research suggests that the DevSecOps market is predicted to reach USD 23.16 billion by 2029 at a CAGR of 31.50%.
DevSecOps is the short form for development, security, and operations. It tends to automate security operations at every phase of the software development cycle. It prevents the DevOps workflow from slowing down by automating security gates. In a nutshell, DevSecOps is all about in-built security. Leveraging DevSecOps in DevOps enables developers to protect their code from cyber attacks. With DevSecOps tools, developers can easily identify security vulnerabilities and code issues right in the CI/CD pipeline.
GitOps
GitOps is a code-based infrastructure and is a combination of two powerful technologies – Git and Kubernetes. It helps you solve challenges like server outages, failed deployments, and much more.
Simply put, GitOps is a software development framework. It tends to manage IT infrastructure by utilising Git as a single source of truth. With GitOps, deployments happen within the source code.
One of the best benefits of leveraging GitOps is that it facilitates faster and reliable collaboration between developers and various other stakeholders.
Kubernetes
Kubernetes is also known as K8s. It is an open source system which automates the deployment and management of containerised applications. One of the striking benefits of Kubernetes is that it offers you the platform to schedule and run containers on clusters of physical/virtual machines. It enables you to develop your entire infrastructure as code.
With Kubernetes’ rolling updates and automated rollback features, developers can easily deploy updates to their cloud-based apps. Thanks to its role-based access controls, Kubernetes facilitates better collaboration.
Microservices architecture
Microservices architecture has become one of the most emerging trends in DevOps. It helps businesses break down applications into smaller services. When you leverage microservices along with DevOps capabilities, you can easily replace the traditional monolithic architecture.
Microservices can fix a bug issue without affecting the SDLC of other services. When a microservice faces an error, it never affects the entire application. This is because software development is divided into independent teams. Leveraging DevOps and microservices architecture together can help make your business more productive and agile.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning
AI and ML are fast-evolving concepts in the DevOps industry. New age machine learning systems can streamline data generated from various sources and organize it effectively. AI enables smarter software testing.
Now, DevOps involves various testing types and all of them produce huge amounts of data. With AI, you can easily identify data patterns and coding methods that led to the error. AI helps developers make intelligent decisions based on real-time data.
Wrapping Up
We hope our article helped you understand the latest trends in the DevOps market. However, one thing that you need to understand is that DevOps transformation is a never ending process. Every trend will help enhance your business ability to develop, launch, and handle high-quality software. So, delay no more! Implement the latest trends available in the DevOps market and take your step towards improved business agility.
At AlignMinds, we can assist you in effective DevOps adoption. We evaluate your infrastructure and design possible mitigation strategies. We empower developers with automation and enable them to synchronize their work.
There have been different software development methodologies in practice ever since developers started formalizing software development lifecycle to improve quality, efficiency and delivery time.
In a typical waterfall pipeline (the traditional software development model), the development lifecycle span across 6 stages.
Requirement analysis
Feasibility study
Product design
Software development/coding
Testing
Deployment
Even though the model added much-needed “professionalism” into the software development lifecycle, it was far from perfect due to a lack of agility and delay in deployment.
Since testing is performed during the final stages of the development lifecycle, any findings of errors, compatibility issues, vulnerability etc., resulted in a delay in delivery time as the code had to be sent back to the developers for correction.
Another drawback of the traditional model was that it caused wastage of resources. For example, consider that there is a flaw in the product architecture. Product architecture is decided in the early stages of the software development lifecycle. If the fault is identified in the earlier stage itself, the resources and time spent on designing and coding a product that is faulty from the beginning can be avoided.
Due to such flows in the waterfall model, the project heads were forced to find alternative strategies.
What is a shift left approach?
The shift-left approach aims to overcome the drawbacks of the waterfall model.
It advocates that testing should not be assigned to the last stages of the software development lifecycle; instead, it must be moved to the initial stages.
In other words, the shift left approach is nothing but a software development methodology in which testing is performed earlier in the lifecycle. The term “shift left” is used because testing is moved from the right side of the project timeline to the left side (Please refer to the image of the waterfall model).
Why shift left?
The Shift left approach tries to overcome the drawbacks of late testing.
It aims to identify faults in the requirement analysis, program architecture, design, and coding in the earlier stages itself so that wastages of resources and time can be avoided.
The model recognizes and promotes the significance of timely testing.
The model gives importance to the effective allocation of resources.
It advocates that enough resources should be allocated for testing.
The complexity involved in debugging is reduced. (Since quality and performance are checked in every stage of the development lifecycle, testing becomes a linear process rather than a one-time, resource-intensive task. Since every major change and integration are thoroughly scrutinized, it is easier to identify the elements that have an impact on quality, performance and compatibility).
Reduced code coverage and better encapsulation.
Projects are executed and products are released in a timely manner as there are fewer chances for any major reworks.
The quality of the product is increased due to the implementation of better approaches rather than easy solutions.
Due to the efficient use of time and resources, the overall cost of the project is reduced. Also, there are fewer chances for additional costs caused by reworks and late changes in resource allocation.
Since the product is released within the expected time, there are fewer chances for “missed opportunities”.
Since chances for a delay in the product release is very less, business lifecycle (Product planning, product development, product marketing and sales) and business strategies are not affected.
Shift left strategy
DevOps aims at adding velocity to the software development lifecycle without compromising on quality. In a way, both DevOps and Shift left approach aim for the same objectives. So, incorporating both into your product development strategy is a wise choice.
DevOps is a compound of development (Dev) and operation (Ops). Normally you can incorporate testing into the late (Shift right approach) or earlier stages (Shift left) of the development process.
While shift left strategy offer benefits such as better design, fast development time and delivery, better quality etc., better automation opportunities, wider and real-world testing, and better customer experience are the advantages offered by shift right strategy. To improve the effectiveness of both strategies, developers can adopt a common philosophy of “test early, test often and test in silos and production”. This will help the team to find flaws as early as possible, implement continuous testing and have a holistic approach.
Here are a few tips on how to plan and implement the shift left strategy.
How to plan shift left strategy?
When adopting a shift left approach, there are certain things that must be taken into consideration. We can categorize these factors into three categories mainly.
1. Budget
In a traditional model, the budget was not allocated evenly. A major chunk of the budget was spent on design and development alone. This led to apparent negligence of testing and quality assurance.
The shift left approach gives equal importance to each stage of the product development lifecycle. The budget is allocated more evenly, and testing is well taken care of. Here the terms budget and budgeting have a wider meaning. It involves a well-planned allocation of money and time so that every stage of the development lifecycle is strictly implemented.
2. Resource planning
Testing is a broad term. It involves different techniques and methods aimed at achieving different objectives. Examples of different testing techniques include manual testing and automated testing. Both techniques can be further divided based on their objectives such as load testing, unit testing, integration testing, functional testing, smoke testing, performance testing etc. While adopting the shift left approach, you must make sure that resources are allocated for every testing method and maximum testing techniques are implemented.
3. Test strategies
The test strategy should be well planned and documented. There should be a clear understanding of what testing techniques are going to be implemented at each stage of the lifecycle and which team will be responsible for the implementation. It is critical that the strategy is universally applied so that there is no wide swing in the quality of the product between each stage of the development lifecycle.
How to implement the shift left approach?
Plan it from the beginning
Once the requirement analysis is completed, the team should start planning on how to make the whole process shift left friendly. The plan should focus on incorporating testing as early as possible and implement it in a way that is incremental. The code coverage should be minimum, and encapsulation should be implemented while coding to make testing easier to execute. Also, resources should be allocated evenly across the development lifecycle.
Developers’ participation
Developers should test their own codes before pushing them to the main branch or QA team. Version control should be strictly implemented and any merging of codes should not affect the quality and performance of the main module. Since it is easier to test individual code modules, participation from developers ensures that the main branch is cleaner and error-free.
Testers’ participation
Following the same principle, testers should be introduced to common coding standards. They should be familiar with the functionality of the unit they are going to test. That way if they find any small mistakes in the code they are testing, they can correct the code themselves instead of sending it back to the developers. This will help to reduce development time and in fact, this is one of the main principles of DevOps. DevOps encourages developers to take participation in testing and testers to take participation in designing and development. They don’t have to be an expert in everything. However, expertise in one’s own field and a basic understanding of the whole development lifecycle are very much appreciated.
The QA team should also participate in any planning discussions. This will help them to understand the objectives of the projects better as well as the product design. This knowledge will help them to see whether it is the actual design that is being implemented into a final product. The presence of the QA teams in discussions will also help the other teams as testers can give a clear image of challenges that are most likely to emerge.
Early testing
The left shift strategy focuses on implementing testing from earlier stages of the development lifecycle. Instead of pushing testing to the final stages, it should be implemented from the unit level itself. This will help with avoiding common bugs and debugging complexities by keeping testing coverage to a minimum level. Also, since DevOps can heavily rely on automation, early testing is critical for proper implementation.
Readability and testability
DevOps emphasises team collaboration and multilevel participation. This is very much aligned with the principle of shift left approach that encourages testers to participate from the early stages of the development lifecycle. However, for the successful implementation of DevOps and shift left strategies, the dev team should follow certain principles such as code readability and testability. When codes are developed with a concern for their readability as well as suitability for testing, DevOps and shift left approaches become easier to implement. The developers can make use of element IDs, inline comments and notes, and incorporate aesthetics into their code to improve readability. Adopting the principles of encapsulation and lose coupling is one way to improve testability.
Best practices for shift left testing in DevOps
Planning and documentation
The whole development lifecycle should be well planned and documented. There should be participation from every team in the planning and discussions and the documentation should cover requirements analysis, project documentation, supporting documentation (Unit/feature level documentation with test cases) as well as inline documentation.
Universal quality standards
Since testing is pushed to the early stages and there are quality checks across the entire development lifecycle, the need for adopting universal quality standards is very crucial in the left shift approach. However, not every team and team member will be familiar with different quality standards. The QA team should help the other teams by first educating them on common quality standards. They can also create a document to outline various principles and parameters of quality assurance and provide a guideline on how to avoid common mistakes. The document should also help other team members to understand their share of responsibility in terms of testing and quality assurance.
Use Static Analysis
Static analysis or static code analysis is a method of debugging that is performed by examining the code without executing it. The basic code structure is examined thoroughly to ensure that it follows the best coding standards and practices. Static code analysis aims to find programming errors, syntax anomalies, substandard practices, and security issues in the code. Since the process can be tedious, it is better to automate static analysis before pushing it to the QA team. Since automation is involved, chances for false positives are high. So, the QA team should have a basic understanding of the code they are reviewing and should be familiar with various parameters of static code analysis. Proper inline documentation plays a vital role in static analysis.
Continuous testing and feedback
As stated earlier, both DevOps and shift left strategy encourage team collaboration and participation at multiple levels of the product development lifecycle. Program architects, designers, developers, testers and the operation team should continuously participate in the process and give feedback whenever necessary. The benefit of continuous testing and feedback is that the code modules will be cleaner and error-free when it reaches the next team involved in the lifecycle. As a result, the need for easy fixes and code reworks will be less to nil. Also here, the emphasis is put on shared responsibility.
Conclusion
Ever since the software industry embraced agile and DevOps principles, there was an overwhelming demand for ensuring quality in every stage of the software development lifecycle. The introduction of strategies such as MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and microservices etc. further illustrated the importance of executing testing at earlier stages of the development. The shift left approach is a result of various evolution and improvisation that happened in the software development industry.
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When it comes to application development, there are different approaches you can take up to achieve your goal. However, in recent years, a few approaches like DevOps became mainstream.
The value of the global DevOps market was USD 4,311.95 million in 2020. It is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18.95%. The forecasted market value of DevOps by 2026 is USD 12,215.54 million.
The growth of DevOps is the result of organisations across the globe realizing its advantages. According to studies, DevOps is helping organisations with improving the quality of their software deployments, releasing more software in less time, improving cooperation and collaboration across teams and also improving the quality of code production.
However, DevOps is not a fault-free approach. Even though it integrates software development and IT operations efficiently, it never gave enough importance to application security. As a result, the industry is developing and adopting better versions of DevOps to have a comprehensive approach in terms of the software development life cycle. One such approach is DevSecOps.
DevOps and DevSecOps: What are they?
DevOps
Amazon define DevOps as
“DevOps is the combination of cultural philosophies, practices, and tools that increases an organization’s ability to deliver applications and services at high velocity: evolving and improving products at a faster pace than organizations using traditional software development and infrastructure management processes. This speed enables organizations to better serve their customers and compete more effectively in the market.”
According to Microsoft Azure, DevOps is
“A compound of development (Dev) and operations (Ops), DevOps is the union of people, process, and technology to continually provide value to customers.”
In simple terms, DevOps is the integration of software development and IT operations by following a set of practices.
Under DevOps, Development and operation teams work in tandem. Both the teams will be part of the entire software lifecycle that includes development, testing, deployment and operations. Through automation, the teams eliminate a lot of manual and repetitive tasks and improve the overall efficiency. The use of technology stacks and tools, together with the knowledge of the complete software lifecycle helps team members complete tasks independently without affecting code compatibility.
DevSecOps
Seamless integration of security testing and protection with DevOps practices is called DevSecOps. Here quality assurance and security teams are also part of the entire product lifecycle. In DevSecOps, the “Sec” part denotes the importance it gives to application “security”.
Traditionally, the security of an application was tested only once the product is completed. It was tested by independent teams that have limited knowledge of development, deployment and operations. A separate security testing increased the overall duration of product development, and it also affected the philosophy of continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD). Not only that, there was no universal understanding of application security across the teams.
DevSecOps not only solved these weaknesses but also enabled security testing to run seamlessly and automatically. The real-time security testing brought down the production time significantly and organizations started to release more software in a short span of time.
What are the similarities between DevOps and DevSecOps?
Collaborative culture
A collaborative culture is the backbone of both DevOps and DevSecOps. It helps with rapid iteration, continuous testing and faster product delivery apart from reducing the overall duration of the software development lifecycle. A better understanding of the complete application lifecycle is encouraged across teams and as a result, the efficiency and code quality are also improved.
Active monitoring
Both DevOps and DevSecOps encourage active monitoring of data to encourage learning and easy adaptation. Continuous analysis of application data helps teams to improvise the products and adapt the best practices to create better software in the future. Real-time monitoring of data helps the team fix vulnerabilities faster, improvise existing security practices and optimize application performance.
Automation
Automation is vital in DevOps and DevSecOps practices. Automation helps teams eliminate manual and repetitive tasks and improve efficiency. With the use of stacks and tools, DevOps practitioners can reduce the time needed for each iteration and ensure the quality of the production. DevSecOps teams can use automation to run continuous and real-time security checks and avoid the most common vulnerabilities. Usage of Artificial Intelligence techniques like anomaly detection can also help both and such practices are advised when engaging in a complex release environment like distributed or multi-cloud infrastructure.
Encourage learning
Since both DevOps and DevSecOps practices require a collaborative environment, teams are encouraged to learn about the complete lifecycle of an application. Each member is advised to understand the basic practices concerning each stage of the development lifecycle to limit the probability of code conflicts. For example, developers are encouraged to understand common and potential security vulnerabilities, strengths and weaknesses of the deployment environment and how not to burden the operation teams. They are also encouraged to achieve tasks individually with the help of software stacks, automation and tools.
Rapid iteration and faster release
Both the practices encourage collaboration between teams. Traditionally, teams were working in “silos’ and they had to wait for “their turn” to start working on their tasks. However, DevOps and DevSecOps promote the philosophy of shared responsibility. Every team will be working in tandem. As a result, more tasks can be completed in a short time. This helped organisations run more iterations, improve the quality of the applications and also release more products in a short time.
Differences between DevOps and DevSecOps
The main difference between DevOps and DevSecOps is that the former has limited security practices.
A common DevOps software development life cycle is as follows,
Developers write codes and use version control to track changes.
New codes are integrated at the build phase.
Feedback is gathered from all code branches before compilation.
Software is pushed for deployment.
If the application meets all the standards, it is released to production.
If any vulnerabilities are found, the code is sent to developers for fixing and the above process is reiterated.
The delivery of the application is a shared responsibility of every member.
The common practices we can derive from the above process are,
Continuous Integration (CI): Code changes are merged and only the recent version is available to developers.
Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment (CD): Efficiency is increased by automating product releases.
Microservices: Creating a set of smaller applications that work together as single software.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Codes are used for designing, implementing and managing application infrastructure.
However, DevSecOps include a few more practices compared to DevOps. They are,
Threat modelling: Security tests are implemented during the development phase to save time and cost.
Common Weaknesses Enumeration (CWE): Increase the level of quality and security during CI and CD phases.
Automated security testing: Automation is used for continuous and real-time testing for finding vulnerabilities.
Incident response management: A standard framework is created for responding to vulnerabilities.
From the above description, it is evident that the organisations have a good reason, security, to prefer DevSecOps over DevOps. After all, application security is paramount in today’s world. Any compromise on security can spoil the success of the application and stain the image of its creators.
How to integrate security practices into DevOps?
The transition from DevOps to DevSecOps may seem complex. However, it is not enough a reason to justify not adopting the best security practices. Fortunately transiting to DevSecOps is not that complicated. You can start by adopting the following practices.
Shift left
Test early and often. The shift left philosophy encourages adopting security measures in the early stages of the software development lifecycle. Traditionally “security” came at the end of the development lifecycle. As a result, a lot of vulnerabilities that otherwise could be avoided plagued the application products. It is important that every team member who is a part of the development and releases lifecycle should have a decent knowledge of common security issues and how to avoid them.
Establish standards
A lot of security issues can be avoided with the help of strict coding standards. All the parties should follow the best practices in the industry. Also, they should keep themselves updated on this topic regularly. There should be a universal standard for code quality, and it should be possible to implement code changes seamlessly.
Implement the right set of testing methods
There is an overwhelming number of security tests you can adopt and incorporate into your product development lifecycle. However, choosing the right ones would be the best choice. Here are a few examples best testing methods.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST): Helps you identify vulnerabilities by examining the code.
Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST): Helps administrators identify vulnerabilities by granting them an attacker’s perspective.
Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST): A combination of SAST and DAST. Application performance can be monitored using software instrumentation.
Runtime Application Self-Protection (RASP): Detect and resolve threats as they occur using real-time application data independently of an administrator.
Have a comprehensive security approach
Rather than relying completely on security firewalls, implement security measures within the application to eliminate threats and increase security posture. A shared infrastructure with a common perimeter is an easy target for attackers. By securing the application also from the inside, you are adding more layers of protection and discouraging the attackers. Also, this approach augments the philosophy of “shared responsibility”.
DevSecOps vs SecDevOps vs DevOpsSec: Is there a difference?
You might have come across these names while researching something related to secure DevOps. And, you might have wondered why use different names for the same approach? Or are they different from one another? Let’s find answers to these questions.
Are DevSecOps, SecDevOps, and DevOpsSec the same?
No, they are not exactly the same.
Then what’s the difference between DevSecOps, SecDevOps and DevOpsSec?
There is not much difference between these three approaches. However, the wording of the names gives you an idea of what is sacrosanct in each approach.
DevSecOps
DevSecOps is a widely popular approach. Here the emphasis is given to development since “Dev” is positioned first in the name. Security comes second which means that the software should pass security checks before it is pushed to the operation team. This is a common approach among organisations that lack a security focus but still want to integrate security testing into the software development process.
SecDevOps
SecDevOps is also known as rugged DevOps.
Here security is given utmost importance and all decision including design choice, development standards, deployment platforms etc. are made after factoring in security considerations.
While this is the best approach an organisation can adopt considering how crucial security is in today’s world and age, it demands fair support from all members of the team that participate in the product development lifecycle. The members should have a good understanding of security standards and common vulnerabilities. They should also be able to foresee the impact of their decisions on application security, every time they make one.
DevOpsSec
Compared to the other two approaches, this one gives the least importance to security. While something is better than nothing, this approach is nothing but a normal DevOps approach with some security testing implemented at the end. Since security testing is done only after application deployment, the likelihood of the application and its data getting compromised is very high. Therefore, DevOpsSec is the least popular and less preferred approach among all three.
Conclusion
The transition from the Waterfall software development model to agile and then DevOps offered us tremendous advantages. Incorporating security practices into already popular DevOps is a continuation of this positive trend. DevSecOps is fixing the loopholes of DevOps and gradually taking over its position.
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DevOps consulting services are becoming popular day by day. The estimated value of the global DevOps market was USD 4,311.95 Million in 2020. It is expected to cross USD 5,114.57 Million by the end of this year. Considering a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 18.95%, experts have forecasted that the value will reach USD 12,215.54 Million by 2026.
The reason why DevOps has become so popular is that it promotes a culture of trust and risk-sharing between team members. It motivates teams to continuously work together, experiment and shares knowledge to reach a common goal, i.e., make a software product ready as quickly and efficiently as possible.
The statistic shows the importance of DevOps in scaling software development. Courtesy: Statista
As it promotes team play and encourages communication and mutual support, the uncertainty regarding the quality of the end product is minimized. As a result, so many businesses are adopting DevOps at a fast pace to eliminate uncertainty and improve the quality of their products.
“DevOps is the combination of cultural philosophies, practices, and tools that increases an organization’s ability to deliver applications and services at high velocity: evolving and improving products at a faster pace than organizations using traditional software development and infrastructure management processes. This speed enables organizations to better serve their customers and compete more effectively in the market.”
“A compound of development (Dev) and operations (Ops), DevOps is the union of people, process, and technology to continually provide value to customers.”
The above definitions make it clear that DevOps is not just a method or technique. Rather, it is a combination of principles, practices, methodologies, values, and philosophies that are shared between teams to help them achieve a common goal of creating software with maximum value.
Benefits of DevOps
DevOps offer so many benefits to a business. But what makes DevOps more popular is how crucial these benefits are to a business.
High collaboration
Communication between teams is crucial when developing a product. Developing a web or mobile application is not a simple process. It involves a set of processes such as market study, product conceptualization, product designing, development, deployment, and maintenance. The quality of the final product will depend on the level of mutual collaboration, communication, and integration across various teams who are part of the whole process.
DevOps encourages an environment where the boundaries between each team are reduced. There is a free flow of information and mutual support between teams to ensure that the quality is maintained at each stage of product development. Did your IT team have to send back the module your development team had worked tirelessly for the last few months as there was a conflict between the code and the deployment environment? DevOps will save you next time!
Early conflict detection
DevOps encourages knowledge sharing between teams. Each team will have a clear idea of what must be done and what are the requirements at each stage. These requirements are clearly communicated to other teams. The automated, continuous monitoring along with rigorous testing eliminates the chances for any conflict. And even if a problem arises, it is identified and mitigated in the initial stage itself.
Innovation
DevOps promotes collaboration between teams. When a group of talent comes together, the chances of finding something disruptive is much bigger.
Also, DevOps streamline the whole process of product development starting from market study to deployment and maintenance. The roadmap, automation, rigorous testing, and continuous monitoring help with eliminating extra work and reworks. The teams are more relaxed and there is a good work-life balance that promotes a fresh mindset and innovative thinking.
Faster delivery time
Automated processes, an environment that discourages conflict, quick feedback cycle and continuous delivery models help with transforming software development into a smooth and fast process. Effective communication and continuous testing ensure that quality is not lost in any stages. As conflicts and rework are less to nil, the projects are completed within deadline and with maximum efficiency.
Better quality
From the above points, it is clear that DevOps directly improve the quality of the end product. Rigorous and continuous testing, mutual collaboration, effective communication, continuous feedback cycle and automation are a few of the many factors that contribute to the quality of the product.
Reduced cost
Most businesses wonder whether they can afford DevOps services. This doubt arises from the misunderstanding that the budget can be reduced without affecting the list of features or quality of a product. Chances are, if you are opting for the traditional development process, the cost may increase due to conflicts and reworks. You may end up spending more than forecasted.
DevOps consulting services
To get all the benefits of DevOps, you must find the right DevOps consulting company. However, finding the right one may seem difficult due to the variety of options available in the market. Also, there are certain parameters you must check while choosing a DevOps consulting service. These factors not only help you to find the best DevOps consulting company but also you will be hiring the right one for your requirement.
Finding the right DevOps consulting company
Here is a list of things to check while hiring a DevOps consulting firm.
Identifying your requirement
The first step in choosing a DevOps consulting firm is to identify your requirement. Ask yourself questions like
What are your requirements
How are you planning to meet these requirements?
What is the available solution for your requirements?
What are the pros and cons of each available solution?
Which are the solutions that match your budget and timeline?
For example, if your requirement is to develop a complex product that demands certain technical expertise and faultless implementation, hiring a DevOps expert will be better than hiring a full stack developer.
If you are planning to hire an external agency instead of hiring a team in house, DevOps will be a better choice since it offers a robust feedback cycle along with ensuring that the product is ready as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Expertise
DevOps consulting firms should be an expert in software development and IT operations.
A DevOps consultant usually works on complex projects. Without having a better understanding of the process, technology stacks, methodologies, and operation constraints it will be harder for them to implement a project and achieve the results that are intended.
Also, since a DevOps engineer is most likely to work with an external company, it should be easier for them to understand the current technologies used by the said company, what are the strength and weaknesses of these technologies, and how to improve them to match the actual requirement without increasing the cost to an exorbitant level. The best DevOps companies are a maestro in doing research, analysis, evaluation, and planning.
Communication
Communication plays a large role in any DevOps project. In fact, it is one of the core aspects of DevOps project management.
Since DevOps demand mutual collaboration and knowledge sharing between teams and there is a continuous feedback cycle involved, communicating in a clear and precise manner is very important. Not only that, but a DevOps expert should also be well versed with popular communication and project management tools since most of the communications and monitoring will be done through technology platforms.
Support mentality
What DevOps tries to achieve is a rapport between different teams in the same project. It helps with finding innovative ideas and helps with avoiding conflicts and glitches in product development.
While elimination is a reactive process, avoiding a conflict altogether will need a proactive approach. The approach demands proactive communication and a supportive mentality between team members and different teams. For example, the IT team can help the development team to understand the strength and weaknesses of the client’s IT infrastructure and help them develop codes that are fully compatible with the existing environment. This also demands that each team has expert knowledge and adequate experience in their own field.
Being friendly
Only a friendly environment can promote team collaboration and communication. When team members feel intimidated or not valued it will negatively impact the whole process. It will also add certain biases to the product development cycle and the quality of the final product will be below the bar. So, a DevOps Expert should be friendly in her approach and promotes friendly gestures and expression of gratitude whenever possible.
Professionalism
Friendly yet professional. That should be the description of a DevOps expert.
While friendliness encourages communication and feedback, overdoing it may add certain biases to the product development cycle. For example, as a DevOps professional your duty is to ensure that a software product is ready as quickly and efficiently as possible. It demands keeping up with deadlines, monitoring resource allocation, monitoring the status of tasks assigned to team members and checking and verifying quality at every stage of the development. These duties demand an honest approach towards identifying problems and solving them as early as possible. But biases due to lack of professionalism and being overfriendly may result in overlooking these issues and the quality of the product will suffer.
Willingness to learn
A good DevOps expert never stops learning.
Most likely that a DevOps engineer will be continuously exposed to different problems and different teams each time they take up a project. Since the core philosophy of DevOps is to work as a single team trying to achieve the same goal, each member of the team should have a proper understanding of the whole project. They should also understand why certain things must be done in certain ways and how not following the guidelines will jeopardize their team or the next team in the product development cycle.
Empathy and patience
Software development is a complex process. It involves different stages, continuous feedback, and several iterations. Not all members of the team will be familiar with the scope of the project especially when there is a junior member involved. Since DevOps demands different teams, who may be an expert in their field but lack knowledge in other aspects of software development, to work together, it is likely that some members have some catching up to do. They may need more time for getting familiar with the project or need occasional technical assistance from an experienced member.
A good DevOps consultant will take notice of this and try to solve it in the most effective way possible. It is because she understands that when it comes to teamwork, there are no individual problems but problems that are common to everyone as a team. This is also why a good DevOps engineer can easily help their clients with solving the technological challenges they are facing.
Conclusion
The popularity of DevOps is increasing day by day. It is mainly due to the advantages DevOps is offering compared to other product development methodologies.
Hiring DevOps consulting services helps businesses to develop software products as quickly and efficiently as possible. However, the success of the projects will depend on factors like whether the business was able to hire the right DevOps consulting service. AlignMinds has more than 12 years of experience in working with projects that are varying in scale, technology, and complexity. If you are looking for a DevOps expert for your next project, contact us.
