What Is Devops? Learn Basics, Benefits and Four Stages

DevOps is a proven concept of the late that bridges the important gap created between the software developers and the quality assurance or operations teams. Normally what happens is this:

The team of developers will create and compile the code. And when the software programming is done, the development team collaborates with the QA engineers and ships the code to perform quality analysis and check. The responsibility of the QA and operations team is to analyse and decide whether the software that is programmed is ready for the launch or not.

Here once the code is shipped to the operations team, the development stakeholders feel isolated for not being a part of the picture anymore. DevOps model and methodology can eliminate this.

DevOps in a nutshell

Devops is a combination of “Software DEVelopment and information technology OPerationS”. A practice in which QA engineers and software developers participate collectively in the entire service lifecycle, from design to development process till the end of production support. It aims at establishing a culture and environment where building, testing, and releasing software can happen rapidly, frequently, and more reliably.

The core responsibilities or let us just say “skills” of DevOps engineers are Coding or scripting, Process re-engineering, Communicating and collaborating with others (members of departments or project stakeholders).

Who could be ideal for being DevOps Engineers?

Either software developers who are interested in deployment and network operations. Also, Sysadmins who have a passion for scripting and coding, and move into the software development side where they can improve the planning of software testing and deployment.

Some highlights on Devops

• According to a Devops report, organizations using Devops methodology can roll-out software modules 200 times more frequently than any other methodology.
• Software offshoring and outsourcing companies spend 50% of less time on correcting the security issues and 22% less time on unplanned work.
• Between January 2012 and January 2013, listings for DevOps jobs on Indeed.com increased 75 percent. Encouraging, isn’t it?
• On LinkedIn.com, mentions of DevOps as a skill increased 50 percent during the same period.
• Nearly 47% of the IT companies have already adopted Devops & 33% are planning to adopt in next 2 years.
• The highest level of adoption for DevOps are in IT services and Retail followed by Healthcare and Finance.

What is the need of DevOps? Benefits of Devops

Companies that practice Devops have reported significant benefits, including: significantly shorter time to market, improved customer satisfaction, better product quality, more reliable releases, improved productivity and efficiency, and the increased ability to build the right product by fast experimentation which directly results in improving ROI.

• Quicker deployment cycles
• Increase in product quality
• Faster innovation cycles
• Reduction in suspension of operations

DevOps is more than just a tool or a process change; it inherently requires an organizational culture shift. This cultural change is especially difficult, because of the conflicting nature of departmental roles:

• Operations — seeks organizational stability;
• Developers — seek change;
• Testers — seek risk reduction.

Getting these groups to work cohesively is a critical challenge in enterprise DevOps adoption. In May of 2011, organizations like Amazon are on record of making changes to production every 11.6 seconds on average. Google services release versions multiple times a week, and almost everything in Google is developed on mainline. Other companies like Netflix, Facebook, Twitter also engage into methodologies like DevOps and Continuous Delivery.

Summarizing Four Stages of DevOps?

Stage 1: Continuous development & planning

Highlights:

• Setting goals and milestones
• Comprehensive evaluation process
• Strategizing roadmap
• Illustration of roadmap
• Quality coding environment
• Controlled source code management

Stage 2: Continuous Integration (CI)

Highlights:

• Code review and validation
• Technical architecture
• Commit source code
• Delay prevention
• Advanced problem identification
• Integration testing
• Code packaging

Stage3: Continuous Testing

Highlights:

• Bug detection
• Simulate test environment
• Build automation
• UAT automation
• Faster deployment

Stage 4: Continuous Deployment

Highlights:

• Configuration management
• Containerization
• Release management
• Functional testing
• Security testing
• Performance optimization
• Server deployment and update

Also, Read Detailed explanation of DevOps Stages.

Want to know more on DevOps?

Contact IndiaNIC DevOps experts now. Consultants will get back to you with the detailed specifications. You can also get a quote for your customised mobile app and web application development.

We are a leading DevOps Consulting & DevOps Services providing Company, enabling the smoother and faster delivery of large applications at the pace of client business with evolving nature of software development with Agile DevOps services to automate the continuous delivery, which is divided into planned, predictive, well-organized ecosystem, and operational workflow.