What is the Role of DevOps?
DevOps stands for Development and Operations. The Dev or Development part of the term “DevOps” refers to the software and application code developers who create custom or/and in-house applications for a business organization. Traditionally, developers work on their own, at their own pace and on their own terms. They have long practiced the “silo” approach in an IT organization.
Ops or Operations, on the other hand, is the team that takes care of the whole IT infrastructure of the company. This team is tasked with taking custom applications made by the developers and fully integrating into the existing IT framework.
Most often than not, this type of a setup produces lots of back and forth between the “siloed” development team and the Operations folks, primarily due to errors in the system integration brought about by customized codes that were not properly tested in the system.
To minimize these errors (which of course cost time and money), the DevOps culture was born.
How does DevOps minimize the errors?
DevOps was created to provide an agile process of developing an application or system that will fully integrate into an existing infrastructure seamlessly.
To make it easier to understand, it’s like having the recipe-maker watching over the shoulders of the chef who is doing the cooking based on the recipe. The recipe-maker meticulously watches and assists the chef each step of the way until the desired outcome is achieved — in this example, a properly cooked meal. Every time the chef thinks that the food’s taste is becoming too sweet or salty, the recipe-maker reviews his notes, and then goes back to the chef for the proper adjustments until the taste of the food is balanced.
The same thing applies to a DevOps process. The application developer assists the systems integrators every step of the way until the final product is fully embedded into the production environment sans any errors. Every time an error pops out in certain stages of the integration, the developer takes out a chunk of codes causing the error, reviews and modifies it, and then re-integrates the code into the system through the operations team, until they achieve zero errors in production.
How do we define DevOps in technical terms?
To put it simply, Agile + Lean + operations results into DevOps.
Agile, as we all know, is software development methodology built around the idea of iterative and rapidly changing development, where requirements and solutions are achieved through collaboration between cross-functional teams.
Using the Agile principle, teams are more receptive to feedback, thus increasing the efficiency of end-user products.
Lean, on the other hand, is a business methodology that promotes providing value to customers through continuous improvements and respect for people.
Now, combine the above software development principles and business methodology with the people who actually do the dirty work (e.g. system and network management) in an IT infrastructure. The end result is the DevOps culture.
What are the benefits of DevOps?
The reason why DevOps is quickly growing in popularity is due the benefits that an organization derives from its practice. Below are some examples:
*Marked improvement in technical support and faster issue resolutions
*Better processes across teams, including automation
* Better team flexibility and agility
*Happier, more engaged teams
*Knowledge-sharing among the different teams
*Better collaborations between teams
*Recognition from senior management
The list above helps us understand why the DevOps movement is rapidly spreading. It creates a better work environment that ultimately leads to the development of more technical leaders and managers who work with happier and better engaged team members. The end product is a better and brighter future for the company.
