Agile vs DevOps

Photo of author

By admin

Today, the field of software development is evolving, and you can discover a variety of apps in the market. There are two different methodologies for software development – Agile and DevOps. They both aim to create an end product efficiently and quickly as well as one of high quality. Both methods are very popular and many companies are interested in integrating them into their working processes. However, there is some confusion when we are discussing which software development methodology to employ. To choose the right one for your business type, you need to know what each covers, what their similarities are, whether or not they can be combined, or how they differ.

In this article, we will learn how Agile and DevOps have been used, how they differ from each other, where they overlap, and how they can be implemented together if required.

What is Agile Methodology?

Agile method allows you to manage projects and develop software using an iterative approach that places an emphasis on collaboration, customer feedback, and rapid but stable releases. The method was introduced in the early 20s to help various industries to develop software and teams to adapt to the changing market.

Using the Agile methodology, some of the planning is done upfront but the development is done in small fragments along with the close collaboration with the clients to understand their changing needs and to incorporate time to time feedback of that development. Having the option to make a change instantly means that huge changes won’t need to be made at a later stage of development. When using the Agile method, one of the major benefits is that you can make changes in real-time based on changing demand.

You can’t consider Agile as a single method for developing software. It is a collection of methods. It is a combination of various practices that have been combined to make the development process quicker and more efficient.

What is DevOps Methodology?

Like Agile, DevOps is also an approach for developing software that allows the team to build, test, and deploy the software in a faster and more reliable manner. It somehow incorporates agile technology, rules, and principles like automation, enhanced collaboration among various working teams. But in comparison to the traditional method of agile, DevOps is highly preferred because of its modern way of developing software.

With DevOps, you are able to bridge the gap between the operational team and the development team so they can collaborate in an efficient manner for creating a better quality product. Not only this, it allows the teams to build and maintain the infrastructure. DevOps helps in increasing the visibility and helps the operational and development to work together so they can handle the complete process efficiently and seamlessly. It encourages both teams to work together from the very beginning to ensure that they are on the same page.

Similarities between Agile and DevOps

Below are some similarities of Agile and DevOps methodology.

  • Both are used for the development of software.
  • Both work for the fast delivery of products with high quality.
  • Both encourage team collaboration.

Agile vs DevOps: Contrasting points

Following their similarity, we have described some differences between them. You will understand which methodology to choose once you understand their differences.

  • Speed- if we look at Agile’s speed of development, then it’s concerned primarily with delivering the product in a faster manner and considers it a major goal. However, this is hardly the case with DevOps, as it does not emphasize speedy development.
  • Specialization- agile provides its team members with equal opportunities. All scrum members can perform all tasks that stop the process from slowing down. DevOps teams are separated into operational and development teams, but they communicate often to maintain alignment.
  • Communication- Agile process includes frequent meetings where they can share the daily progress, goals, and indicate whenever they need help from others. You can use scrums for discussing the progress report but not the metrics or milestones. For that they need to conduct another meeting. While in DevOps there are no such frequent meetings.
  • Documentation- agile teams do not maintain notes of their meetings or communications in detail. They just note down the important points like the required changes and others. While DevOps majorly focus on the documentation and create a detailed document for understanding the software release completely.
  • Team size- agile maintains small team size so they can move and respond faster whether it takes a lot of effort from every team member. While in DevOps, they have various teams working together for specific work so they can focus on a specific task to improve the performance and productivity of the team and project.
  • Agile teams have a set amount of time known as sprints that will last for a short period of time, like a month or a week. As DevOps, however, focuses on long-term schedules that improve business processes, you gain the greatest reliability.
  • Automation- DevOps is based completely on automation as its overall aim is to minimize disruptions and improve the system’s efficiency. While agile does not require automation.

Head to head comparison of Agile and DevOps

Grounds Agile DevOps
Basic Philosophy It majorly aims at continuously delivering the small and manageable increments of a project using iterative development and testing process. Encourages development and operations teams to work together to enhance productivity.
Use You can implement it in any department for managing a complex project. Majorly aims at the end-to-end development process.
Focus Allows and encourages the mid-project changes for improving quality. Combining the development and operations teams for ensuring continual testing and development.
Team Working as a small group of people with similar skills. Large team with various skillsets
Delivery Incremental and continuous deployments after each sprint Aims at providing continuous delivery daily
Documentation Comes with light documentation for enhancing flexibility in the development process. Sufficient documentation ensures team collaboration.
Quality and Risk Ensuring the release of the quality product as the changes are being done after every sprint minimizing the risks. Focuses on creating high-quality products with low risk based on effective collaboration and automated testing.
Feedback Aims at customer feedback and makes changes to the product accordingly. Focuses on the internal team feedback for better performance.

DevOps and Agile Can Work Together

Agile and DevOps both focus on delivering quality software frequently and rapidly. It is important to emphasize that one of the major differences between Agile and DevOps is that Agile helps in optimizing the software development life-cycle, while DevOps aims at integrating both development and operations teams through continuous integration and continuous delivery.

DevOps and agile are not mutually exclusive. If any organization is moving towards the DevOps methodology then it should not leave the existing Agile workflows aside. DevOps is considered to be an extension of agile methodology that is built on the top of the agile practices and methods that are not in agile’s focus. When we use both methodologies together, they will work together to improve the software development and lead to the development of better products.

Conclusion

There are benefits and principles to both Agile and DevOps for software development. Creating software with a high level of quality and in a productive environment is the major focus of both. When implemented properly, both methodologies are effective. DevOps is a complement to your agile methods in that it imposes some rules and methods on us that Agile doesn’t provide. As a result, upgrading your methods for better software development does not harm you. DevOps can even be integrated with cloud technology for faster and more reliable software development.

Leave a Comment