Benefits of DevOps

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Today, DevOps is an increasingly popular and widely adopted methodology for software development. In the past few years, it has become mainstream, and it is gaining recognition for a reason. It offers immense benefits that make it a preferred choice for all the companies who are into development. It is embraced as a positive extension to the agile methodology but with other benefits that a company can leverage to improve its performance and the quality of the software. The use of DevOps will certainly lead to improvements in efficiency, quality, and revenue in the operation. Adapt to DevOps and you are sure to find it appealing as a potential tool for a consistent approach to development.

If you implement the DevOps methodology into your work efficiently, you will see the outcomes yourself and you will be amazed by how it can benefit your company in the long term. It requires equal contribution from all the team members who are working hard to make this possible. Make sure you understand the techniques that you are going to use. If you have a skilled team, they will understand the concept and scope of DevOps in your project.

The purpose of this article is to explain what DevOps is and how it can be beneficial for software development in any company.

Introduction to DevOps

DevOps is a methodology that is result-oriented with a mindset for constant change or improvement for creating quality products. But what does DevOps stand for? It is a combination of development and operations that refers to the complete bunch of development, IT, QA, and other teams working together in a good environment. It looks towards improving the efficiency and quality of the working process. DevOps make sure that it overcomes the IT complexities while maintaining the pace that is provided by agile methodology.

DevOps came into scope in 2009 when Patrick Debois came up with a solution for resolving the conflicts of the developers and the IT team. He reconciled both the teams and named it DevOps. It helps in bridging the gap between the developers and IT team and enhances the team collaboration to improve work efficiency. With DevOps, we can emphasize on the execution nature of developing the software while identifying common patterns of what we are doing and how. This methodology will help in minimizing the time and cost that is required to build software along with maintaining its quality.

Many companies are adapting to this approach today to increase their success and results. What were the challenges we faced with the traditional SDLC (software development life cycle) that caused us to develop DevOps as a strategy?

Challenges in Traditional SDLC

Following are some SDLC challenges that the DevOps methodology has been used to solve.

Siloed Structures and Management Bottlenecks

This traditional SDLC method breaks the software development team, the testing team, and the IT operation team into three distinct groups, each focusing on carrying out their tasks in a systematic manner but lacking communication with one another. The result would be a chaotic situation in which the developers could not discuss the code with the testing team or the operation team, which would result in unproductivity. A lack of coordination results in a long development and delivery process.

Insufficient Tests and High Probability of Errors

In traditional methodology, the tests were conducted in small units which were not enough to detect the flaws of the software or to improve the software functionality. Thus a standard and stable product could not be created. The testing team was not able to carry out continuous tests for a specific development stage as the silos are fixed for each department. Due to this, most of the time the team members face various issues like post-release bugs which could have been resolved or fixed at an early stage of the development if they carry out more tests at each stage of the software development.

Late Feedback and Lack of Transparency

As there is no communication among various teams and their members, various stages of the software development become isolated and the customer will get the output at a very late stage. Thus creating a major gap in what is expected and the final delivered product. This might require rework making the team demoralized and resulting in unproductivity. They might not cope up with the frequent complaints of the customer within the designated time. This puts a huge burden on developers and testing teams.

Late fixes and Updates

As there is a lack of communication between the developers and the IT teams, it takes time to fix the bugs and to release another update for the software. Thus the teams find it difficult to implement any change and may take time. Once you fail to deliver the product in time, you will be late forever in delivering their fixes and updates.

Benefits of DevOps

If you are a new business and thinking of how you can make a good start with fast and reliable delivery of your products, then you can use the DevOps methodology within your business. It is not only beneficial for the new business but the old and large scale business can also leverage the benefits of DevOps in their SDLC process. Below we have mentioned the benefits of using and implementing DevOps in your business.

Ensure faster deployment

Using DevOps, you can ensure timely updates and frequent delivery of your product. The only way you can satisfy your customers is to deliver their orders on time. Your business will always be one step ahead in a competitive market if you have up-to-date software.

Stabilize work environment

With DevOps, you do not have to worry about the release of the new features and updates as you will get to work in a healthy environment that will improve the team’s productivity efficiently. This will allow the team members to work with more effort with the easy and well-balanced approach for developing software.

Improves Product Quality

With DevOps, the collaboration within the project’s team increases, which improves the quality of work and fills up the communication gap. This results in improving the quality of the product. You can ask customers for timely feedback for making the required changes before the product reaches its final stage.

Automation for Effective Innovation

With DevOps, the teams will be able to detect the flaws at an early stage and fix them as soon as possible before they impact the performance of their product. If they feel that a particular failure is coming up again and again, they can perform an automated task for fixing that failure. This helps in reducing the rework of the team and they can easily focus on the development part.

Promotes Agility

If your business is agile then you can easily conquer the market and leave your competitors behind. But for that, you need to implement the DevOps methodology efficiently. Only DevOps can make it possible to obtain the scalability that will be required for transforming your business and taking it to new heights.

Continuous Software Delivery

For maintaining stability among various teams within the project, you need to go for DevOps methodology as it offers new features to your business. It makes sure that the product or the software is being developed continuously without getting any distraction. This is only possible if the team members are focused and they get a healthy working environment.

Reliable Problem-solving Methods

With DevOps, solving problems and providing fixes for bugs is reliable and efficient. As businesses get various features that they can use and implement within the SDLC process for making the tasks easier.

Conclusion

There is no doubt about the benefits that you will get with the implementation of DevOps. It has been widely adapted and popular among various companies globally. DevOps enables you to bridge the gap between the developers and IT team which was not possible using the traditional methodologies like agile. With DevOps, teams can focus on their specific tasks along with discussing it with other teams to be on the same page and to improve the functionality of the product. Whether you are a small or large business, DevOps has proved to be beneficial for everyone at every stage of the business.

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