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We often hear the buzzword “DevOps” every day, now and then on tech blogs and everywhere else. People are learning it, modern applications are DevOps based, companies are hiring DevOps people. There are a lot of DevOps consulting services and DevOps consultants, but, most of us still are not able to comprehend what exactly it is.
What is DevOps
The term is combined from two different process terms which are Development and IT Operations. It is neither a software, tool nor any type of a job role or a skill. It is a culture, in which siloed developers, and IT operations people work together as a team and can deliver continuous product releases.
In simple words, it bridges the gap between the developers, tester and the operations team. We can say that it is a culture where there is no developer, or a tester, or any operation team. All the work is carried out by one person or a single team working on delivering product releases sitting together in the same cabin or office, instead of working siloed.
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Why do people use DevOps?
The main reason behind DevOps’ popularity is that it allows production and deployment at a faster pace as compared to the traditional development process or methodology. It is the best option to choose even when you do not want a continuous deployment pipeline. We would say it is not just about delivering continuous product releases, but it is more about collaboration and teamwork.
Due to its ‘You build it, you run it’ maxim, developers themselves test and deploy the product, so there is no chance of any miscommunication between developers and the tester and operation team, as all of those work is done by the members from the same team. There are a lot of tools that make this process easier.
DevOps people use a lot of tools that make their tasks simpler. Docker, Jenkins, Ansible, Kubernetes are examples of such tools that allow the team to schedule the CI/CD pipeline and to build, ship and run the distributed applications on-the-go.
But why more and more companies are adopting it these days? That is because of its flexible and scalable nature, and it is secured.
The advantages of adopting DevOps
- Production speed – Due to its flexible nature, production speed will be always at the peak when you have adopted DevOps, as all the teams work on the development and deployment process and hence there is no scope for any miscommunication or task delays. The more communication among the team means the more speed in production and deployment.
- Scalability – Adopting it makes the product deployment scalable and always gives more than your expectations. Most businesses need a scalable product which is its top benefit. It provides such practices that allow increasing resource consumption when required and allows scaling them down whenever required. So, it can offer scalability at an advanced level and make your product scalable.
- Increased collaboration – With DevOps culture, as we said earlier, the entire team works sitting together or the whole work is carried out by only a few people’s teams which makes communication easy and improves collaboration. So, there will be improved collaboration among the team and higher team productivity when adopting it.
- Stable operating environment – When using DevOps, the operating environment stays stable, which means, the operation team who ensures the deployment of the product and the server uptime, becomes more stable, and stability is the key to the success of any project. A project happening in this environment gets deployed faster as compared to the traditional development environment, despite having multiple incremental improvements in the project.
- Clear product vision – DevOps environment creates a clear vision for the product. The whole team knows the next milestone clearly for the project and works simultaneously towards achieving that milestone. While, working in a siloed environment, a clear vision of the product is something difficult to achieve, due to improper and not-frequent communication. So, it breaks down all the communication barriers and brings the team closer and the next milestone even closer.
- Lesser product failure – While working together as a team, and frequently communicating about the progress of the project, the team becomes more focused on the project and the next milestone. Moreover, if there is something wrong detected in the development phase while deploying the project, the operation team can instantly contact the developers and get the issue fixed. So, there are lesser chances of product failure.
Seeing all its benefits, we can still say that it is not a magic pill that solves all development and operations problems, but it makes them easier. Just like every coin’s other side, DevOps’ pros also come with some cons.
The disadvantages of adopting DevOps
- It requires a major culture change – DevOps requires a major revamp in the development and deployment process. It is not kind of a con but still requires addressing here.
- Narrower job roles – Each person’s job role gets narrower when you have adopted DevOps. The developer might be busy testing and deploying the product anytime. So, the developer’s job gets narrowed when working as a DevOps team.
Comparing the number of pros and cons, it favors adopting DevOps for your next project. It is a big thumbs-up if your project requires frequent integration and deployments.
So, what is there for you if you adopt DevOps for your next project?
- Shorter development cycles.
- Faster deployment.
- Lesser development cost.
- Frequent product releases.
It is a concept that is future-ready for any kind of future project development and can easily manage the workflow of any type of complex project and make it easier to develop and deploy with its nature. So, are you ready for the dynamic plan that allows flexibility, scalability, and other such awesome things!
