DevOps is a global phenomenon now. Businesses are increasingly adopting DevOps to introduce a cultural change in their organizations and align their processes, tools, and people towards a more unified customer focus. However, implementing DevOps culture and practices is easier said than done.
However, this 3-step guide can significantly reduce the friction and frustrations of introducing a new cultural mindset, philosophies, and technologies in an organization.
Partner with a professional DevOps consulting company
Strategic DevOps implementation requires a thorough understanding of the current state of your business and processes and developing a detailed roadmap, selecting your DevOps toolchain while also ensuring security and compliance. And often, businesses do not have the in-house expertise to undertake these initiatives; it is, therefore, wise to partner with a DevOps consulting company that has been around for long and can ease your DevOps adoption journey.
Understand the depth of DevOps
Partnering with an established DevOps consulting company is only one part of the equation for transitioning to a DevOps culture; the other part involves gaining a holistic understanding of DevOps culture and practices. Businesses need to realize that DevOps benefits cannot be achieved by simply making the development team and the operations team work at a commonplace; DevOps, instead, calls for a cultural shift that begins right at the top of the organization and moves down to inspire teams to connect, communicate, and collaborate to produce high-quality software products at a rapid pace. Moving to DevOps should also be seen as a long-term process that requires time and deep commitment, and a desire for continuous improvement and implementation.
Stick to agile principles
To ensure successful DevOps implementation in your organization, following the agile principles and strengthening them further by combining them with the DevOps practices is recommended. The approach will help your teams significantly reduce their development time and the number of defects in the end product. Agile methodologies also encourage the teams to deliver the application/software product in iterations, and for each iteration, the teams can leverage DevOps practices, such as Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery, to achieve improved customer satisfaction and product quality.
In addition to embracing and sticking with the agile principles, a business considering DevOps implementation should also get familiar with a range of DevOps automation tools as DevOps is all about taking the software development process to the next level by using automation. Some popular tools include names like Amazon Web Service (AWS), Splunk, Chef, Jenkins, Prometheus, Nagios, App Dynamic, etc. As these DevOps automation tools render different functions, teams must select their tools carefully.
Wrap up
When planned and executed strategically, DevOps implementation can bring together two traditionally siloed teams (software development teams and operations teams) and unlock an organization’s ability to automate its processes and deliver software products faster. Forward-looking businesses must embark on the DevOps journey by seeking guidance from a trusted DevOps consulting company to navigate the complexities with confidence and transform their processes, people, and tools to gain a competitive advantage.