To understand DevOps, let's first understand what it's not.
DevOps is not a system, and it's not a job title. You won't see a DevOps
department. It also does not successfully automate everything. DevOps can be
viewed as a philosophy. It accentuates the importance of a cohesive approach to
application delivery by helping transform your product's development, quality
assurance, and operations functions into a set of agile cross-functional teams.
Each team works together to iterate, improve, and release part of the
application.
What is DevOps?
Simply put, DevOps is the cultural and professional movement
that stresses communication, collaboration, integration, and automation in
order to improve the flow of work between software development and IT
operations professionals. It aims to make technology a natural ally to the
business by bringing together development, QA, and operations teams while
cloud-based solutions provide the necessary agility.
DevOps is a culture, mindset, or practice that helps an
organization deliver quality and stable digital products in an efficient and
timely manner. It seeks to transform an organization's development, quality
assurance, deployment, and operation processes so that customers get value out
of them. It accomplishes this by stressing communication, collaboration,
automation, and lean methodologies between software development (Dev),
technical quality assurance (QA), and information technology (IT/Ops) teams.
With DevOps, software development teams can deploy new software frequently,
reliably, and securely, and in close cooperation with the teams that use the
end product or provide the infrastructure it runs on.
Importance of DevOps in Modern IT
DevOps makes rapid changes in an enterprise to drive
business agility. It embraces the most advanced technologies to improve the
software build with activities ranging from testing to timely releases. DevOps
is more effective than other Agile software development methods. DevOps is an
important concept to be aware of in modern IT, as it promises to increase
business value at the enterprise level with a more suitable approach. DevOps
ensures active discussion, contribution, and implementation based on different
feedback. It also reflects a deep understanding of automation from the
requirements. DevOps points out the importance of the relationship between
development and IT operation. With the help of various industry solutions and
DevOps services, the desired goal is achieved by the clients in each and every
delivery of the solution. With a smarter way, DevOps processes are rewritten
and optimized to promote better cross-team collaboration and solutions. There
are various practices, approaches, technologies, and opportunities which will
be discussed in the context of DevOps, where "Dev" means development
and "Ops" means operation or infrastructure distinctly.
How DevOps is Redefining Software Distribution
DevOps is a methodology that ensures software delivery in
superior quality, at a faster pace, and it enables the fact that the product or
services can reach the market quicker. DevOps increases the marketing revenue
of an organization because of the reliability, stability, and security benefits
which are gained by continuous integration and continuous delivery. Sometimes a
common question that arises in most people's minds is what is there in DevOps
that has changed the way people think of technology updates, technology
upgrades, technology maintenance, and it also implements a practice that
emphasizes the collaboration and communication of software developers and IT
operation professionals.
It's safe to say DevOps is not really a technology but is
generally considered to be a culture of agile methodologies. The ultimate goal
of each and every organization is to see themselves at the top of this world
where there is a lot of cut-throat competition. The world wants it in almost
all domains including services, manufacturing, IT, banking, financial, and much
more. To reach the top of the world, it is not so easy, and at the same time,
maintaining the top position is also not easy and cost-effective, where DevOps plays
a vital role by providing efficient solutions.
Impact of DevOps on Startups and Established Companies
DevOps can be a formidable leveler for startups and
established companies. Start-ups can use DevOps to scale rapidly, discovering a
magic recipe and ensuring that their users don't waste their precious time
worrying about their scaling issues. The startup can look quite good at a much
lower initial cost. Established businesses can customize DevOps to allow them
to act more like the nimble small businesses they used to be and less like the
large elephants they are today. They can take away some of the burden of
endless work for their overworked IT staff who must handle mundane tasks and
research how to utilize them to provide a real strategic advantage to their
businesses.
DevOps is a growth philosophy that goes above and beyond the
traditional IT department. It sets in motion a cultural movement that spans
both development and IT operations, providing an opportunity to add business
value that can make or break the advancement of today's most disruptive
businesses. DevOps is a complete re-evaluation of what software distribution
should be, one that strives to substantially reduce the time between when a
change is made and when it's made available to people hanging onto their users'
hands. This is frequently what we desire when we hear "agile" and
"nimble," but do not observe since software deployment is too much of
a hassle to do more often.
Key Categories and essential DevOps Tools
The range of tools that have arisen in support of DevOps tasks is extraordinary, from version control systems to the containers used to compile and execute applications. Whether you are just implementing DevOps for yourself or for your entire team, here are some of the critical tools that top DevOps professionals use to reduce downtime and increase both the speed and value of their delivered applications. However, there are two categories when it comes to implementing DevOps. Traditionally organization's use on prem DevOps but as the cloud is making a wave you have modern and more efficient cloud native DevOps as well. In this article we will be talking about the tools that are widely used while setting up on-prem DevOps.
Here's a list of some common tools that folks in the DevOps
world use when working in an on-premises setup:
1. Version Control Systems (VCS):
These bad boys are like
the diaries of the coding world. They keep track of all the changes made to the
source code so that a bunch of developers can work together without stepping on
each other's toes.
- Git is like the cool kid on the block which was taken over by Microsoft recently after they made their advances in the word of cloud. Git is a distributed VCS that everyone loves for its flexibility and speed. It lets you keep a local copy of the code and merge changes without breaking a sweat. One of coolest factor is multiple coders can work on their respective system and merge when they are ready without disturbing the code. Offshore there are other players however Git is widely used so not going to talk about other players.
2. Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD):
These are like the assembly line for code. They automatically build, test, and
deploy your code changes so that you can get new features out the door faster
and with fewer bugs.
- Jenkins is an open-source tool that's a real workhorse. It automates the whole shebang of building, testing, and deploying your code. It's a continuous process of integration, testing and deployment as the name says CI/CD. It automates the mundane task and save lots of time and efforts which in return minimize lots of risk as well.
3. Configuration Management:
Imagine having a magic wand
that sets up your servers and software just the way you like it, every single
time. That's what these tools do.
- Ansible is like
the fairy godmother of configuration management. It's open-source and makes
your life easier by automating the setup and management of your infrastructure.
- Chef is another
tool in this department, but it's got a bit more flair with its Ruby-based
"infrastructure as code" approach. It's like writing a recipe for
your servers and watching them cook themselves.
4. Containerization:
Think of this as packing your app in a
suitcase with all its toys (dependencies) so it plays nicely no matter where it
goes (different environments).
- We can say Docker is the
poster child for containerization. It lets you create and run these little app
suitcases, so your code is consistently happy wherever it's deployed. So that coders never have to say "But it works on my system"
5. Orchestration:
Once your apps are all cozy in their
containers, you need a maestro to manage them.
- Kubernetes is the maestro of the orchestra here. It's an open-source platform that makes sure your containerized apps are deployed, scaled, and managed like a well-oiled machine. Kubernetes is very much in demand tool and used worldwide.
6. Monitoring and Logging:
I don't have to give the background but still monitoring and logging tool are the eyes and ears of your system, keeping tabs on how everything's running.
- Prometheus is
like having a superhero sidekick for monitoring. It's got a killer query
language to dig into your system's performance and sends alerts when
something's amiss.
These are some of the essential
gadgets that keep the on-prem DevOps engine humming along smoothly.
There you go. You are all set for on-prem DevOps. Stay tuned for upcoming articles where I'll cover cloud-native DevOps, best practices, and the future of DevOps. For a head start, check out my article on cloud computing to feel familiar with the world Cloud Computing. Stay connected!
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