What Is DevOps: Meaning, Examples, and How-Tos
11 May 2023
ContentLaxmi Hari Nepal
Table of Contents
Many development teams still spend countless hours on repetitive tasks that take up valuable time and resources, instead of having a streamlined process that allows them to focus on bigger, even more profitable ideas.
This is where DevOps comes into play —a philosophy and practice that aims to revolutionise the way we approach software development.
In this article, you’ll learn all about what DevOps is, what it means, and how to efficiently implement it into your project — keep reading below!
Why Do Businesses Need DevOps?
Nowadays, software developers have to high-quality products quickly and efficiently to meet the demands of today’s fast-paced business environment.
This is especially challenging when using traditional software development practices that involve most teams working independently, lacking the collaboration that is, otherwise, essential.
That’s why we need DevOps. By automating repetitive tasks, empowering cross-team communication, and ensuring the code meets quality and security standards, DevOps enables us to free up time and deliver high-quality software.
What Is DevOps?
So what is DevOps? It is more than just a philosophy or set of practices for integrating and automating development and operational processes. It is a game-changer for businesses looking to streamline their processes and achieve consistent results, regardless of the platforms or tools used.
The truth is that change can be hard. Therefore, implementing DevOps can be challenging. It requires knowledge of networks, servers, scripting languages, and other tools and technologies.
If it’s not implemented properly, it can cause security issues such as Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, which can lead to further financial concerns. Shamal Budhathoki, Head of DevOps Engineers at EB Pearls, explains that “if auto-scaling is not configured correctly and a DDoS attack occurs, the high volume of login attempts targeted at that server can lead to overload, which can be incredibly expensive for the company.“
On the bright side, with the right people on the team and the best resources, including web access firewalls and alert systems, DevOps can truly revolutionise the way you do software development.
How Organisations Are Using DevOps
For starters, different companies might use different technologies and infrastructure setups. Shamal Budhathoki says that “depending on the organisation’s preferences, they might choose to use on-premises infrastructure or cloud infrastructure provided by one of the major cloud providers, such as AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure.”
He continues with the fact that “The main challenge with using different platforms and tools is to implement them effectively to provide the best possible solution. Companies need to look at DevOps as a way to streamline their infrastructure and development processes to achieve better results.“
Although there are plenty of tools and service providers to choose from, the most crucial aspect is understanding the power of DevOps and the challenges it brings to the table. As mentioned above, one mistake can put your software at risk — entrusting the DevOps processes to an expert company can save you resources in the long run.
Benefits of Implementing DevOps
Automation
DevOps implies using certain tools and techniques to automate tasks. With automation, your teams can focus on other tasks that require human intelligence, helping with the more efficient allocation of resources.
Consistency
DevOps ensures consistent results as the same set of tools and techniques are used across different platforms and teams, making it easier for companies to streamline and better document their processes.
Quality Assurance
By implementing DevOps, software developers can make sure that their code goes through a thorough testing process that effortlessly checks for quality before being deployed in the production environment.
Cost Savings
Undoubtedly, DevOps can help you reduce costs in your app development project as it enables faster deployment, task automation, and fewer errors, and it allows for better resource utilisation.
Scalability
DevOps also allows for easy scalability, enabling your company to adapt to changing demands and handle increased loads of traffic by scaling up or down automatically.
Security
To ensure the security of your software, you can implement DevOps tools and technologies such as web access firewalls and alert systems to protect against DDoS attacks and other security threats.
How To Implement DevOps?
Identify Opportunities and Set Goals
For instance, “implementing DevOps can reduce the time spent on repetitive tasks and free up resources for other work. It can also provide a consistent and predictable process for software development.” says Shamal Budhathoki.
To do so, start by following theses simple but comprehensive steps:
- Analyse your current software development process;
- Identify the areas that need improvement;
- Determine the gap between your current processes and the desired outcome;
- Set specific and measurable goals for implementing DevOps.
Choose The Right DevOps Tools and Technologies
Different companies might use different technology, so you need to choose the right tools and technologies that fit your organisation’s needs. For starters, make sure you:
- Assess your team’s current technology stack;
- Find tools that align with your team’s skills and expertise;
- Evaluate different tools and their functionality;
- Ensure that the tools meet your specific requirements;
- Choose tools that are flexible and scalable;
- Determine costs and the long-term ROI.
Outsourcing app development to an expert agency like EB Pearls can help you overcome any DevOps and software development gaps. By leveraging the knowledge and experience of experienced developers and engineers, you can save resources and improve the quality of your software application in the long run.
Implement Proper Testing and Quality Control
As part of DevOps, it’s a must to ensure that the code is tested properly before deployment. Tools like SonarCloud or SonarQube can be used to check the code quality and identify any issues. Shamal Budhathoki suggests that the best way to go about it is to select “a version control system like Git can be used to manage code changes and merge requests.“
Step Up Your Security Measures
Most importantly, DevOps should include measures to protect against attacks like DDoS. At EB Pearls, we recommend implementing web access firewalls and alert systems to ensure that your software is not affected by these attacks.
Get Started with Advanced DevOps Practices
Although DevOps ensures process consistency and quality results long-term, implementing it is often challenging due to the knowledge and experience required.
Expert DevOps engineers and developers can help you successfully implement, monitor, and maintain your digital product without putting your business at risk.
Fortunately, at EB Pearls, we understand the complexities of software development, and we have the decades-long experience to implement DevOps into your next development project.
Contact us to learn more about our expertise and how we can help you build a successful software application.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Can DevOps Help Us Reduce Costs?
DevOps practices can help reduce costs by promoting an agile software development approach that emphasises collaboration and communication between development and operations teams.
We’ll automate and streamline the software delivery process, which can help improve software quality and reduce the time and resources required for manual tasks.
Continuous integration and continuous improvement are also key components of the DevOps lifecycle, allowing teams to quickly identify and address issues as they arise.
How Can DevOps Help Us Build High-Quality Mobile Apps?
DevOps enables us to deliver high-quality apps more quickly and with fewer errors by facilitating a culture of collaboration.
Our DevOps teams work together to identify and address issues early in the development process through continuous integration and automated testing, which can help reduce the risk of errors and improve software quality.
Agile development methodologies
also encourage teams to deliver working software in short iterations, allowing for rapid feedback and continuous improvement.
How Do You Ensure Security and Compliance in a DevOps Environment?
At EB Peals, the DevOps culture we’ve developed enables us to understand organisational requirements, define policies, implement security tools, and access control measures, and keep all components up-to-date with security patches and updates. This includes conducting risk assessments, communicating policies to the team, integrating security tools into the pipeline, authenticating users, monitoring activities, and conducting regular vulnerability scanning and testing.
How Do You Measure The Success of Your DevOps Initiatives?
Our DevOps team measures the success of their initiatives in several ways, including deployment frequency, lead time, mean time to recovery (MTTR), and the overall quality of the software. To do so, we’re consistently gathering feedback and monitoring software quality through automation, continuous testing, and monitoring which enables us to increase productivity, improved efficiency, and reduced downtime.