Redefining work culture and philosophy with DevOps
DevOps is not a set of tools. It’s a way of working.
DevOps is the continuous coordination between software development and IT operations with the aim to compress the lifecycle of systems development. But that’s just the skeleton of it. Today, DevOps has become the work culture of organizations that practice continuous integration, and is valued by customers for the continuous delivery of high software quality.
Think of all the online purchases, interactions, and content consumption done in today’s age. The seamless UX and the ever-evolving UI is the result of the values brought about by the application of DevOps in these online organizations. Smooth experiences on sites and apps like Meta, Amazon, and Netflix, are courtesy of their attitude to maximize efficiency, security, and support to operational processes. But it begins with the way of working. It always starts with culture and then leads, effortlessly, to tooling.
Why is DevOps implemented?
Tech giants have been employing DevOps to improve deployment frequency, lower the failure rate for new releases, and shorten the lead time between repairs. While faster development and deployment cycles are the biggest benefits of DevOps, reports suggest other substantial benefits like better quality products, heightened customer satisfaction, shorter time-to-market, and increase in productivity and efficiency. When there is close coordination and team integration in the firm, the capability to develop the right product through speedy experimentation becomes a reality. And in today’s competitive market, this could be a game-changer.
Bringing diverse departments out of their silos to coordinate in quality testing, feature development, and system maintenance through constant interaction is changing the way departments have worked in companies.
DevOps is changing the work culture
There is no one-size-fits-all answer here. Different companies are adopting a mix of beliefs, ethics, and levels of integration for the smooth functioning and maximum utilization of resources. From newbie start-ups to generations-old companies, organizations are learning to live by the philosophy brought in by DevOps.
Increased collaboration
It no longer remains to be ‘your problem’. Besides the collaboration between the software development department and IT operations, the testing division, product management team, and executives all come together to get the desired product out in the market. Projects are completed rapidly, efficiently, and effectively. Territories are willingly and happily allowed to be crossed and employees are encouraged to go beyond their call of duty. Work spouses are no longer within the department now.
Increased levels of automation
Automation through DevOps tools enables organizations to deliver software releases and new changes to users in a rapidly evolving environment. End-to-end software development and deployment processes are automated through toolchains.
Since automation is such an important part of DevOps, the two are often used as synonyms. However, they are not identical — DevOps has a lot more on its plate and is more than just tools.
Higher levels of integration
Developers working in organizations that operate on DevOps integrate their work with other developers’ work. Such integrations are very frequent and sometimes occur on a daily basis. While on the one hand this addresses issues in the nascent stage, on the other it resolves conflicts before they become challenges. Culturally, it encourages an environment of constant communication between developers. Talented people are no longer working in isolation with zero interaction. A bustling work space with open communication increases the feeling of belongingness for every member.
Frequent testing interventions
Continuous testing has become a part of everyday work life with DevOps. The effect of rising costs and the impact of software failures can be mitigated by inculcating the culture of continuous testing. In today’s world, testing is not just a quality assurance practice. In the environment propagated by DevOps, quality is everyone’s job — right from developers to quality assurance engineers. In such an environment, the company is able to balance quality with speed, thereby shortening test cycles.
Continuous delivery
An organization living the philosophy of continuous delivery has deployment-ready software that has passed through their testing processes. The release rate varies as per the company’s goals. An over-achieving company will gun for multiple deployments in a day, whereas an upcoming one will only do so once in a week/month. While this reduces the impact of failures, it also keeps everyone on their toes.
Non-stop monitoring
Organizations working with DevOps make it a mission to find and fix failures in real time. Continuous monitoring is the most critical practice here. The motive is to pick out the root cause with speed and minimize user issues by preempting outages. This philosophy ensures that monitoring becomes a fundamental part of service delivery.
The golden convention is to implement monitoring in the development stage, thereby guaranteeing quick identification of performance problems before they hit production.
DevOps has changed the industry beyond recognition, and the proportion of high performers has tripled. While we know that software speed, stability, and availability contribute heavily to an organization’s performance, DevOps has catapulted the top performers to exceed their organization’s goals.
