Posts tagged DevOps
Agile,  Design Thinking , DevOps - A Symbiotic Trio
Agile, Design Thinking, DevOps.png

Adoption and consumption of new technologies is becoming faster and more frequent - so, clearly it is becoming easier as well.

Tech companies that develop software applications and IT departments of businesses that consume them have a very agreeable conduit between them in the form of cloud-based software.

Consumers (B2C) have a much better appetite for updates and newer versions than they did  just a few years back.

The underpinnings that enable all this are primarily Agile methodology, human-centred design and a robust DevOps culture.

Agile creates an environment where there is a valuable pipe between the customer or end-user, feeding requirements and feedback to the product owner and the development teams or scrum teams. Using this pipeline as a backlog, the scrum team develops features in small increments which are regularly looped back to the customer thereby ensuring that there are no unpleasant surprises at any point. Course correction is relatively easier and cheaper. Rich features and functions that are far more likely to be  valuable to the end-user are delivered when agile is adopted in its true spirit.

Human-centered design is the other side of that very same coin - it can ensure that the product or service being developed addresses the right problem, the right set of stakeholders and it is the most feasible and acceptable solution. Put simply, the goal is customer delight.

Development and delivery in small increments requires a mindset of accountability by every team member to deliver working high-quality code and a process that enables swift integration and delivery of every team member’s contribution. This calls for a win-win collaboration between development and operations teams to create a reliable framework that allows on-demand environment build-up and tear-down, automated tests that ensure nothing gets past even without human intervention and the ability to promote /deploy new code based on quality and security criteria.

Every product and service company is thinking about to how to take advantage of this formidable trio to get an edge against competition and win customer loyalty. If they aren’t thinking about it….well, they should be.

DevOps in a Nutshell

In today’s world, one uniform theme across all businesses is speed. Faster time to market and shorter project timelines has necessitated the rise of IT systems that are agile, quick and super responsive. Such a business milieu has led to the rise of one of today’s hottest buzzwords – DevOps.

What is DevOps?

DevOps is primarily a type of agile relationship between the development team and IToperations. By ensuring improved communication, collaboration and teamwork between these two business units, businesses hope to develop and release products faster.

The operations team and development engineers work closely together throughout the development lifecycle, right from the design phase of the project through development right up to support.

 What are the benefits?

This close knit coordination between development and operations leads to significant benefits on both the technical and business sides. These include reduced project complexity, continuous software delivery, increased innovation and speed. By increasing the frequency of deployments, businesses can keep a tighter check on quality and also hedge risks better. All this helps businesses meet end-user and client expectations better.

What are some of the popular DevOps tools?

Remember, DevOps is a culture and not a tool by itself. Some of the popular ones are GIT, Jenkins, Selenium, Docker, Puppet, Chef, Nagios, Splunk and more. There are some free, open source tools among these. All these tools help with distributed development and enable faster release cycles.

 DevOps, in essence, takes into account effective philosophies, practices, tools and business cultures to deliver applications and services, faster and better. It’s cornerstone is communication, collaboration and teamwork among the product management, operations and development teams.