Essential Components of DevOps Implementation
Overview of DevOps
DevOps stands for Development and Operations. It includes the integration of software development and IT operations. DevOps helps to enhance the software quality and shortens the overall development life cycle and reduces downtime thus enabling faster marketing of services.
Why DevOps?
Successful implementation of DevOps methodologies can minimize bugs and failures. Some of the key benefits of using DevOps include a focus on automation, Continuous Integration Continuous Delivery (CI/CD), monitoring and controlling of the process, etc. DevOps enables a concurrent or simultaneous product development strategy as opposed to traditional methods like the waterfall model which focuses on sequential implementation. Let us now see some of the key components of the DevOps strategy.
Components of DevOps Implementation
1) Automation
Ever-changing and evolving customer requirements are prompting organizations to adopt a DevOps culture that has automation at its very heart. DevOps practices enable you to better collaborate on projects and enable a fruitful exchange of information that could shorten the development life cycle. Software nowadays has become a service.
Customers and end-users expect it to be available as long as they are using it, unlike some ten years ago when they were intended to be used for some dedicated applications and finally cease existence. Traditional development methodologies like the waterfall model which followed a sequential flow of processes were once the most sought-after model. These have become completely obsolete now.
DevOps strategy considers automation as its bedrock. DevOps automation focuses on repetitive, error-prone tasks that not only eat up time but also hamper the quality of your products and services. Automation can minimize the amount of human intervention required and eliminate bugs and discrepancies.
Not only does the development cycle becomes efficient and productive, but it also enables the team to focus on the underlying application rather than break their head with repetitive and error-prone tasks. Automation usually begins from the code generation phase and lasts till the product is in’s deployment phase.
As per statistics automation provides a stable environment that can drastically bring down IT failures. Let us see some of the key benefits that could be availed out of automating your process. Automation can enable you to leverage several benefits like scalability, reduced time to market your products and services, and enhancing the overall speed and productivity of the development life cycle. There are several DevOps tools used for automation. The most commonly used tools include Puppet, Docker, Jenkins, Kubernetes, Bamboo, OpenStack, Ansible, Chef, Vagrant, Selenium, etc.
2)Pipeline
Pipeline defines the flow of the process from the very code generation stage to the deployment and delivery phase. It defines the enumerative order of the process throughout the development cycle. DevOps pipeline enables Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment/Delivery (CI/CD).
These usually include steps like pushing the code, compiling the source code, deploying to the development environment, deploying to the integration environment, and finally the production environment. Once the artifact successfully works in an environment, it is subsequently deployed to the next successive environments. This synchronized flow of process allows the team to fully evaluate the artifact.
DevOps pipeline helps you to create, test and deploy the software. DevOps strategy has a plethora of tools to help you with this. You can select the best combination of tools that enables you to develop a comprehensive strategy.
3)Configuration Environment
Configuration management deals with mechanisms to integrate the system components to ensure that proper communication and synchronization happen between the different stages in the development cycle. For instance, if we are developing an application in Python, first we need to configure the development environment, like selecting the version, installing the package management system or pip, adding python to the environment, developing the code, and integrating it with the required packages or dependencies, executing the code, converting the Python file into an executable application (exe).
4)Integration
Integration is the interaction of the underlying application with other dependencies, packages, and components in that system. For example, if you are developing an application based on Python and you want to incorporate Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the system. You might need to integrate your application with dependencies based on AI, like, say Keras, or Tensorflow, etc which are frameworks used for Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning( DL). Manual steps should be eliminated and as far as possible should be subjected to automation. Steps like testing could be automated to ensure that bugs are easily detected and eliminated. It is almost impossible to use manual testing procedures as these steps are often repetitive.
DevOps is the buzzword as far as application and product development strategies are the concerned solution. It is hard to find a practice that provides one with such a lot of tools that could be used for a wide spectrum of applications that can simultaneously automate your processes, enable better controlling and monitoring over your development cycle, and ensure timely delivery of services, etc. DevOps is a culture. Initially, support tools were not readily available. But that’s no longer the case now. DevOps culture can help a business to save time and money while enhancing the efficiency and productivity of its services.
Activelobby implements the DevOps practices in application development and DevSecOps practices to ensure security compliance. We have an in-house 24 by 7 DevOps team. Our products and services are fully automated and have minimum downtime and ensure full compliance with the SLA. We help you to visualize a better roadmap for your products and services. We have the best DevOps tools and we help you to choose the best combination of tools that enables you to develop a comprehensive application. With Activelobby’s service, we assure you that we help you design products with shortened release times, improved reliability and scalability, and above all stay ahead in the race.
