Speed and Adaptability

The pooled skillsets allow slow-moving processes to be automated using an Agile approach. Testing can be automated using continuous integration(regularly merging code changes) and continuous delivery(automatic preparation of code changes).

Trends in the future of DevOps are expected to deliver even faster speeds with machine learning being incorporated into the process.

Quality and Reliability

The automation in testing and rapid delivery of updates ensures that every change is operational and practical. This creates a more reliable application, the functionality and performance of which can be monitored in real-time.

Improved Collaboration

Teams under a DevOps deployment methodology emphasise ownership and accountability. They collaborate, share responsibilities, and combine workflows in harmony with one another collectively and individually to reduce handover periods and operations.

Scalability

Using IaC(Infrastructure as Code) to manage networking infrastructure can make infrastructure management uniform and easy to scale. The automation and consistency let you manage complex and dynamic systems efficiently.

Security

DevOps practices and principles can also include the security team(DevSecOps) to automate compliance policies and configuration management techniques. The continuous feedback makes it possible to spot defects early and automate recovery strategies.

Planning

To streamline this process, DevOps consulting services recommend defining a single person as a “product owner”, and making them responsible for the what and the why of everything the team builds.

The portfolio is regularly tested at different levels of granularity to gauge an exhaustive measure of progress. The phase allows teams to ideate, define, and describe the applications and systems they will build.

The following DevOps practices and principles are used to plan with agility –

• Creating a prioritized list of work(backlogs) for the team to deliver, defined by the product owner.
• Using Scrum; a management and troubleshooting framework collaborative in short cycle activities.
• Create visual representations of progress with dashboards and charts.
• Track unexpected problems and identify areas that need improvement.
• Leave room for change considering the future of DevOps.

Development

The development phase is where all aspects of software code are managed. DevOps practices and principles prescribe performing the following activities –

• Select a development environment recommended by a good DevOps consulting company. Eg – Microsoft Visual Studio, Adobe Flex Builder, etc.
• Iterate and make small increments in automation testing and continuous integration(CI).
• The code must go through a four-step process – write, test, review, and integrate.
• Use version control systems like Git or Mercurial. Having multiple independent local copies helps developers collaborate and work in parallel.
• Build code into deployable artefacts for delivery into different environments.
• Automate every manual task you can.

Continuous Integration (CI)

This is a practice used by DevOps consulting services to merge, test, and automate code.

It helps detect bugs early in the development cycle and ensure quality. CI systems produce artefacts and feed to aid and track the release management.

Continuous Delivery (CD)

This process builds, tests, and deploys code in multiple test/production environments to enhance its quality.

CD systems produce deployable infrastructure and app artifacts which are used by automated release processes to deploy new versions and fixes. Continuous monitoring systems help make the CD process transparent, providing teams with good situational awareness.

Delivery

Delivery is the process of consistently and reliably deploying applications into production environments. A DevOps consulting company can use various methods to do this but the most popularly used is Continuous delivery(CD).

Delivery also includes deploying and configuring the delivery environment’s foundational infrastructure.

DevOps practices and principles used by teams in this phase are –

• Automate the movement of the application into subsequent testing and building stages up till deployment into the production environment.
• Define a clear release management process with manual approval needed before deploying into production.
• Automate delivery processes to make them scalable, predictable, and well-tested.
• Deliver governed infrastructure environments using tools like infrastructure as code (IaC), containers, and microservices.
• Use the Safe Deployment Practices (SDP) framework to identify issues before they affect customer experience.

Monitoring

Continuous monitoring(CM) is an automated process that can be done by collecting telemetry and metadata and setting predefined conditions warranting operator attention that will raise alerts.

The benefits of DevOps pipeline monitoring and the best practices to carry it out are explained below –
Benefits –

• Provides real-time visibility into the performance and health of the application stack.
• Allows the team to detect and respond to bugs instantly.
• Helps manage changes, especially in critical applications to prevent outages.
• Helps manage changes, especially in critical applications to prevent outages.

Best Practices –

• Adopt shift-left software testing to reduce the duration of test cycles and minimize errors right from pre-production environments.
• Visibility must extend from the infrastructure on which the application is running, to higher-level software components.
• Establish KPIs to establish the effectiveness of the monitoring. Example – Duration of a sprint and how long it takes to identify, record, and fix an issue.
• Event data and logs from various parts of the system should be organized and stored for analysis and query.
• Alerts should be meaningful and actionable.
• Telemetry captured from alerts must be large enough to allow insights to be drawn.