[DevOps]: What is DevOps & How does it Work?

All you need to know about DevOps is it is not a single technology. It is the set standard culture and practices wherein a cross-functional mode of working comes into the picture. A single team is addressed as DevOps engineers and are held responsible for end-to-end activity in the software development process from the initial phase to change as per the feedback of the end user. The team comprises of system admins, quality analysts, developers, and the testers.

What is DevOps?

Just by the term, one may think what DevOps is all about? And what ‘O’ in caps doing there? Well, we may not find a straight answer for this. Rationally speaking, we may not be able to answer this question in a technical or philosophical manner.
 

Let us understand the DevOps terminology.
 

[Literal meaning: Development+Operations, truncated =DevOps]
 

DevOps is the culture and practices set for integrating the developers’ and the operations’ team so as to enhance the productivity and collaboration.
 

The DevOps culture is to have a single group of engineers comprising the system admins, developers, quality analysts, and, the testers. They hold the end-to-end responsibility of the software development starting from the initiation, requirement gathering, test, infrastructure, deploy an application, monitor, and implement changes as per the end users feedback.  
 

Gartner defines DevOps as a change in IT culture, focusing on rapid IT service delivery through the adoption of agile, lean practices in the context of a system-oriented approach. DevOps emphasizes people (and culture) and seeks to improve collaboration between operations and development teams. DevOps implementations utilize technology — especially automation tools that can leverage an increasingly programmable and dynamic infrastructure from a life cycle perspective.

Why is DevOps getting adopted these days at a faster rate?

The main motto to implement DevOps culture is time reduction and productivity enhancement wherein the changes to a system during the software development is made simultaneously coupled with quality assurance.  
 

Prior to DevOps culture, waterfall methodology was followed and there were several challenges that consumed a larger amount of time. Whereas, this DevOps methodology brings in the cross-functional mode of working by collating the waterfall and agile methodology.
 

Waterfall method is often quoted as rigid and inflexible. Some of the challenges faced in waterfall methodology include:
 

• Sequential follow as the model proposes is difficult to follow in real-time.
• The model fails to accommodate the natural uncertainty like identification of goals and requirements as it is subject to change as process proceeds.
• It’s a long and painstaking process
• The development and deployment time was high that they are pressurized to change/write codes related to old, pending, and current coding versions.
• The maintenance of the uptime product for production environment was difficult
• Ineffective tools for automated management
• Delay in diagnosis to give product feedback
• And more.
   

Agile development is used as an umbrella term for software development methodologies including kanban, lean development and extreme programming, scaled agile framework, and scrum.
 

How is DevOps rising the bar?  

DevOps seems to be rising the standards of the team and work success. One main reason is that, rather than using a single tool, it uses a toolset or toolchain.
 

The DevOps tools comprise of the following.
 

• Source code management tools for developing, reviewing, and, merging codes
• Continuous integration tools for creating status
• Continuous testing tools for business-related risks’ feedback
• Change management for releasing approvals and automation
• Configuration and management of code tools
• Monitoring of performance and end-user experience
   

What are the Goals and Objectives of DevOps?

The main objectives of DevOps include:
 

• Enhance the deployment frequency
• Shorten the lead time
• Shorten or fasten the recovery period
• Reduce the failure rate on new releases
• Shorten the release time to the market
• Use of automated tools at each level
• Enhanced communication and collaboration
• Dedicated time availability for innovation

How Does DevOps work?

Image Source: http://bit.ly/2Grb0zY

In the DevOps culture, the single group engineers meet before initiating a project. The bigger team comprising of developers, testers, operations, and support professionals chalk out a plan for creating and deploying the software.
 

Further, as the developers write codes, they are deployed every day with automated testing. Once the code gets through all of the testing methods, it gets deployed to a select number of users [a small number]. It is monitored for unforeseen problems and stability. As it reaches the stability, the new code is distributed to almost all the users.
 

The appreciable part of this scenario is all these are automated processes and there is no human intervention.
 

To simplify, check the 5Cs workflow represented below:
 

Continuous Delivery-> Continuous Testing-> Continuous Integration-> Continuous Monitoring-> Continuous feedback and optimization
 

• Continuous Delivery: Write and Run the code through testing, create an application and promote to production stage with automated deployment.
• Continuous Testing: Test continuously, fix bugs on time, and prevent defects.
• Continuous Integration: Integrate new and changed the code in the shared repository.
• Continuous Monitoring: Rectify errors on time and make necessary changes.
• Continuous feedback & optimization: Measure users’ reaction continuously and make changes accordingly.
   

How to start with DevOps Learning?

As you know the benefits now, the next immediate question for an aspirant is how to learn this methodology.
 

Well, DevOps Agile Association [DASA] is a community-driven platform open for the participating members in helping to define the role-based competencies which align with the 8 knowledge and 4 skill areas with the learning curricula [the DASA competency model].  
 

The knowledge areas include architecture and design; business value optimization; business analysis; test specification; programming; continuous delivery; security, risk, compliance; and infrastructure engineering.
 

The skill areas include courage, team building, DevOps leadership, and continuous improvement.

DevOps Certifications and its learning path:

A. Foundational Level Program:

• DASA DevOps Fundamentals: It introduces you to the core DevOps principles and covers the areas of knowledge and skills as acknowledged by DASA.

B: Practitioner Level Program

• DASA DevOps Practitioner: It enhances your skill through the DevOps theory, examples, exercises, and discussion. It equips you with the necessary skills to practice DevOps.  

C: Advanced Level Program

• DASA DevOps Specialization:Enable and Scale
• DASA DevOps Specialization:Specify and Verify
• DASA DevOps Specialization:Create and Deliver
   

Who should learn DevOps? 

The DevOps courses are specially designed for the aspirants involved in IT development, operations, and service management.
 

What are the roles played by DevOps engineers?

The DevOps engineers comprise a group of professionals. The DevOps engineer may have several roles in particular but work as an integral part. They form an IT team member and applies the DevOps principles. They include:
 

• DevOps Engineers
• Integration Specialists
• System / Network Administrators
• Automation Architects
• Application Developers/Software Programmers
• Software Testers
• QA and Business (Requirements) Analysts

In brief, DevOps engineers belong to different IT background and form the part of a dynamic workforce.
 

DevOps Engineer Salary: 

The average salary for a DevOps engineer is INR: 622,931 or rs.620/hr as of Feb. 2018 [PayScale].
 

What can be the DevOps Future? 

DevOps culture is nothing but a happy balance between the developers and the operations team. It is exciting as you integrate technology and solve challenges. It is understood that the developers who are unable to monitor and the administrator who cannot develop may become less valuable for an organization in the long run.
 

Whether you learn DevOps or not, the motto or the culture behind it is of universal acceptance.
 

Every specific pain point in an organization has to be considered that calls for a soft skill or technical enhancement. It should accommodate the existing process with an upliftment. It is recommended to follow a plan to take things differently for the betterment of company’s future and the individual employee too.

It is recommended to upgrade oneself to meet the evolving challenges and stay in the race.
 

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