In today’s fast-paced business environment, software development teams need to maintain an efficient and streamlined software development cycle to constantly deliver exceptional services to their customers.
The DevOps approach combines tools and practices to ensure seamless communications and collaboration between the software application development team (dev) and the IT operations team (ops).
Problems DevOps can solve
Before DevOps, during the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) the development teams used to face a few common problems. These were underestimating the time required for testing the software for bug detection, leveraging the waterfall model that resulted in causing delays in the software release, or a low-quality software that was not meeting expectations.
The problem with the traditional or waterfall way of software development was that it used to work in a methodical way where the new phase began after the finalization of the previous phase. Everything would need to start from square one if any bug was detected later. Ultimately, the waterfall method was often blamed e for delays in software development since it failed to prove its worth in the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle).
In comparison to the waterfall way of software development, DevOps implements two simple rules; one is a shorter product development cycle and the other one is the automation of the deployment pipeline. Apart from them, it can reduce the percentage of errors as it goes through the continuous software testing process.
Hence over time, DevOps has been proven to be more effective than traditional software development methods.
The DevOps Life Cycle
The DevOps lifecycle for software development goes through 5 phases. These are as below:
- Continuous Development
The Continuous Development phase starts with the software’s ‘planning’ and ‘coding’. Once the planning phase is over, the code development procedure starts. While no DevOps tools are required for planning; for the maintenance purpose of these software codes, you need to leverage a few tools like JIRA, CVS, and others.
- Continuous Integration
The Continuous Integration phase is known as the heart of the entire DevOps life cycle because a good number of software tests are conducted in this phase. Once the code is committed which allows developers to track changes to their codebase and maintain a history of all modifications, it is pushed to GitHub. The build triggers automatically and performs the task such as code analysis (Sonarqube), and email notification of status. Once the analysis report is passed the quality gate, it continuously triggers the deployment process. Continuous Integration helps in executing the tasks automatically with less time.
- Continuous Testing
Continuous Testing is the phase where software is tested for debugging purposes. Several automation testing tools like TestNG, Selenium, and JUnit are used for testing the software. Here it is recommended to go with automation testing rather than manual testing for its speed and efficiency, accuracy and consistency, scalability, and cost-effective nature. After the testing process is done, the newly developed code can be integrated with the existing code.
- Continuous Deployment
In Continuous Deployment, every code change that passes the automated tests and other quality checks is automatically deployed to a production environment without manual intervention. The goal is to deliver new features, bug fixes, and improvements to end users rapidly and frequently.
- Continuous Monitoring
It is the most crucial phase of the entire DevOps procedure. Here, the software application goes through the monitoring phase. The popular monitoring tools used in this phase are Grafana and Nagios. These tools help you to monitor the software application’s performance and check the system’s health.
The popular DevOps methods
DevOps team usually follows two popular software development methodologies to enhance the software development and product release. These are Agile and Scrum. These two are related yet distinct concepts within the realm of software development.
- Agile
Agile is an iterative software development methodology in DevOps that is focused on iterative development, continuous delivery, and customer feedback.
Agile methodology is ideal for smaller, more complex projects and especially for software development.
- Scrum
Scrum is an Agile-specific framework, used mostly due to its features like easy scalability, superior software quality, and reduction in the time-to-market phase.
Scrum methodology is ideal for projects of any size. One positive aspect of Scrum is not only for software development projects, its effectiveness has been proven for website or mobile app development projects also.
Due to these two popular DevOps methods, Agile and Scrum; the software can be marketed very quickly since the development and operations teams can communicate transparently with no downtime.
5 business benefits of DevOps
The DevOps approach to software development is making software development teams more productive. An increasing number of Startups are leveraging DevOps to receive organizational, operational, and performance-related advantages.
Here are 5 major DevOps advantages described below:
- Upgraded software quality
Business organizations that have adopted DevOps share one common goal which is the upgradation of quality, performance, user experience, security, and stability of the software. The advantage of DevOps is it keeps everything under control while ensuring stability and quality.
- Minimization of downtime
A team that works by adopting the DevOps process, maintains transparency and seamless communication level. It helps them to resolve issues faster and minimizes downtime. The transparent communication medium helps the development and operational team to fix any technical mishaps in the software with a faster release process.
- Better customer experience
DevOps can help you to expedite software development and streamline the business operation with a seamless software deployment process, detecting defects in the software, and fixing them quickly. Thus resulting in a great customer experience with exceptional consistency.
- Faster software release & innovation
The simple business formula is the faster you can release your software, the quicker it’ll start generating revenue for you. DevOps relies on automated software testing and integration for quickly delivering your software features and executing the necessary modifications. Being innovative is another DevOps aspect that can infuse new features in the software after understanding the customer expectation from brainstorming different client perspectives.
- The financial benefit
Adopting the DevOps for software development can bring both software maintenance and new updates under one roof thus cutting down on costs. Using DevOps can ensure that bugs are not causing major issues for businesses because it keeps track of the software during the development process. It can utilize big data tools for improving operations and to make customer services better thus improving the ROI.
When you opt for DevOps for software development, it ensures the organizational silos are broken down. It allows more innovation and stability in the operational conditions along with financial advantages.
Conclusion
DevOps has been introduced in the corporate world to create better collaboration between Software developers and IT operations teams. While the software development methodology has gained popularity for quite a few reasons, such as a shorter development life cycle, less deployment failure, improved communication, and increased efficiency, you need to find a perfect solution provider who has enough experience to deliver a zenith standard IT solution at a faster pace along with ensuring cost optimization.
The agile DevOps services from Youngsoft can be customized to ensure the delivery of innovative software while removing blockages from software development. We have expertise in providing automated software delivery to empower your IT operations with cloud-based monitoring and management in every possible way.
About Us:
Founded in 1996, in Michigan, Youngsoft Inc. is an information technology company specializing in IT consulting, and staffing. For almost 3 decades, the company has delivered cutting-edge tech solutions like AEM, Liferay, Business Intelligence, and more to a global clientele. With a futuristic vision, Youngsoft has spearheaded innovations in Healthcare IT solutions and implemented Industry 4.0 in a Box program, a flagship IIoT initiative in partnership with AWS (Amazon Web Services).
Reach out to us to know more about DevOps.
