The above picture is not an uncommon look when you type in DevOps in any job search application. The above screen grab is from Indeed.com. Some individuals may infer the same buzzword connection of DevOps in the technical world as AI and machine learning are currently. But what is the real definition of DevOps, is it a job title that one particular person, or group of people, contribute to a company, or is it more a job function that every developer, business analyst, and project manager should be a part of? By the end of this article, hopefully I will make that very clear for you.
Well, let’s start off by getting the basic grasp of what the industry definition of “DevOps” is:
DevOps is the combination of cultural philosophies, practices, and tools that increases an organization's ability to deliver applications and services at high velocity.
From https://resources.collab.net/agile-101/agile-methodologies:
DevOps is the offspring of agile software development – born from the need to keep up with the increased software velocity and throughput agile methods have achieved. Advancements in agile culture and methods over the last decade exposed the need for a more holistic approach to the end-to-end software delivery lifecycle.
But to someone just hearing this term for the first time, may it be someone joining the industry for the first time, or a senior developer living under a rock, does this really answer the question of what DevOps is? In its purest form, DevOps is the processes of automation to develop and deliver application goods to an end user. The more engineers and developers create, update and upgrade software and hardware, we develop new tools to make things faster, more precise in the digital realm.
DevOps is Development and Operation’s Collaboration, It’s a Union of Process, People and Working Product that enable continuous integration and continuous delivery of value to our end users. DevOps accelerate the process to deliver applications and software services at high speed and high velocity. So that organizations can learn and Adopt the market at its earliest. Also, it minimizing the risk factor by continuously delivering and getting end-users and stakeholders feedback at the early stages.
How DevOps Works
DevOps is the practice of operations and development engineers that work together in the entire project lifecycle, from design and development process to production releases and support. Starting from design and development to testing automation and from continuous integration to continuous delivery, the team works together to achieve the desired goal. People having both development and operations skill sets working together and use various tools for CI-CD and Monitoring to respond quickly to customers need and fix issues and bugs.
Benefits of DevOps
The following are the main benefits of DevOps Practices.
Break down the Silos
I believe the most important benefit using DevOps is to break down the Silos as the Cross-functional development team and operation team works together that is possible due to the self-organized approach of work.
Speed
Delivering the highest business value item quickly and faster product delivery in the market as DevOps follows Agile Principles.
Rapid Delivery
Frequently release the working product in the market to satisfy the market and more importantly customers need, that improves the ROI (Return on investment).
Reliability
By following DevOps best practices and using the best tool for Continuous Integration, Testing Automation, and Continuous Delivery and monitoring the logs helps the team to stay updated and take the real-time decision quickly.
Team Collaboration
DevOps improves the collaborations between the Dev Team and Ops Team, Team works together towards the common business goal. DevOps Break the silos and focus on Communication, Transparency, Inspection, Adaption, and Integration.,/p>
Security
While implementing automation Security is a very important factor, By Following DevOps model and using Infrastructure as code and by doing automation of process and compliance policies, one can take control security configuration.
Risk Management
Using this practice we can Identify the risk factor early in the application lifecycle stages. Early detection of any issues or bug and quick correction or fixes helps to stay ahead in the competition.
From LinkedIn’s Pulse:
Using “DevOps” in job titles is misleading and causes problems because DevOps is not a job function, a role, a skill or even a technology. If I had to try to pigeonhole it, I’d say that DevOps is probably closer to a methodology than to a pre-defined set of technologies and/or skills. There’s no such thing as a “DevOps Engineer,” for the same reason there are no “Agile Engineers” or “Waterfall Engineers.” Even if you’ve done both development and operations types of work, you’re not a “DevOps.”
So, truly, the idea that DevOps being a job title is incorrect in my book. DevOps as a job function is slightly incorrect as well if you take all things considered from this post. DevOps is a tool utilized in the software development realm that should be used with Agile/Scrum, or any other methodology that a company sees fit to use in their workforce.
Top comments (3)
A few days ago I was talking with someone in discord, and he asked me the same as you, so... I'll try to explain, but first, What the hell is a DevOps?
Developers = Solves problems
Operations = Deploy code and keep things working.
This was roles in the past, around 15 years ago, or even more... So, some guys in a country, they wondered... How applications could be deployed faster to the user?
Wow! That was an amazing question, because, developer up-to that moment only know how to write code, and they though:
Well, maybe we can use Extreme Programming, reduce some steps in coding, or even use other software architectures.
It was a nice approach for that, yeah... Programmers started writing code faster, but Sysadmins...
Wow! this fuckers programmers are hitting our heads with their code. Infrastructure will get code faster than before, so... we need to do something.
So, I don't know who was the pioneer in this, maybe Sysadmins or Developers, but... one of them decided this:
We should start thinking about how applications will be deployed faster, and, no matter what, we need it, because the USER needs it.
I think that was the keystone of everything, because, IT departments started talking about it and re-imagine/rethinking process, even... The culture.
I know, Operations are slower than Developers, this is because, in the past, applications were monoliths, but right now, we have a lot of models, a process that could use it.
So, DevOps is not a job, is culture, because, everything should be rethought to be more agile than before.
Yeah, maybe there are enterprise publishing job offers with the title "DevOps", but it's easier for them to get smart people with knowledge in coding and operations, and that is a mirror of how tech culture and processes were adopted inside the company. That explains basic stuff that someone should know to be hired and fit in that company.
I think is easier to be hired being developer than a "DevOps" person, because no one knows how should be DevOps, but they are some keys in this culture:
I think is hard to be hired as DevOps, because DevOps culture is different in all companies:
slideshare.net/SonatypeCorp/nexus-...
Hi! Neither one. It's culture, models and behavior.
Please read this.
docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/arc...
And this other one
slideshare.net/SonatypeCorp/nexus-...
But the question still remains, does one person do this for the company, or would everyone have a part in it? That is what my post was trying to get at