Overview Many people are familiar with the term "DevOps," but may not be sure what it is or what it's used for. In a nutshell, DevOps is a term used to describe a collaborative approach to software development and operations, that streamlines operation functions through the use of source code, automated scripts, and tooling. It is not only about the tools and technologies, DevOps also often requires a shift in mindset/culture and new process workflows. By working together, developers and operations professionals can streamline processes and better collaborate to produce software that meets business and customer needs. DevOps can be used in various ways, depending on the needs of the organization. Some typical applications include improving software delivery speed, increasing reliability and stability, and facilitating collaboration between teams. If you're curious to learn more about DevOps or wondering if it could benefit your organization, read on! This blog post will explore what DevOps is, its use, and how to start using it in your projects.
What is DevOps? DevOps is not simply throwing IT professionals together with other employees and expecting magic results. Rather than being a quick fix or a set of loosely defined practices, DevOps requires careful planning, thoughtful analysis of your specific operational needs, and constant monitoring as you implement its principles into your workflows. In addition, it is essential to consider whether you have a sufficient level of technical expertise within your organization to make the most out of this approach. Without these critical factors in place, you could waste time and resources rather than strengthening your operations as intended.
DevOps is not a single tool or technology. It is not owned by any one company or individual. It is not a methodology or framework. Instead, DevOps is a combination of culture, tools, and processes that emphasizes communication, collaboration, and integration between software developers and information technology (IT) professionals. The goal of DevOps is to shorten the software development life cycle and provide faster and more reliable delivery of features, fixes, and updates.
To achieve this, DevOps practitioners rely on tools and technologies that are married with process workflows using higher level concepts such as continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD), containerization, observability, and while not directly in the DevOps swimlane, architecture patterns that are more suited for DevOps workflows such as microservices. This allows practitioners to speed up the process of getting code from development into production while also maintaining security and quality. However, while DevOps is often associated with these tools and technologies, it is essential to remember that they do not define DevOps.
And while DevOps can help to improve the speed and quality of software development, it is necessary to note that it is not a silver bullet solution. DevOps Engineers ultimately are software developers that must carefully plan their work and implement and configure custom software or scripts to make all of these process workflows come to life.
Why Should You Care About DevOps DevOps is a powerful ecosystem that can improve software delivery speed, provide team efficiencies, increase reliability and stability, and facilitate collaboration between teams. Whether you're a developer or an operations professional, DevOps tools and processes can help streamline and optimize the software development lifecycle.
The Future of DevOps Like with most technology, over time software engineers abstract away complexity by building layers of abstraction on top of technology that may have been previously hard to adopt or utilize to its full potential. These abstractions remove the need to have as many (or any) specialized skillsets on your staff, so you can focus more on building what you set out to develop in the first place.
The future of DevOps is trending towards a concept called “NoOps”, where DevOps workflows and technologies are completely automated via No/Low Code tools. While this is an entirely new field, market leaders are starting to emerge to greatly simplify DevOps adoption such as harpoon.
harpoon is a tool that enables organizations to automate their DevOps processes. It does this by providing a layer of abstraction that allows for the commoditization of DevOps practices. This means that organizations can use harpoon to quickly and efficiently implement DevOps practices without worrying about the underlying infrastructure. harpoon is easy to use and requires no prior knowledge of DevOps practices or tools.
Whether you’re just starting to learn about DevOps, looking to dive into the ecosystem of tools and technologies, or looking to skip over the learning curve entirely with NoOps, one thing is for certain: DevOps is fast becoming not only a competitive edge, but a requirement for success in today's fast moving and ever changing world of software.
