Anna Murray 2024-10-14 02:43:07
DevOps is a paradigm that encourages closer collaboration between software development (“Dev”) and IT operations (“Ops”). The goal of DevOps is to streamline aspects of the software development and delivery process to accelerate innovation. A sophisticated DevOps practice allows teams to push high-quality code more frequently without increasing lifecycle complexity. It also breaks down barriers between teams on the product side that have long operated in isolation.
Adopting DevOps is paramount for modern enterprises competing because end users have more power than ever before, and technology is continuously evolving. As a result, IT organizations must be agile and adaptable without sacrificing performance. Long gone are the days of monolithic applications, years-long contracts, and extensive release cycles. Speed and iteration are the name of the game, and DevOps is how teams achieve this difficult combination.
DevOps is more than just a set of tools to implement. It is a new way of operating that requires buy-in from everyone— product leaders, engineering managers, IT operators, and executive decision-makers. Under the DevOps model, teams transform how they work and experience significant change along three dimensions: automation, collaboration, and security. Within each of these areas, enterprise IT leaders should keep the following best practices in mind that pave the way for long-term DevOps success.
Automation Best Practices for DevOps
One of the main benefits of building a strong DevOps culture is the emphasis on automation. Automation in DevOps typically refers to eliminating manual effort tied to activities like compiling, testing, and deploying code. Engineers should be able to focus on higher-value work, like developing new features, rather than on mundane activities related to pushing and validating code for production.
Automation also reduces the risk of human error in the software development lifecycle. It enforces consistency across the engineering team. Larger organizations, in particular, benefit from having a streamlined continuous integration and continuous delivery/deployment (CI/CD) process. Engineering managers do not have to worry about how different developers push and test code. They can instead rely on their CI/CD pipelines.
The key is for enterprise IT leaders to implement the right tools and frameworks around their software deployment process and then continuously refine them over time. Business requirements change. Software tooling improves. Team members turn over. As a result, CI/CD pipelines can become outdated or obsolete, and committed DevOps cultures can degrade over time. It is important for everyone within the IT organization to stay agile, keep an open mind, and change course when DevOps automation is not creating value.
Misguided automation can add unnecessary complexity without enabling better scalability or productivity. It can also hinder visibility into everyday IT operations or hide processes that should be re-evaluated. Automation that is challenging to undo also makes it difficult to pivot, which is a crucial capability today. The takeaway is for leaders to be thoughtful about what they automate and keep tabs on how their DevOps automation is affecting software-related outcomes.
Collaborating More Openly in a DevOps Culture
DevOps also promotes collaboration between groups that have traditionally operated in silos. It pushes teams like software engineering and IT operations to work closely together, embrace transparency, and communicate priorities clearly. In healthy IT organizations, this enhanced collaboration keeps everyone aligned toward the same goals. It also creates shared ownership and accountability over outcomes.
In a DevOps culture, software engineers might try to understand what metrics IT operators track and how they think about topics like device management, site reliability, and server uptime. IT operators could be aware of things like, how engineers juggle constant demands for new features, and providing third-level support.
The collaborative DevOps spirit extends to an Agile mindset in other departments like customer success, customer support, and product management. Individuals on these teams often get feedback directly from customers. In a business committed to DevOps, this feedback should flow openly to engineering and IT operations, who can then decide how to respond. This fast feedback loop is critical in today’s hypercompetitive landscape.
Having an open line of communication between all teams on the product side mitigates risk and elevates performance. It keeps everyone on the same page and ensures that the code that gets pushed out the door addresses real customer needs and creates value for the enterprise. It is what makes customers feel heard and helps brands set themselves apart from the competition. IT leaders should break down barriers that prevent effective collaboration while making sure that each group still has the appropriate level of power over its domain. Product managers should be able to let software developers know what customers want, and engineering managers should still be able to prioritize work. More transparency does not mean everyone’s perspectives carry equal weight in every conversation. It does mean, however, that more voices are heard and considered, which should lead to better decisionmaking overall.
Boosting Governance and Security
DevOps also enables better security and governance. An extension of DevOps is DevSecOps, which focuses on integrating cybersecurity best practices into the software development lifecycle. DevSecOps will become increasingly important as governments pass more regulations aimed at boosting cybersecurity resilience. One example of this is the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) taking effect January 2025 for the EU financial sector. Organizations that adopt DevSecOps principles today will be better positioned to comply with such laws.
Equally as important as maintaining compliance, DevSecOps empowers organizations to fend off cyberattacks and cybercriminals. As companies embrace more digital technology, their attack surface expands. They are more exposed to exploitations that could cause major damage to existing systems, data, and processes. One cyberattack can ruin an enterprise’s reputation and affect other industries and organizations. Every stage of the software development lifecycle should be safe from bad actors and able to recover quickly in the event of an incident. Resilient IT operations are only possible with careful planning and continued commitment to security, even while collaboration and automation increase. Organizations that have already incorporated DevOps are well-suited to add security to the mix.
A few examples of security controls that IT leaders can implement within their DevOps practices include conducting regular vulnerability scans and penetration testing, nuanced access controls, and robust identity management. Organizations leveraging AI/ML should also evaluate their models for biases and pay close attention to how they manage sensitive user data. Real-time monitoring is another DevSecOps best practice that can find potential issues before they evolve into bigger security concerns. A finely tuned DevSecOps operation can help keep tool chains updated so that new vulnerabilities do not sneak in over time.
DevSecOps should motivate leaders to think early and often about security throughout the software lifecycle. To establish a comprehensive DevSecOps practice, teams should be committed to ongoing security training for employees. Furthermore, security should be a part of every software development and deployment conversation from the beginning. Only then will it become engrained and reach its full potential.
Where DevOps Can Go Wrong
On top of knowing essential DevOps best practices, it is important to recognize where DevOps can go wrong. First, many organizations forget to tie their DevOps activities and tools to customer value. Better automation, collaboration, and security are only worthwhile if they enable organizations to deliver better features to customers at a faster rate. Otherwise, DevOps is not fulfilling its primary purpose.
DevOps and DevSecOps are meant to help technical leaders adapt how their teams work to keep up with customer expectations and changes in the marketplace. It is not enough to improve something like deployment speed if new features are not addressing customer pain points that should be identified and shared openly across the product organization. This is where the role of the product manager becomes crucial to gather market intelligence, understand what customers really need, and prioritize the most important work at the top of the backlog.
DevOps loses effectiveness if organizations are not committed to, and bought in on, the “culture” of DevOps. DevOps tooling will eventually fall short if teams do not implement the right processes around their tools. More collaboration and better security will not happen if leaders do not prioritize these values early and often. One way to solve this is to hire a DevOps coach and ensure that person has the full backing of an executive. Hiring a coach and consistently promoting core values is important in the early stages of adopting a DevOps culture when team members are likely to fall back on old habits as soon as they experience the pain of change.
Another effective strategy for dealing with these challenges is to incorporate DevOps tools and philosophies step by step rather than all at once. Incremental rollouts help leaders track progress and identify roadblocks early. They keep engineers and IT operators from getting overwhelmed and create more space to highlight wins.
Focus first on one area, like DevOps automation, before trying to push more collaboration. Have honest conversations with team members about where they are experiencing friction and then address that feedback before moving on. This is an area where your DevOps coach can help. Your DevOps coach can be the evangelist for the culture change while executive leadership regularly reinforces the principles.
The transformation that DevOps and DevSecOps enable is worth the effort. Companies in every industry must adapt to new technologies and customer expectations that seem to change continuously. Embracing DevOps and the best practices outlined here is a vital next step for those who feel like their software development and IT operations are falling behind. EE
Anna Murray is a passionate product leader who champions automation, Agile software development, DevOps, and continuous improvement. Throughout her career, she has held many positions in the software development lifecycle, culminating in her role as a product manager. With curiosity and a growth mindset, she has helped many companies improve processes and embrace automation. she holds an MBA and is a Product Management Director at Rocket software. email: amurray2@rocketsoftware.com
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