What is DevOps?
DevOps is a modern software delivery framework to improve efficiency and quality across the systems development lifecycle. The framework focuses on a number of different
practice areas along the process, with specific consideration for the following phases thereof: plan, code, build, test, release, deploy, operate and monitor. When discussing
DevOps, engineers tend to get into the weeds very quickly as they often get distracted by shiny things like tooling, systems and "tabs vs. spaces". To properly understand,
DevOps, one needs to take a technology agnostic view thereof.
DevOps as process, aims to create seamless delivery pipelines for the end-to-end delivery of software systems - very much what modern production and assembly lines do for
tangile products, like household electronics and vehicles. These pipelines are ultimately built on the interoperability and integration of the various steps in the process through the
use of Software Engineering tools. These tools, through their integration capabilities, allows software process to move from one phase to the next in an automated fashion.
This is the key ingredient to most DevOps environments: Automation.
While the writing of source code is still performed by human beings, many of the other processes are automated (by other human beings) to ensure a smooth, quick and predictable
delivery of systems into a usable state. Some highly optimised DevOps pipelines are able to perform a complete production release of new code within minutes of the engineer
committing his / her latest source code to the code repository.
Historically, software deployments could take months to go from engineer to user - and in some cases, that is still the case today. What DevOps enables is the ability to
fast-track these slow and manual processes to provide value quicker to users, organisations and their clients.
What does DevOps have to do with Cloud computing?
Cloud computing environments mimic traditional data centres through virtualised hardware equivalents. This means that you could theoretically build a replica of your physical
data center on a cloud platform like Microsoft Azure or Amazon AWS. What cloud platforms like these provide engineers, contrary to traditional data centers, is the ability to
construct environments through code, known as Infrastructure-as-Code (or IaC). This capability is also available in modern on-premise datacenters, provided the appropriate hardware
and software are in place.
This is where DevOps and Cloud computing come together to provide companies the real value. While many of the automation tools can (and are often) run in a cloud environment,
the release of software through DevOps tooling allows engineers to deliver software directly onto a pre-built cloud environment. At this time, everything your systems need
are deployed with the software (databases, monitoring tools, firewalls, API gateways - to name a few) onto the same cloud environment. Your system would then automatically
switch over to the latest version, which in most cases, are undetectable to your users or clients.
How can we help you make this happen?
Building an end-to-end DevOps environment takes skill, experience and time. Whether we're delivering this capability as part of a software project, or partnering with your
own in-house development shop, this can be the way your software platforms are development and delivered to users, partners and clients. We have the resources to help you adopt
leading practices in the design and development of software, implement and enable automation pipelines, and create your cloud infrastructure to meet these objectives.