What is DevOps?
As the name suggests, DevOps is a combined approach of Software Development (Dev) and IT Operations (Ops). Thus, DevOps is a union of technology, people, and processes to deliver continuous value to customers. Notably, DevOps is not a specific technology, framework, or set of standards. DevOps users embrace it as a ‘DevOps Culture’ or sometimes as a ‘DevOps Environment.’ It promotes better communication and collaboration between the teams.
Let us understand the technical definition of DevOps.
How DevOps works: The complete DevOps Lifecycle
In DevOps Model, the development and operation teams are not isolated. They work together as a single team through the entire DevOps Lifecycle. From development, implementation, and testing to operations, they are not limited to any single function. Whereas, in some units, quality assurance and security are also part of the DevOps Lifecycle. The involvement of the security team in the DevOps lifecycle is sometimes referred to as DevSecOps.
This DevOps team automates the processes that were handled manually. They also utilize modern technology stacks and tools to operate quickly and reliably. DevOps teams have tools for each phase of the DevOps Lifecycle. These tools help DevOps engineers accomplish their tasks independently without utilizing more resources. This is how DevOps works.
Knowing DevOps is incomplete without understanding the DevOps Lifecycle, So here is a quick definition of DevOps Lifecycle:
DevOps Lifecycle is nothing but a set of iterative, automated, and continuous development processes designed for rapid software development process while maintaining high quality.
A standard DevOps Lifecycle consists of 7 phases. Here are they
- Continuous Development
- Continuous Integration
- Continuous Testing
- Continuous Monitoring
- Continuous Feedback
- Continuous Deployment
- Continuous Operations
These 7 phases of the DevOps lifecycle are continuous and iterative, and allow improvement throughout the software development process. Let us dive deep into each step to understand the DevOps lifecycle in a better way.
2. Continuous Integration
Continuous Integration, generally known as CI, is one of the most important phases of the DevOps Lifecycle. Continuous integration is a software development practice where developers need to commit frequent changes to the source code. The changes occur daily or at a gap of a few days. The code is compiled and goes through unit testing, integration testing, packaging, and code review. Thus, the code with new functionalities is continuously integrated with the existing source code.
I. What is Continuous Development in DevOps
Continuous Integration (CI) is a DevOps practice to automate the integration of changes in code from multiple developers into a single repository. After the integration, automated tests and builds are run. Here, automated tools are used to check the builds and codes before the integration. The main goal of Continuous Integration (CI) is to assure quality software, and reduce validation and new software update time.
II. Continuous Integration Process
In the continuous integration process, developers frequently update to a shared repository. Before each update, developers may sometimes run a local unit test just to verify the code before integration. Whereas continuous integration service automatically builds and runs unit tests on the updated code to check the errors.
Generally, the continuous integration process consists of 4 significant steps. These steps are:
- Source Control (Commit Change)
- Build (Run Build And Unit Tests)
- Staging (Deploy To Test Environment And Run Tests)
- Production (Deploy To Production Environment)
Continuous Integration is the most important phase of the DevOps lifecycle and has many benefits to offer. Here are the top benefits of continuous integration.
III. Benefits of Continuous Integration
Here is the list of benefits offered by continuous integration
- CI can find bugs and errors quicker through frequent testing.
- Continuous Integration delivers updates at a more frequent rate to the customers.
- Reduce last-minute chaos and risk of the project.
- CI helps organizations to scale better and quicker.
- It improves the feedback loop by providing faster feedback for business decisions.
- CI improves overall accountability and communication between the teams.
To leverage all the benefits of continuous integration, you must implement its best practices. Here are some continuous integration best practices.
IV. Continuous Integration best practices
For best results, continuous integration relies on these best practices:
- Maintaining the code repository
- Automating the build
- Test-driven development
- Implementation of code requests and review
- Optimizing the pipeline speed
- Test in a clone of a production environment
- Maintain high transparency in the process
- Automate the deployment
Learn More About → Continuous Integration
4. Continuous Monitoring
In this phase of the DevOps life cycle, we monitor the performance of the application. The important and vital information related to the software is recorded here. This information is then used to organize the functionalities of the entire application. Errors such as ‘server not reachable’ or ‘low memory’ are resolved in this phase. Also, the root cause of the issues is found and fixed. Other network-related problems are also taken care of in this phase of the DevOps lifecycle.
I. What is Continuous Monitoring in DevOps
Continuous Monitoring in DevOps is a technology and process implemented by the DevOps team to rapidly detect security risks and compliance issues in IT infrastructure. Continuous Monitoring empowers DevSecOps teams with real-time information at each phase of the DevOps pipeline.
Learn More About → Continuous Monitoring
6. Continuous Deployment
Continuous Deployment is a phase where finalized code is deployed to the production servers. The key aspect of the continuous deployment phase is configuration management. It helps to deploy code on all the servers, which creates consistency in the application. Code is released to the server, and updates are scheduled accordingly. Overall, what continuous deployment does is make an application easy to run on different computers.
I. What is Continuous Deployment in DevOps
Continuous Deployment in DevOps is a software release process in which any code that passes the automated testing phase is released into the production environment. These changes are directly reflected to the end software users. Deployment tools can automate the entire deployment process so engineers can focus on other important tasks.
Learn More About → Continuous Deployment
7. Continuous Operations
Continuous Operations is the last and the shortest phase of DevOps lifecycle. The main aim of continuous operations is to automate the release of software and its updates. The development cycle in this phase of DevOps is short, allowing engineers a faster time to market the product.
I. What is Continuous Operations in DevOps
Continuous Operations in DevOps means the operations of data services and applications need to be done continuously without any interruptions. In this phase of DevOps, you need to take care that the availability and performance of an application should not suffer from new updates and releases. There must be no downtime for the application.
Now you know what is DevOps and how it works; let’s understand why people choose DevOps. More IT organizations are shifting to the DevOps culture, and the reason behind this is the advantages it offers. There are numerous benefits of DevOps for business organizations. Let’s take a look at them one by one.
Benefits of DevOps
When development and operation teams are combined as DevOps, they reduce time, deploy frequently, and develop high-quality software. Organizations that adopt DevOps function in an effective way. DevOps organizations can deliver with speed, innovation, and the latest functionality. DORA’s State Of DevOps Report shows that top DevOps performers deliver code faster, have fewer issues, and solve problems quickly.
Apart from these, there are so many benefits of DevOps. Majorly these benefits can be divided into three categories. Let’s take a look at each of the DevOps benefits one by one.
DevOps Tools list according to DevOps Lifecycle
Since DevOps is a culture to adopt, there is no singular tool that enables entire DevOps practices and principles. Instead, you need to create a DevOps tools list for each phase of the DevOps lifecycle. There are different types of DevOps tools. Let’s take a look at the best DevOps tool list.
1. Continuous Deployment Tools
Continuous deployment tools are automated software that make every code pass through the entire delivery pipeline and release it to the production environment. Once the code is tested by the testing team, continuous deployment tools will automatically pass it to the production environment.
There are multiple deployment tools in the market, but the few that stand apart from others and are considered the best deployment tools are:
List of Top Continuous Deployment Tools
Apart from these, there are several other continuous deployment tools for DevOps as well. The choice depends on several factors and project criteria.
2. Continuous Integration Tools
Continuous Integration (CI) is a process of code testing and build automation, each time there is version control. Continuous Integration tools allow developers to share the source code, make changes, and automatically integrate the overall source code. These tools help in avoiding merge conflicts, code redundancy, and discrepant code strategies. Continuous Integration tools in DevOps ensure continuous feedback and reduce the project backlog.
When it comes to choosing the best continuous integration tools, so many options are available in the market. These many options can easily confuse you. So we have researched and added the top continuous integration tools in DevOps here.
List of Top Continuous Integration Tools
Learn More About → Continuous Integration Tools
3. Test Automation Tools
A test automation tool is a software that helps DevOps teams to automate their software testing process with less human intervention. Test automation tools help in achieving higher speed, efficiency, and reliability. Automated testing in DevOps can increase software quality and reduce risk. Thus automated testing tools play a vital role in the DevOps tools list and DevOps toolchain.
List of Top Test Automation Tools:
Learn More About → Test Automation Tools
4. Monitoring Tools in DevOps
Continuous Monitoring is an automated process that uses continuous monitoring tools to empower DevOps teams. DevOps monitoring tools are used to enhance the application performance and monitor security threats and compliances across the DevOps pipeline. Not only this, but Monitoring tools in DevOps also help in handling unplanned outages and rapid response to software issues. Here are some of the best continuous monitoring tools in DevOps for you.
List of Top Monitoring Tools In DevOps:
Learn More About → Continuous Monitoring Tools In DevOps
5. Continuous Feedback Tools
As each phase of the DevOps lifecycle has its own tools, so does the phase of continuous feedback. Continuous feedback tools perform the task of collecting and reviewing NPS data, bug reports, and surveys, and automating many more tasks. Let’s take a look at a few of the continuous feedback tools in DevOps.
List of Top Continuous Feedback Tools:
6. DevOps Deployment Tools
DevOps deployment tools make the process of updating and distributing software as easy as possible. Deployment tools are used to automate or schedule the tasks so developers and members of DevOps teams can focus on other important tasks. Here are some of the most popular continuous deployment tools.
List of DevOps Deployment Tools:
7. Configuration Management Tool
Configuration Management Tools in DevOps enable changes and deployment to be faster. These DevOps tools also allow changes to be repeatable, predictable, and scalable to maintain the desired state. The advantages of configuration management tools include easier code navigation, idempotency, and ease of managing many remote servers. Configuration management tools in the DevOps lifecycle play an important role by keeping the end state of the software code the same. Here are some of the best configuration management tools for you.
List of Configuration Management Tools:
Learn More About → Configuration Management Tools
8. Version Control Tools
Version Control or source control is a DevOps practice to manage and track the changes in source code. The version control tools help software teams to manage all the changes to source code over time. Due to version control tools, DevOps teams and engineers can work faster, smarter, and more effectively. These DevOps tools keep track of every code change so you can refer to it whenever needed. Here are the best version control tools for you.
List of Version Control Tools:
Learn More About → Version Control Tools
9. Azure DevOps Tools
Azure offers multiple DevOps tools for each phase of the lifecycle. Azure DevOps tools empower users to manage their work and grow seamlessly with them throughout the development process. There are multiple DevOps architectures and tools that Microsoft Azure offers.
List of Azure DevOps Tools:
10. DevOps Automation Tools
Automation plays a crucial role in DevOps. We need to implement automation from code generation, implementation, integration, deployment, testing, and monitoring. DevOps automation tools are software that help us in integrating and automating the delivery pipeline of DevOps. The entire DevOps lifecycle is integrated and made fluent through automation tools. Here are some of the best automation tools in the DevOps industry.
List of DevOps automation Tools:
These tools will help you to automate and streamline business processes. Now that you know everything about DevOps tools, you can choose the best one for yourself. But to get the best of DevOps, just learning and using DevOps tools isn’t enough. One needs to be aware of DevOps best practices and implement them in their day-to-day business and processes. Here is the list of DevOps practices that can help.
3. Microservices
Microservice architecture is a design approach where a single application is built as a set of small services. Each of these small services is called a microservice and can be deployed and operated independently from each other. Each microservice communicates with the other through the Application Programming Interface (API). Microservices are built around business needs and capabilities. Each service is scoped to a sole purpose. The main benefit of microservice is that you can use different frameworks, tools, and programming languages. Also, they can be deployed independently as well as in a group of services.
Learn More About → Microservices
What is DevSecOps
DevSecOps represents a necessary evolution in which organizations can represent security. In simple terms, DevSecOps can be defined as a combination of Development, Security, and Operation. From design to delivery, DevSecOps integrates security at every phase of the DevOps lifecycle.
In earlier days, security was implemented at the end of SDLC by a separate security team, and then a Quality Assurance (QA) team was used to test it. This was quite manageable when updates were released only once in a while. But now, software developers have adopted Agile, and DevOps approaches. This resulted in a bottleneck situation for the security team.
Thus DevSecOps was introduced to streamline IT security. It addresses the security issues as they emerge and fix them at the initial stage. Apart from this, DevSecOps made security a shared responsibility of all teams rather than solely depending upon the security team.
Let us understand the differentiation between DevOps and DevSecOps.
What does DevOps Engineers do?
When working on a software development project, different teams will have different goals. The IT operations team will prioritize scalability, reliability, and fewer changes for the users. The development team will focus on new features, updates, and overall code development. At the same time, the security team will have its goals.
It is the DevOps Engineer that ensures the collaboration of work to get the best version of a software application. They are responsible for bringing new ideas and implementing methodologies to reduce complexity and enhance reliability, quality, and security. In all of this, A DevOps Engineer acts as a bond between all the teams.
So you might be wondering what are the skills needed to be a DevOps Engineer. Let’s discuss all the DevOps Engineer skills in brief.
Hire DevOps Engineer
As DevOps engineers’ requirements vary from organization to organization, hiring a DevOps engineer can be a difficult task. DevOps means different things to different people, and you need to find the mix of the right skills as per your requirement.
Besides that, there might be a question “ where to hire a DevOps Engineer? ” Well, there are many platforms where you can find a freelancer or regular website like Dzone and StackOverflow to recruit an individual DevOps engineer. But this method of hiring a DevOps Engineer comes with a huge risk. You won’t get any guarantee or integrity about your resource.
Whereas hiring DevOps Engineer from a reputed company can overcome your challenges easily. The advantage of hiring such a specialist is you get a qualified outsourced resource for your needs with guaranteed service.
If you are looking to Hire DevOps Engineer or DevOps Team, OpenXcell is a one-stop solution for all your needs. With us, you get top-notch qualified resources and complete control over your team. With the experience and knowledge of DevOps tools and technologies, our DevOps Engineers can optimize your business process and improve the overall productivity of your business.
Here are the reasons why you should hire DevOps Engineers from OpenXcell.
- Skilled and experienced resources
- Reduce development and operations cost by up to 60%
- Recruit the top 1% of industry talent
- Complete source code authority
- Security and privacy maintained with strict NDA
- Full ownership of the team
- Complete transparency with no hidden charges
Still not convinced? Don’t worry, here are the reasons why choose OpenXcell.
