• i3-Blog | DevOps | Software

DevOps has revolutionized the IT industry and is perceived as a solution to some of the common problems faced by the sector. These problems include isolation of team members and different people working in silos as opposed to collaborative practices, the impact of introducing changes or implementing new features in any product and the process of identifying and addressing defects. The main aim of DevOps is to address such issues and make software development lifecycle efficient and conducive for speedy implementation.

DevOps achieves these objectives by increasing the levels of collaboration between the IT operation and development teams that make everyone to contribute efficiently to the fulfillment of common goals in the form of a single team with different skillsets. This type of arrangement transforms dramatically the way people function and closes the gap between development and operations. By applying effective methodologies to eliminate data silos and improving the visibility of the personnel and reducing the risks that uncertainty brings, DevOps improves the way errors and bugs are detected and eliminates the bottlenecks in the development process.

Organizations that don’t work in a DevOps environment commonly have a team structure that is relying on the concept of division of labor. Such kind of a system often encourages people to work in isolation or in silos, with software developers, testers and those from the operations department working in isolation to achieve a common goal. Such kind of a structure that is based on the division of labor is an outdated way of working and structuring of teams on such basis is not desirable as it encourages the creation of barriers between various departments and creates hindrances in effective and clear communications and in the way projects are executed. This kind of environment hampers the adoption of agility and speed.

Let us explore how DevOps transforms the way IT companies work and what kind of benefits this methodology brings to the forefront.

Agility

With the help of DevOps, organizations become agile in their approach and operate like small compact units while delivering big results in terms of revenue and impact. Since the rate of change for business is accelerating, companies are not able to predict where the business is leading and what challenges they may face in the near future. To counter this uncertainty, DevOps helps companies to adapt themselves by being able to respond fast through agility and modularity and address business needs on the go. Such kind of response is critical in speeding up the introduction of new products in the market and ability to iterate quickly and this helps companies to outpace their competitors and conquer market share. This kind of an agile methodology facilitated by DevOps also helps companies to introduce new features in their products at a higher frequency and to respond to challenges arisen quickly.

Accelerating production

Using DevOps helps companies to focus on business needs on a priority basis and helps projects to finish on time leading to the production stage. It also helps in providing service delivery at a much faster speed, helping companies to introduce new features to their products in a seamless fashion. Automated deployments and continuous integration that DevOps encourages reduces the scope of making costly errors and productivity is enhanced. This advantage of adopting DevOps is critical in the success of companies as it helps them to enhance their delivery at a much faster pace and outpace their competition, an advantage that proves to be crucial in a market with cut-throat competition.

Faster time to market

DevOps provides velocity to the entire software development lifecycle and consequently increases the speed of production. With the help of DevOps, automation can be achieved without any glitches and this leads to the introduction of new products to the market in less time. Various types of applications are dominating the market since they optimize internal business processes, support effective decision-making, and data-driven analysis. Due to such wide-ranging use of applications, they are in huge demand and companies adopting DevOps are able to deliver such applications in a shorter span of time to businesses, thereby increasing their profits. Adopting DevOps helps companies to adopt more dynamic business processes, thereby improving both software delivery and production rates.

Effective action on feedback

One of the most distinctive advantages of adopting DevOps is the ability to get real-time continuous feedback on the products that have been released in the market and the capacity to incorporate such kind of feedback in the products in lesser time, leading to a better evolution of products with enhanced reaction time to act on market forces. In the digital age, the needs of the customers change rapidly, and they cannot wait for a long time to get such changes applied to the software they are using. By adopting DevOps, companies can enable themselves to satisfy the needs of their customers in a quicker fashion, thereby leading to success and profitability.

Encourages innovation

Innovation is the key to success in the digital landscape. DevOps strengthens innovation by streamlining the business processes and enables the products to be introduced in the market faster, thereby giving enough leverage to innovation. This is made possible as IT teams are able to produce and deliver products quickly, enabling the testing of products with real users and incorporate their feedback and thus improving the product quality immensely. DevOps helps people to collaborate with each other and this leads to an efficient exchange of ideas that encourages innovation. This enables organizations to harness the full potential of IT, leading to impactful end results.

Better quality software

In organizations that implement DevOps, everyone is accountable for churning out high quality and error-free products. This is made possible as every member of the team shares the same goals of delivering enhanced performance, user experience, and stability of the software. With the help of DevOps, everyone involved knows what kind of impact each change would have on the above parameters and processes and workflows are designed accordingly. In addition, this process allows people involved in a project to work on multiple roles as everyone is collaborating, and this leads to a robust system of development and operations that benefits the product quality ultimately.