DevOps Automation: Everything You Need to Know

DevOps is a combination of practices, cultural philosophies, and tools that enhance an organization’s ability to provide services and applications in an expedited manner. It also enables the improvement and evolution of products at a rapid pace than the organizations which employ traditional development software and infrastructure management processes. The speed obtained by DevOps enables organizations to serve their consumers better and compete effectively in the industry.

The term DevOps emerges after two similar trends collide, “Development” and “Operations.” The term was coined in 2009, and around that time, a shift was experienced in the IT culture. DevOps represents this shift. It is an umbrella term that explains the operations of a team collaborating throughout the programming production process. It denotes the processes right from the design to the development phase. For successfully enabling DevOps, you’d need DevOps consulting services.

DevOps programmers generally leverage traditional infrastructure management and software development procedures. When software development comes into the picture, DevOps takes an agile approach.

When you try to understand DevOps in-depth, you will know there is no single definition of DevOps. It consists of three fundamental ideas.

• Practices and Process

DevOps and Agile go hand in hand. If organizations choose to adopt Agile development methodology (Scrum & Kanban) and automation, processes will be streamlined in repeated and predictable ways.

• People and Culture

It means that DevOps effectively breaks down the silos between several teams of an organization, and they all work together to achieve a common goal. The ultimate objective is to develop quality software for the consumers as quickly as possible.

• Tools and Techniques

Without the proper techniques and tools, the DevOps model is ineffective. Such factors enable continuous integration, automation, testing, configuration management, releasing, packaging and monitoring.

Automation is a crucial aspect of DevOps services. DevOps users depend on several tools to carry out different operations and tasks throughout the software development process.

DevOps Trends in 2021

Following are the critical DevOps trends.

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1. Becoming Cloud-Centric:

Several enterprises started adopting a cloud-centric infrastructure to support cloud-based applications and workflows. As a result, there has been an acute pressure on the industry to adjust and adapt to the changing digital paradigm.

The IDC FutureScape Worldwide Developer and DevOps 2021 predicted that almost 80% of organizations would develop a mechanism to straightaway double the acceleration rate of the migration by the end of 2021. The shift towards a primarily remote workforce has made it possible, and the number is expected to increase further.

Acquisitions and Mergers complicate the situation further, and so do the data that will have to stay on-premises for security and regulatory reasons. In 2021, companies will start adopting Hybrid and multi-clouds to remove the hurdles between their cloud providers and their on-premises IT.

2. Focus on Edge-Computing:

Organizations will rely more on edge computing to process data collected for better analysis, latency, and cost optimization. IT operators will look forward to filtering the monitored data available and edge computing will offer DevOps the upper hand that will lead to enhanced use in 2021.

Tough decisions are mostly made to react to the current situation, organizations have realized that edge-driven investments are essential. With edge computing, the applications can react where the data is created, i.e., at the network’s edge. Developers are leveraging this transformational approach for things like household appliances, fitness trackers, etc.

Edge-computing will enable companies to respond to the urgent needs of businesses quickly along with the ability to provide flexibility to their staff and customers, and many more benefits.

3. DevSecOps will become a default part of DevOps:

Organizations will embrace Docker, Serverless, Kubernetes, and other modern cloud-based technologies in 2022. Amidst all this, security remains a top priority and will be default along with DevOps. As far as DevOps is considered, it is a merging of the IT teams and development. On the contrary, DevSecOps is the integration of security in the union of the IT operation team and development.

It encompasses compliance testing and security into the development pipeline. It delivers swiftness and speed in security mechanisms, leads to rapid vulnerability detection, encourages responses towards change, and detects bugs in code. This shift towards security is an effective and necessary practice for businesses to keep their applications secure.

Businesses are moving to the cloud and integrating security to ensure that the deployments are secure and rapid.

4. Migration to Serverless Architecture:

Serverless Architecture offers scalability for the applications, and the software deployment will be without the cost of physical hardware. The companies are looking forward to reducing the costs incurred so that the impact of the pandemic is cushioned. Hence, they migrate to serverless architecture to eliminate the responsibilities of handling the infrastructure and allowing them to pay only for what they use.

Read More About Serverless Architecture

Organizations will consider shifting to serverless architecture, and they will be able to simply push the code to the cloud. The remaining operations are taken care of by the cloud provider. That said, serverless architecture is gaining importance in the DevOps community. Developers will then not have to manage the server as they have to do with traditional hosting services.

5. DevOps Automation:

DevOps makes it possible for DevOps engineers to develop applications since rapid deployment, testing, infrastructure, and release are all automated. It enables the programmers to achieve critical quality gates. Rapid, repeatable, dependable, and customizable automation results in the success of every project.

Automation in DevOps strives to enhance the speed of delivering software, reduce lead time, improve flexibility, workflow. Automation helps to accelerate the pace of every process. Also in 2021, DevOps will get avant-garde automation tools to generate a better-accelerated approach throughout the DevOps pipeline.

Experts say that the tools for robotic process automation will improve and further assist in the mechanization of several error-prone and manual tasks for enhanced productivity.

We, at WeblineIndia, offer DevOps automation services to help you in DevOps adoption and automate the end-to-end delivery pipeline across cloud platforms for faster time to market, increased efficiency and reduced cost.

Global Market Trends and DevOps Practices

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The Global DevOps market is expected to grow from USD 3.42 Billion in 2018 to USD 10.32 Billion by the end of 2023. That said, the compound annual growth rate during the forecasted period is calculated to be around 24.7%. Several factors will combine to drive the demand for DevOps in the development industry. The factors include flexibility, lower costs, fast application delivery, etc. DevOps helps to prevent deviation of a developer’s code from the development team’s work.

Good DevOps practices also help save operational and capital expenditure to a great extent. This is possible with the help of efficient resource monitoring and hence may facilitate the market demand in the forecasted period. With DevOps, the development teams get more time to develop and deliver high-quality work efficiently. When businesses leverage automated testing and integration, developers will not have to wait for the machine’s configuration or code integration. Such tasks are easily achieved just by clicking the button available on the self-service portal. For instance, several banks have already deployed DevOps in their processes, resulting in enhancements for the provision of updates in internet banking applications.

An intuitive DevOps company also successfully reduces the workload of your IT team so that they can concentrate on other core jobs and add value to the organization. Many companies are planning to shift their focus from Continuous Integration pipeline to DevOps assembly pipeline. AWS is one of the most popular and common DevOps examples. Azure DevOps enables the automation of manual tasks, allowing the team to handle complex environments. Azure DevOps is another famous example.

How DevOps Lifecycle Works?

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DevOps lifecycle consists of several different phases. Let us know more about each phase of the DevOps lifecycle.

Development:

The development phase involves planning and coding the software. The objective of the software that is being developed is decided during the planning phase, and then the developers start with the coding phase. No DevOps tool is required during the planning phase, but numerous tools are required to maintain the code. Developers can code an application in their preferred language, but version control tools should be used to maintain it. Code maintenance is referred to as Source Code Management. Some of the most common tools used include SVN, CVS, JIRA, Git, etc.

Git is more of a distributed tool that controls versions and supports distributed non-linear workflows by offering assurance to develop high-quality software. When you have to build a large project consisting of several collaborators, it is crucial that the collaborators efficiently communicate when changes are required in the project. Besides communication between the collaborators, another primary reason for using Git is that you will always have a stable code version.

Integration:

This phase is the heart of the entire DevOps Cycle. It is a general software development practice in which the developers are often required to make the necessary changes in the source code. And adopting DevOps will help you do so. Changes may either be required daily or weekly. Each code commit is then effectively built, and DevOps enables the developers to detect a problem efficiently and quickly if they are present. The process of code establishment not only includes compilation but also includes code review, unit testing, packaging, and integration testing.

Codes that support new functionalities are integrated more often in exchange with the existing codes. The process of continuous software development must be smooth so that end-users have a seamless experience. Jenkins is a very popular tool that is used in this phase, when the code is updated in the Git repository.

Testing:

During this phase, the developed software is thoroughly tested to detect all possible bugs. The developers use automated testing tools to test the applications continuously. Tools like TestNG, Selenium, JUnit, etc., are used. Such automation tools enable quality analysts to test several code bases in parallel to ensure that the functionality is working as intended and without flaws. To facilitate the test environment, developers can also make use of docker containers.

Selenium carries out automated testing, and TestNG generates reports. The entire testing phase can be easily automated using Jenkins, a continuous integration tool. The whole process, right from writing codes to getting it tested, is automated in Jenkins. Automated testing is a time-efficient practice. The processes need not be carried out manually and the generation of reports is an added advantage. The whole task of evaluating test cases that couldn’t be achieved in the test suite becomes very easy.

What makes this an even more fruitful practice is the benefit of being able to schedule the execution of different test cases at predefined times with the given tools.

Monitoring:

This phase is crucial in the entire DevOps lifecycle since the developers continuously monitor the performance of their applications. They also record all vital information regarding the usage of their software. The information is then processed further to recognize the functionalities of the application. The errors related to the system including low memory, unreachable server, low disk capacity, third party errors, etc., are resolved during this phase.

Monitoring helps to determine the root cause of all issues. This phase also helps to maintain the security and availability of the services and enables developers to resolve the problems at the moment they are detected. Engineers can also work towards increasing the reliability of the systems and enhancing productivity, which further reduces IT costs.

Deployment:

The code is deployed to production servers, during this phase. It is crucial to make sure that the code is deployed on all servers. Containerization tools and configuration management help developers to achieve continuous deployment. Configuration management helps to maintain and establish consistency in the functional requirements of an application and its performance. Since new codes are deployed continuously, configuration management tools play a significant role in executing required tasks frequently and rapidly.

Even containerization tools play a significant role in the development stage. Vagrant and Docker are the two best DevOps tools used for this purpose. Containerization tools enable the maintenance of consistency in the development environment where the applications are developed, deployed, and tested.

Also if you are a Software Development Company, we suggest you to consider these DevOps Tools.

Operation:

The operations of the DevOps lifecycle are generally based on continuity with complete automation of the release procedures and allow businesses to speed up the overall time to the market continuously. Any required operation is performed on the code to achieve targets.

What is Automation in DevOps? What are its Benefits?

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Automation is the future. It helps to efficiently manage and run an application in the development environment with frequent updates. It also needs strict testing standards. Automation in DevOps makes the entire process smooth, and all conventional manual software development barriers become scalable and manageable. Furthermore, various business benefits are produced, solidifying DevOps position as the superior choice compared to other conventional ops.

If you plan to integrate DevOps automation into your software development processes, you’ll need DevOps consulting. These services will help enhance productivity, security, and the speed of development procedure as well. In a study, it was concluded that almost 63% of development teams who implemented DevOps noticed that the quality of performance of their software was enhanced. If you are a DevOps programmer and are looking forward to increasing your productivity, automate your redundant and inefficient processes.

Several benefits accompany DevOps automation. Below listed are few key benefits of automating DevOps software development.

• Removes Manual Error:

Manual processes may have significant human errors, but when developers automate manual tasks, the errors are efficiently eliminated. Every job in the development phase can be automated and is carried out with the help of tools to ensure efficacy. Preset configurations are leveraged to automate tasks and obtain desired results without any errors.

• Shorter Development Cycle:

Automation increases the speed of developing an application, and processes take shorter periods. Code integration and application deployment happen rapidly. At any point in time, the process can be deployed. You will not have to wait for the presence of a human to get started with a process. For instance, you cannot deploy a process at 2 a.m when a human is required to execute that particular task, but there will be no delays with automation tools.

• Latency Removed:

With DevOps automation, your development team becomes efficient, and your business will race miles ahead of the competitors. Increased developers productivity, results in removal of latency issues faced by the software. Developers can focus on other core activities, as networks and servers are all managed, enhancing performance.

• Increases No. Of Deliveries:

DevOps automation makes it possible to complete code build and deployment in an extremely expedited manner. This frees up valuable time, resources, talent, etc., that can be further utilized in more feature deliveries to customers and can help in scaling your business.

• Improved Defect Detection:

A recent survey concluded that with automation, DevOps teams spend around 21% less time resolving issues than the Traditional Ops. This is because automation helps detect defects upfront and rapidly, thus developers can work on them without spending extra time. Modular programming, iterative development, breaking complex codes into manageable features, etc. are some of the provided Agile principles. This makes the process of defect detection easy.

• Reduced Deployment Failures and Rollbacks:

The advantages obtained by rapid development and deployment get nullified when the deployment fails. An operational viewpoint is taken into account when developers develop software using the mindset of DevOps. When combined with the enhanced detection of defects, this feature significantly reduces the number of post and pre-deployment issues and hence results in minimal rollbacks.

• Reduced Time to Recover Upon Failure:

Even when the chances of failures are minimized, failures are inherently inevitable. When failures happen in the development procedure, the time to recover to operational efficiency is significantly reduced in the DevOps environment, which is impossible in the conventional IT environment. It mainly happens because development teams gain an understanding of how the operation works and vice versa. When combined with a robust versioning process, rollbacks become convenient.

As you can see DevOps services provide benefits for the software development process beyond expectations.

Conclusion

DevOps is the combination of different philosophies, practices and tools that amps up organizational efficiency. It is the combination of two words development and operations. DevOps improves the products in a quick turnaround time using a combination of software development and infrastructure management processes. This helps the organization to better serve their customers. In this article, we provide a deep dive insight on what DevOps is and how DevOps automation helps businesses to scale, and ultimately why it might be the right fit for you.

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