Technological evolution has increased the complexity of the IT infrastructure. As a result, higher demands related to the development of software tools; They started to fall on the team of IT professionals. The growing expectations of users asking for an increase in the speed of application delivery; They made it imperative to find a more efficient alternative to improve the workflow of organizations. It is in this context that DevOps is born.
The results of the implementation of this philosophy have become so successful; that have positioned it as an effective means to face the challenges that the business transformation brings.
What is DevOps?
DevOps is a term that refers to the union between development (Dev) and operations (Ops). That is, how development teams and operations management communicates more efficiently to deploy applications in production.
All this is closely related to agile methodologies for software development and, thanks to IaaS solutions, the flexibility of Cloud Computing has been configured as a key element for technical departments to successfully face their transition to DevOps.
The growth of cloud-based web applications makes IT under pressure. Therefore, the IT user community is demanding quick releases of response to problems or requests and this often turns out to have more defects in operations due to poor development quality.
The DevOps philosophy is a recurring flow of small releases facilitated by automated configuration, testing and closer collaboration between developers and operations managers.
DevOps: The development of a culture of cooperation and integration
One of the most significant advantages of DevOps is that it allows you to eliminate silos in the IT area. As these practices promote the use of tools that allow both development and operations professionals; maintain constant communication and shared responsibility in the creation of applications. The result is more satisfied employees with greater self-confidence to propose innovative ideas aligned with the needs of the organization.
DevOps is a discipline very focused on companies that release versions of their software very regularly and aims to make the cycle more agile and lead to fewer errors. One of its pillars is based on standardizing development environments for programmers who can more accurately reflect the environments of the servers where they will be put into production, something that can only be achieved simply with Cloud technologies.
In the world of DevOps, several types of tools come into play and some of them are closely linked to virtualization and the Cloud, as it is the easiest way to equate application execution environments in development and production stages. At the same time, it is tried that the tasks of generation of the environments and the management of the same ones are automated to a greater extent, which facilitates the integration of personnel in the development team and the maintenance of the servers, avoiding many usual problems in setting up environments and wasting time to solve them.
DevOps and Cloud, an almost inseparable couple
Initially, companies have perceived Cloud Computing as an optimal way to adjust their budgets. Instead of investing a large amount in infrastructure, a small amount has been invested in providing services that allow them to carry out their operations, through what is known as IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). In the Cloud, there are no initial investments or long-term contractual commitments; It is 100% pay peruse. Gradually, however, companies are becoming more aware that this saving is not simply due to the economic factor, but also the speed and ease that the Cloud offers us when it comes to provisioning and maintaining the infrastructure for operations. This translates more than in cost reduction, in an increase in competitiveness.
Why use DevOps methodologies in the cloud?
This mix brings many advantages for software producing companies that would have a significant 81% increase in software performance improvement. Comparing it with 52% practicing only DevOps methodologies, or 53% only the cloud without DevOps methodologies. Also, applying them together can bring other benefits such as:
-Improved cost control for the tools and services that DevOps teams use.
-Achieve a 69% improvement in delivery and customer experience by comparing it with traditional methodologies and delivery models.
-66% reduction in minor defects at the time of software deployment.
-Improvement almost twice at the time of delivery of the software.
The statistics shown above represent a comparison between traditional development methodologies and delivery methods, the use of DevOps and the cloud in terms of quality cost and efficiency.
Conclusion:
Cloud Computing allows agility and comfort in managing the infrastructure, but also allows adaptability to organizations. All these concepts are closely related to the world of DevOps.
While, thanks to the Cloud and virtualization, developers can quickly obtain all the IT resources they need for their work, operations managers can obtain a faster and more reliable response to the needs of applications. By managing infrastructure as a service, both worlds can find a balance between performance, adaptability, and efficiency, by obtaining better results with less investment of time and money.