What is DevOps and who needs it?
The term DevOps originated by combining two words: “development” and “operation”. Many people understand DevOps differently. Some people think it’s the name of the profession, others are more savvy and claim that DevOps is a set of tools for development or a continuation of the flexible methodology of Agile. There is some truth in each of the options.
But if Agile is about flexible, iterative product development and effective team interaction with the customer in any business area, then devops services are aimed at optimal work of developers and team in IT management. DevOps is a philosophy, a concept, whose main task is to create interdependencies between development and operation in order to quickly create products and automate their life cycle. The convenience of the methodology lies in a comprehensive approach that avoids confusion with the implementation and testing of new products.
Who needs DevOps?
Many experts believe that DevOps will benefit any organization that is engaged in IT development. There is no doubt that large corporations can’t do without DevOps, but small companies will also need it, as it will allow to achieve the optimal combination of people, processes and information technologies faster. After implementation of this methodology, your team will make long-term friends with such concepts as constant synchronization and coordination over all areas of development.
At first, it will bring some discomfort to your employees, but in the future it will provide the company with stability and control when developing complex systems and products. Starting and maintaining DevOps is hard and painstaking work. But the result will be a lightning-fast solution to many problems. If you don’t need to grow, you don’t need to go deeper into DevOps.
The rules for a team working with DevOps:
- A clear statement of purpose;
- Understanding of the goals by the team;
- Continuous communication and sharing of results;
- Rapid response when a problem occurs.
DevOps are already used by giants such as Google, Etsy and Netflix. The implementation of this concept is difficult, but the result is an effective teamwork of different departments and specialists.
What are the useful DevOps practices?
If we were to write a textbook on modern DevOps practices, its first page would have three points: automation, faster release and quick feedback from users.
- The first one is automation. We can automate all team interactions: wrote code – rolled out – checked – installed – collected feedback – back to the beginning. All this is automatic.
- The second is to speed up the release and even simplify development. It is always important for the customer that the product enters the market as soon as possible and starts to benefit from it before competitors’ analogues. The process of product delivery can be improved endlessly: time can be reduced, additional control labels added, monitoring can be improved.
- The third is the acceleration of user feedback. If he has any comments, we can make corrections immediately and update the application immediately.
How do the terms “system engineer”, “build engineer” and “DevOps-engineer” relate?
They overlap, but relate to slightly different areas.
- System Engineer in ERAM is a position. They come at different levels: from junior to chief specialist.
- A field engineer is rather a role that can be performed on a project. This is what the people responsible for CI/CD are now called.
- A DevOps engineer is a specialist who implements DevOps practices on a project.
If we sum it all up, we get approximately the following: a person in the position of system engineer performs the role of a build engineer on the project and implements DevOps-practices there.
