What is DevOps?

The software development methodology known as DevOps can be a tricky topic for beginners to get their heads around. 

It’s a highly effective and innovative software development method that has a lot to offer to a range of people, whether that be developers or clients of a software development product. 

Here at 6B, we want to help bring software development topics, terminology and tools right to your doorstep. We want to make important aspects of software development accessible for a wide range of people, whatever their reasons of interest might be. Whether you are looking to start a career as a developer or you are shopping around for your next app development team, our insights have you covered. 

In this particular article, let’s discuss DevOps in more detail. 

The definition of DevOps

The term DevOps was coined in 2009 and it is simply a merger of “development” and “operations” within software development. It is an important aspect of the Agile approach to software development and it focuses on streamlining the process to make it more productive. 

DevOps acknowledges that software is now much more than a product delivered to a business. A good software development company doesn’t simply create a piece of software, hand it over, and say goodbye forever. Software is something that, instead, becomes part of the business and its workings both now and for years to come, and this means that the developer-client relationship lasts long beyond initial delivery. The model has efficiency right at its core. Merging two aspects of the development pipeline together has the intention of making projects, teams, and the software itself more efficient, in a range of ways. 

DevOps merges teams together within software development companies, both on the development and operations sides. This often includes security and QA teams too. The model also has an important focus on automation, keeping in line with our previously established themes of efficiency and speed. The approach of DevOps takes into consideration the highly competitive and indeed even saturated software market. Its ability to deliver high-quality software speedily is a direct response to this said market. 

DevOps can be easily split into four main principles, which we will detail in this next section.

The four main principles of DevOps

These DevOps principles are defined as follows:

Automation of the software development lifecycle

Without a DevOps approach, some software developers may work on everything by hand, in a methodical and slow way. In a DevOps approach, automation helps to speed this process along via three main strategies: test automation, continuous integration and continuous deployment. This means that a lot of regular activities normally manually handled by developers are taken over by machine automation. Code is regularly automatically tested as it is built and then integrated and deployed automatically as the code is subsequently worked on and pushed up. Less time spent, more quality results achieved. That’s the aim of the game with DevOps.

Collaboration and communication

As a project working with DevOps has the aim of bringing all teams together, collaboration and communication are huge aspects of the model. To pull multiple sides of the team along in tandem, everyone needs to be working with clear and purposeful communication. This may be in contrast to older software development company working models where we see separate teams working completely individually. 

Continuous improvement and minimisation of waste

As we are working with speed, automation, and beating the market, with DevOps we need to be focusing on continuous improvement and minimisation of waste. Unfortunately, a lot of software development projects don’t succeed and there can be wastage in many areas. DevOps aims to cut anything unnecessary out of the equation and focus solely on the race to the end. Aspects including automated testing will be a major aspect of this, as DevOps teams attempt to cut down the time from creation to completion.

Hyperfocus on user needs with short feedback loops

DevOps teams want to see results and they want to see them quickly. Through automated testing, monitoring, constant collaboration, and an intention of improvement, we can see DevOps teams move through very short feedback loops. User intention and need are right at the top of our priority list when we are working in a DevOps fashion, and so our focus is making what the user wants and getting it out there to them as quickly as possible. 

The benefits of DevOps

DevOps is a smooth and efficient way for software development teams to work. It is a direct response to our current climate and software market, and it provides the results that many people are looking for. If you want to be on the cutting edge of modern software development, the DevOps approach should certainly be on your radar. 

There are many advantages to the model, here are some of the best:

  • Speed of project completion 
  • Early introduction of product to market with rapid deployment
  • High levels of testing and reference to user feedback
  • Closer match of project aims and project results 
  • Cost-effectiveness of projects
  • Merging of expertise together increases the quality of product
  • Improved security
  • Monitoring allows problems to be spotted and fixed quickly
  • Overall high quality results 
  • Responsiveness to need and change even after deployment

Overall, DevOps is a collaborative way of working that provides top-notch results for a software development client. It gets a product made quickly and it does so with high levels of security, tested capability, and efficiency. 

What more could you want?

The potential challenges of DevOps

Something to be aware of when we are discussing DevOps is that it isn’t the easiest of working models. It requires a mixed team of experts with their own individual skills and attributes, who are able to come together and work collaboratively. 

Within just one DevOps team, there needs to be an extraordinary amount of knowledge and experience to pull the whole thing off. It is a robust way of working that needs the best possible workers to manage it. 

If you are looking for a software development company to work in a DevOps approach, you will need to find the right kind of people; people who can handle it and have the exact match of skills and cooperation that you need to pull off the heist of DevOps. Anything short of this won’t cut it in this arena. 

Where to find your team of software development experts 

 

At 6B, we have a unique and special group of people working together to deliver big results in software development. We are experts in our field and we know what it takes to make a software development project work for our clients, exactly how they need it to.

 

If you want to talk to our team about your big idea, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us and let’s chat about what we can do. 

 

Collaborative development can achieve huge results. 

 

Partner with us at 6B

Ready to accelerate your technology project?

Chat to our team of experts and let's see how we can help you.