DevOps is a portmanteau of two words: Development and Operations. It represents the shared approach of performing tasks by a company’s application development, as well as their IT operation teams.

Broadly speaking, DevOps is an idea which promotes improved communication and collaborations between various teams in any organization. Succinctly, DevOps is the process of adopting iterative software development, automation and programmable infrastructure development and maintenance. 

In easier terms, DevOps is the combo of tools and practices which are designed to increase a company’s ability to deliver applications at a much faster rate. Enhanced speed allows the enterprises to serve their customers better, and compete effectively. 

Need for DevOps

DevOps removes bulwarks between development and operations, and offers a wide array of benefits, such as

1. Enhanced Speed, 
2. Quick Delivery, 
3. Increased Reliability,
4. Refined Collaboration, 
5. Upgraded Security.

Speed

 DevOps removes any barriers that negatively impact your velocity. Thus, allowing you to innovate faster, quickly adopt to changing market trends, and become structured for better driving better business results. 

Quick Delivery

As your speed improves, so does your capacity to deliver fast and continuously. You also develop the ability to improve your product fast and gain competitive advantage. 

Increased Reliability

Through continuous integration and delivery, your organization will be able to guarantee quality products, application updates and infrastructure which will provide ideal user experience. 

Refined Collaboration

DevOps removes any barriers between developers and operations teams. They collaborate closely, continuously provide each other information, which reduces bugs, inefficiencies, while saving time.

Upgraded Security

DevOps gives you the option of using integrated and automated security tools.

Methodology of DevOps

Before DevOps there was Agile Software Development. As the need for better software development and velocity increased, DevOps was created to provide a much holistic approach. Several Agile Software Development methodologies have been adopted by DevOps such as,

Scrum

It is a framework where people address complicated adaptive problems while delivering products. Scrum lets people, teams and organizations generate value.

Kanban

It is a well renowned frameowkr which is used to implement DevOps software development through real time communication. It lets the teams to see and assess the state of work at any time and any stage of development. It is a Japanese word meaning Visual Signal.

Scaled Agile Framework.

SAFe  is a set of workflow patterns which helps the organizations in developing portfolio blueprints and investment funding. It guides organizations in scaling lean and agile practices. 

Lean development

Lean Development works to optimize development, time and resources. It also works to eliminate waste, and hence delivers only what the product needs. It is also known as the Minimum Viable Product strategy. The team releases the minimum version of their product to the market to learn how the users perceive it. If the purchasers do not like a certain element, the team would eliminate, or add as per the requirement. 

How Does DevOps Work?

DevOps is an infinite loop. It comprises planning, coding, building, testing, releasing, deployment, operation and monitoring. Through user feedback, the loop is reset. However, it begins when a member from the IT team writes a software which meets user requirements. The member then deploys without wasting time and runs the program optimally on their first attempt. However, in order to align the software with the expectation of the users, the developers and stakeholders communicate about the project, and work on small updates which go live independently. 

Writing a software quickly is easy. But writing a software that actually delivers is a task in itself. DevOps team various methods to check if the software behaves the way they want it to. They deploy changes individually to keep a track of the problems. 

What Problems Does DevOps Tackle?
No matter which organization you might belong to, you are surely to face challenges. Every business has its own set of challenges. However, there are a few common ones that are exclusive of the type of industry. These problems include time, expectations and IT which limits business growth. 

DevOps is time efficient. It does not waste time in manual processes, and lengthy reviews. It lets you move from requirements to live software at a faster pace. 

Along with solving communication problems, DevOps also addresses the priority problems. It helps to create viable software by helping the development teams understand the production atmosphere. With DevOps you won’t face the problem of “it worked on one machine” response. Changes given to the production are small, and can be reversed. Therefore, whole team knows the changes and incident management becomes easy as well. 

Pros of DevOps

DevOps offer the following benefits:

1. Decreased number of silos.
2. Seamless communication between the IT groups.
3. Rapid improvement based on feedback.
4. Downtime is lowered.
5. Software delivery is improved through validations, builds and deployment.
6. Menial work is reduced due to automation.
7. Increased responsibility streamlines the development process.
8. Roles and skills are broader.

Cons of DevOps

There are a few challenges with DevOps as well, such as

1. IT departmental and organizational changes require new skills and job roles.
2. Tools for DevOps are expensive.
3. Training is required to help the employees learn the DevOps tools.
4. There is the possibility of IT tool proliferation.
5. Automation sometimes becomes unsafe, and is not always required.
6. DevOps is usually scaled across multiple projects and teams, which can create confusion.
7. The deployment in DevOps is riskier as it works on a fail-fast mentality and job generalization instead of specialization.
8. Likelihood of bottlenecks is present in DevOps.
9. It needs regulatory compliance, particularly when the role separation is required.

Conclusion

The current business dynamics demand increased efficiency, quick response, and less employees. DevOps is a suitable option for businesses of all sorts. Since DevOps works in a continuous loops, you have the ability to keep improving your product without affecting the development cycle. 

Furthermore, idea which promotes improved communication and collaborations between various teams in any organization to help you yield maximum output.