How does DevOps methodology speed up the software development process?

Every once in a while, every developer who needs to write code against a database faces a situation when they approach a database administrator.

The database administrator says, “You cannot use our data, and we cannot give you your own database. Please ask the operations team”. Then they head on to the operations manager only to hear, “We do not have a spare database license; it will take 6 months to get that to you. We will see what we can do.”

Now even though the database administrator and operations manager are just following their duty, the developers and business get stuck in the slow process. This is where DevOps software development comes to play.

The primary goal of adopting a DevOps automation approach is to introduce communication, share the development responsibilities, and bring collaboration to the surface by breaking down the organizational silos and speed efficiency hierarchy.

What is DevOps in software development?

DevOps software development approach connects your development and operations teams in a way that they work together throughout the entire software development life cycle and build high-quality products. During the entire cycle, the operations team uses the many techniques and tools the developers use and vice versa.

A working example of this DevOps development process mindset and culture can be seen in the operations team using GitHub’s content repositories like their developers’ counterparts so that they also streamline the process to automate software development.

While the developers and operations team work together, their role in DevOps in software engineering is clearly defined.

Role of engineers in the DevOps development process

• Gathering resources
• Designing
• Developing
• Testing
• Refining the product backlog
• Ensuring the continuous delivery process

Role of the operations team in the DevOps development process

• Maintenance and deployment
• Managing the software security
• Server and storage configuration management
• Renting out the server space
• Managing the software outage

Now that we have looked into what DevOps services for software development is and the role both teams play, let us look into the benefits of DevOps in software engineering – something that would give us a holistic view into the role of the concept in expediting the development speed.

Top benefits of DevOps automation in software development

The DevOps methodology plays a massive role in speeding up the development timeline; the way it does that is through its many benefits that promote software development process automation. Let us look at them.

Better testing abilities

When you test your software for bugs, a fair mix of functional and non-functional testing is required. DevOps automation helps massively on that front, as it helps scale the system when required.

Testing remains a vital part of DevOps in software development, with its success relying heavily on reliability and speed. The approach promises a software that is able to manage heavy traffic easily – an assurance that is promised through constant regression testing.

Increased product quality

Using DevOps in software engineering helps you create high-quality products speedily, lowering the excess development wastages, which can be costly.

One of the key areas where DevOps automation helps with ensuring product quality is  deployment in the traditional approach that can take up to weeks or days. Under the new-age model, when you create the software from the source code stage, you can easily push those codes out instantly without waiting for other stakeholders’ approval as long as it meets all the necessary criteria.

Better deployment

When you want to push out new feature sets and solve the bug fixes quickly, introducing DevOps automation in the application development process can speed up deployment and get the new features to the users sooner. This, in turn, gets the users more engaged with the platform.

Speedier go-to-market time

DevOps promotes coordination among the developers, system administrators, QA testers, and many other IT professionals, which results in the product’s speedy time-to-market.

Today, every business wishes to get to the market faster, and DevOps automation in software development is the fastest way to get there. In the case of the traditional setup, both the development and operations teams work independently, leading to multiple to and fro, which lowers the development and deployment speed.

Under DevOps methodology, however, the information gets passed quickly, leading to a situation where things get solved during the development process, instead of during the deployment stage.

Better security

When we work on the development of a software, security is the primary factor that we consider; however, the instances of a security hack come to the surface much later. Given that, using the DevOps automation approach in testing improves organization-wide security and strengthens your software against weaknesses. It is able to do that on the back of the fact that DevOps practices bring both the critical teams, who are responsible for security, in one place, from an SDLC standpoint.

Now that we have looked into the whats and the benefits of DevOps in software engineering, let us read into how the DevOps development process falls into a software lifecycle

The DevOps software development life cycle

The DevOps software development life cycle is somewhat similar to the traditional SDLC, but what makes a true difference is the fact that the approach speeds up the process. The way it does that by ensuring complete efficiency is by bringing the two important but siloed teams together. Let us look into what the DevOps application development process looks like.

Planning

Planning is the first stage of building a software. Here, you will be discussing the project requirements in addition to the features and functionalities of the application. From this stage on, developers adopt multiple DevOps practices, including agile project management tools like Kanban, boards, etc., for aligning teams and bettering collaboration. This is the first step towards organizing and communicating processes that will establish a strong foundation for the project.

Development

When it comes to the actual execution of the developmental tasks, DevOps increases the product’s value by keeping its focus on transparency and collaboration. The approach will enable the team to run tests, integrations, and reviews efficiently.

There is a range of tools for DevOps automation in software development that help speed up the development process without lowering the quality of the work. All of this leads to a flexible execution of the software since the development processes become aligned and speedier.

Delivery

Once the software gets to a secure, enforceable, and in a robust production environment, the delivery stage gets initiated. At this step, the operations side of your automation DevOps solutions team takes the primary role of approving the software product and the value it offers.

Additionally, at this stage, the processes get the capability to become scalable and efficient.

Software maintenance

At this stage, you will have to ensure that the users’ experiences are met by constantly monitoring and correcting bugs. The DevOps team works proactively here by tracking users’ comments and experiences and addressing them in real time. This is the stage where the development process outcomes become truly fail-fast.

With this, we have looked into multiple aspects of DevOps practices – what they are, the benefits of DevOps automation in software development, and what the DevOps software lifecycle looks like. All of this boils down to ways that speed up the development timeline.

How DevOps accelerates the development and deployment of applications?

DevOps practices come packed with abilities that speed up the development process without compromising product quality and efficiency. Here are eight ways how DevOps-led automation in application development makes the process effective.

Automation

It is no doubt that software development process automation is the future of the domain and also one of its biggest trends. DevOps gives you the chance to add automation in the software lifecycle.

Using the approach, you would be able to make modifications to the projects in real time after the repository triggers actions through automation. As one of the DevOps automation examples, let’s look at this – when the developers change a code, it will push a build which will then trigger automatic software deployment.

Thus, the answer to how does DevOps help in automation lies in the fact that it makes the development lifecycle drastically efficient. It’s a process that boosts the development, deployment, and quality assurance of your software.

Continuous integration and continuous delivery

Continuous integration, or CI, is a process that enables the developers to make modifications to a code without changing the core code.

On the other hand, continuous delivery is the process used for deploying software through the process of automation. It helps with making constant updates at a fixed frequency for every version of the application which has entered the production stage. You can use the DevOps CI CD services to regularly send the codes in production while guaranteeing a constant correction of bugs and the addition of new features.

Improved builds

Effective, error-proof build results from the collaboration between the development and operations. Building that type of collaboration enables the teams to look into key factors like performance, security, features, reliability, reusability, and more.

The fact that the teams work together towards the same goal – building efficient software, they are able to build and deploy products faster.

Infrastructure as code

Infrastructure as a code is one of the automation DevOps solutions that enables you to deliver software rapidly. It offers all the necessary resources for the software to get developed in a descriptive and manageable manner.

This approach, through automation, lowers the chances of human errors, which leads to a safe and optimized process. Additionally, you can also run configuration management tools that align with servers, databases, system resources, and virtual machines.

Version control

Version control is another one of the processes which get efficient with DevOps implementation. It enables the developers to look at the version history and track the changes’ revisions. The end goal of this lies in the facilitation of the analysis and recovery of the code that requires revision.

With the codes in the software merging in the same file, the changes become optimized, and more than one person can then work on it simultaneously.

Agile software development

Irrespective of the constant debate between Agile vs DevOps being around since ages, the industry is finding a way to merge them. The agile-powered DevOps approach is a future-ready practice that calls for teamwork and the inclusion of end-users in the process.

Its specialty lies in finding space for improvements and making real-time changes that solve problems and meet the expectations of your customers.

User Experience (UX)

When the UX team doesn’t work with the developers, issues like poor experience arise. Likewise, when the operations team looks into the product’s user experience at the end of the cycle, it leads to the developers making changes in the code – something that affects the complete codebase.

DevOps software development helps you avoid these time-taking and costly mistakes by making designers work with the developers.

Parting notes

So here were the many ways DevOps speeds up and betters the software development process. It is no secret that using DevOps practices and merging the critical domains of development and operations has become the secret behind software success on a global scale.

When integrated rightly, it can completely revolutionize how a software works and meets constantly changing market needs. The approach doesn’t just impact how software works but also the working of an organization.

All of this summarizes that DevOps is a powerful tool. However, it requires a significant organization level change in both the work process and culture. This is the reason why only 10% of businesses succeed in building and deploying software through this model.

However, this doesn’t have to be your reality. DevOps can offer transformation-level benefits to your business, giving you a massive competitive edge. Wondering where to start? Let us help. Get in touch with our team for DevOps consulting services. We can help you create a foundation where your teams collaborate, plan better, and deploy software faster – all while aligning with market needs.

THE AUTHOR

Sudeep Srivastava

Co-Founder and Director