What is DevOps
You may have heard the term. But what is the DevOps workflow model and how can it help your company? DevOps is the combination of new workplace philosophies, paired closely with infrastructure management processes and toolsets allowing firms to deliver applications and services at higher velocity. Because DevOps organizations find themselves constantly evolving and improving products at faster pace than their traditional counterparts, product testing is conducted in smaller increments, clients are brought to the table sooner, and deliveries are realized with increased automation. The software development team (Dev) and the network operations team (Ops) are no longer siloed entities, but instead paired closely to produce rapid deployments that accurately match customer needs.
“But that’s the way things have always been done.”
While DevOps methodologies are accelerating development, technical debt (sometimes called design or code debt) is the impediment weighing it down. Technical debt reflects the implied cost of additional rework caused by choosing a familiar manual solution in lieu of the initial time needed to incorporate a standardized/automated approach. Many firms fall back on the familiar excuse: “but that’s the way things have always been done,” while continuing to add unmanaged code changes to a network environment or infrequently testing their product only at the end of the project lifecycle. Does this sound like your company’s work process? Has the project exceeded the time estimate? Does one phase of the software work beautifully but somehow interrupts or damages the proper workings of another?
How can the process be improved?
Because workflows are moving more rapidly than ever before, there is a new need for quality control and acceleration tools to catch issues early and compile code quickly. DevOps ambassadors are successfully using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) practices in which foundations are provisioned in containers then managed using code and software development techniques, eliminating the need to manually set up and configure resources. Now defined by code, servers can quickly be deployed using standardized patterns or duplicated over and over again.
As the development process progresses, style checkers eliminate repetitive issues that arise in each sprint while code changes are thoroughly tracked and managed. Micro-agility is used in the form of testing and committing code frequently, and automation efficiencies are maximized. The firm will be monitoring and enforcing compliance dynamically and at scale. This allows the organization to govern all resource changes; non-compliant resources can be automatically flagged for further investigation or automatically returned to a compliant status. Ideally, automation should be evident throughout all stages of the development process, with project milestones defined as: Build Automation, Test Automation, and Deployment Automation.
Compass Consulting is Leading with DevOps strategies
Compass Consulting is utilizing DevOps methodologies and means with remarkable client success. Compass team members possess tremendous experience and expertise, but with the nimbleness and “Agility” to float between processes. Using configuration management, developers and system engineers automate operating systems & host configurations, operational tasks, and more.
One such example is the way our software developers incorporate code changes into a central repository after which automated builds and tests are run; a practice known as Continuous integration (CI). Speed is once again the guiding factor: glitches are found and addressed early plus software updates are validated and released quicker. Similarly, Compass engineers are also utilizing automated Continuous delivery (CD), the practice in which code changes are automatically built, tested, and prepared throughout the development cycle. When implemented properly, there should always be a deployment-ready product that has passed numerously through a standardized test process. Every committed revision elicits further automated flow that builds, tests, and stages the update. The final decision to deploy to a live production environment is triggered by the developer.
How can we help with your company’s specific DevOps needs?
Compass Consulting can provide guidance on how to modify your internal operations. DevOps allows Compass Consulting to be lightening quick with development and deliverables and can for your company too. Please contact us to discuss how we can develop means to better serve your customers, test applications more regularly/effectively, and ultimately be more competitive in the market.
We are eager to hear your company’s unique story.
