Why is DevOps regarded as an art, not a science?
For decades, DevOps software development methodology has been regarded as the best practice by organizations to reach maturity in their day to day operations. Some considered it as a mindset or philosophy to carry out software development in a fast-paced, seamless manner. The inception of cloud computing services helps run applications in a flexible and scalable manner. However, still, many IT companies are not ready to embrace DevOps and change their silo software development culture. They fail to understand the organization’s maturity and smooth functioning revolve around how they integrate and adopt the expertise of a DevOps consulting company.
Overall IT infrastructure and service management capabilities of IT companies increase as they embrace digital transformation in many ways. DevOps adoption according to the business model is the only way to bag the best from DevOps practices. The relevance and competency of the DevOps approach can be accentuated with the help of DevOps experts.
DevOps has risen as a new paradigm shift like any other technological advancement to enable continuous development, deployment and integration. The automated tools and technical practices determine the success of DevOps. So, it is an art as modern DevOps pipelines entail extreme automation and speed. Enterprise DevOps maturity can be assessed through five stages, according to IDC corporate. They are as follows:
Ad hoc - Ad hoc is a stage where a company is still using a waterfall model to execute software development where there are no specific monitoring tools, less collaboration and poorly integration of tools.
Opportunistic - Teamwork and collaboration are end goals achieved using standardized automation DevOps processes.
Repeatable - It intends to improve communication, collaboration and integration between Dev and Ops. The automation process is standardized to reach unified goals.
Managed - Quality of the service, user experience and focus on business value creation are measured using specified metrics.
Optimized - Here, the technical aspects of DevOps practices are in line with user experience. High performance and service delivery are the results.
This DevOps model again depends on the core dimensions of DevOps implementation such as culture, people, business, technology and process. A DevOps journey based on these five dimensions ensure the business is on the right track to compete with. As with any new shift, incorporating and implementing these dimensions is rocket science according to experts. A failproof adoption of DevOps is possible if the DevOps engineers make it the core of their business and incorporate value-added technical practices in DevOps adoption.
Successful DevOps adoption
Successful DevOps adoption reduces the barriers between development and operations teams.
The focus of DevOps should be business value
A clear alignment of DevOps strategy along with business end goal is a must-have requisite. Having the best DevOps practices alone cannot guarantee the best result for your business. You need to make business the core part of your DevOps approach.
Many IT companies are still stuck in the Agile or Waterfall model as their workforce are not ready to embrace new technologies in DevOps. The lack of adaptability, openness and new tools will be hindrances in DevOps adoption. Instead, the business needs to have people who are willing to adapt to learn and master DevOps in order to stabilize the core enterprise platform.
Cultural change is difficult to understand
For many IT engineers, the cultural change caused by a sudden shift from Agile to DevOps can be challenging. DevOps approach makes everyone accountable for everything as its core concept relies on automation and shared goals.
DevOps is essential to any organization for providing value-added services to the end-user. Though it incorporates many technical practices and tools, it is not deemed as a science but art that involves the meticulous application of a set of practices and tools.