The term DevOps is composed of Development and Operations and is to be understood as a corporate culture that takes a holistic approach. The unification of previously separate roles such as development, IT operations, quality engineering, project management and security within autonomously acting teams is a strong focus here. The resulting shorter communication paths between the individual experts enable the company to achieve shorter release cycles, which goes hand in hand with easier planning and risk management. Shorter release cycles enable a faster pace of innovation, continuous improvement of the product, more flexible response to customer demand, higher customer satisfaction and faster adaptation to the market. Efficient collaboration and better quality of the final product is aligned on four basic components: Teams, Tools, Methods and Transparency & Stability.
Teams: DevOps requires that all project participants support each other and enrich the entire team with their expert knowledge. The advantage of these closely integrated teams with different fields of expertise is that the necessary knowledge is available directly in the team and does not have to be inquired about first.
Tools: Various tools allow team members to automate standard tasks and thus relieve them enormously. This allows the individual team members to concentrate again on what really counts, the continuous improvement of their product. The use of these tools is aimed at in each individual phase of the software development cycle, thereby these tools should not stand separately from each other, but interact as much as possible and form a Toolchain (tool chain). Both in he development and in the project management area tools can be used, in order to support the development process. The Kanban Board, for example, is a tool that is used in project management to realize transparency in the project process.
Methods: Both on the technological level and on the process level, there are methods that can be used to help a company implement DevOps. Agile software development methods such as Scrum and Kanban help a team establish a transparent and measurable way of working in their project. On a technology level, DevOps offers various development, code management, testing and deployment methods. Continuos Integration allows seamless assembly of code components and the corresponding automation of their build and test processes. Continuos Deployment allows automated deployment of software components to the various staging environments.
Transparency and stability: Efficient measurement ensures a scalable IT infrastructure and transparent project progress. A team’s ability to deliver can be measured according to requirements – decisions can then be derived from this. Shorter release cycles and the resulting constant feedback loops with users mean that the product continues to improve. Constant measurement of the infrastructure and the resulting insights can let teams fix problems in real time and test how to improve the application in future development cycles.
Continuous Integration (CI) is a method in which components are continuously assembled into an application. Test and build processes can be automated to a large extent, which significantly minimizes operational overhead and gives developers more time to actually develop the application. This continuous integration is intended to increase software quality.
The goal of Continuos Deployment (CD) is to automate the deployment of the built software to the different environments in the CI process. The automation of the deployment processes ensures that these processes are scalable, repeatable and controllable.
The term configuration management stands for the state management of resources, in a system. With the help of various tools, teams can implement changes to systems in a controlled and systematic manner and reduce risks as a result of a changed system configuration. Configuration management is achieved through the use of Infrastructure-as-a-Code (IaC). IT systems can thus be managed completely via code and thus also versioned. Version control is the management of code in the form of versions. Tracked, the code can be easily checked and restored. For version control, the software GIT is mostly used, which also allows several developers to work together on one code base. Version control is a basic DevOps method that allows developers to work together on a codebase and divide programming tasks among team members.
Infrastructure-as-Code allows system resources and topologies to be represented in a descriptive manner. This allows teams to manage these resources as they would with code. These resource definitions can then be reviewed and reverted, via a version management tool. IaC allows developers to abstract system resources to achieve standardization of the IT landscape through resource reuse. Automation minimizes the risk of human error and allows system resources to be deployed in a reliable, repeatable and controlled manner. Teams can use IaC to set up development and test environments that are identical to the production environment. Duplicating environments across different data centers and cloud platforms becomes particularly easy and efficient.
Agile software development is a concept that focuses on collaboration within teams, feedback from customers and high flexibility with regard to changes through short release cycles. Companies that work according to an agile software method can better adapt their product to the needs and wishes of their customers and continuously improve it. Agile software development differs fundamentally from older frameworks such as the waterfall model, which is defined by successive phases and long release cycles…
At Beriott, we have many years of experience in the operation and development of complex and highly automated IT infrastructures. We can advise you in the planning, development and operation of IT systems, but we can also develop and operate our own solutions. Transparency and communication are our top priorities in order to be able to react flexibly to customer requirements. Every customer has his own needs and requirements, which we address individually and develop solutions that will really help you. We help you to modernize your entire IT infrastructure to cope with the growing challenges of today.