The boundaries between mobile app development, mobility management and mobile infrastructure is getting merged by the day. Until recently, the concept of management, security and infrastructure were dealt separately, completely uninvolved from the development process.
Modern mobility issues have given root to the concept of mobile DevOps.
The rise of mobile DevOps
"Mobile DevOps" – this sounds like a hot topic of discussion for today's marketers.
'Mobile' has for some days been a hot technology. What's more hotter is 'DevOps'
You know what would be even hotter? Mobile DevOps! (Yes! pat self on back if you guessed right)
In reality, mobile DevOps is a kind of practice that helps organizations embrace enterprise mobility and plug it with their backend systems. DevOps is a technology approach where development and IT operations staff is involved closely in building and delivery of software.
This integration has resulted in developing apps more quickly, respond to feedback more effectively through the use of automation. All these are keys to sucessful business in the mobile era.
Mobile DevOps is gaining growing acceptance in today's complex computing world. It not only aims to tackle development and IT operations but also promotes the use of coding to automate tasks.
To solve the problems of complex enterprise computing, DevOps relies on continuous delivery, continuous development, testing and deploying of applications. DevOps is therefore a disruptive trend in today’s enterprise IT. With growing enterprise mobility, more businesses are turning to DevOps to improve their app development and management.
The reasons for its emergence in enterprise mobility is not very surprising considering its benefits. Multi-platform testing and development, automation, rapid release cycles are some of the key DevOps principles which are also key contributors for a sucessful mobile strategy.
Yet, this growing approach of mobile DevOps faces its share of challenges. Traditional mindsets, lack of development skills, old security systems can all put a stop to its adoption. DevOps fundamentally is a change in process. It is more about a cultural difference which can be challenging for large organizations to do that kind of transformation.
Mobile DevOps roadblocks
Business application
You can't buy-in DevOps as an individual or hire someone to do it. The company itself has to accept its application which is not always an easy call.
Shortage of skills
Basic development skills which are in short supply can hinder your adaptation of mobile DevOps.
Culture
This is one of the most daunting challenges to the adaptation of DevOps in general. Companies failing to acknowledge the need to break down the silos puts them in a difficult spot to change their traditional development and operations staff.
Security
The wall between security and DevOps can make getting development and operations on the same page.
In the fast paced mobile era, developers don't have the luxury of taking longer periods of time for fixing new features and updates. They also must respond quickly to user feedbacks. If it takes months to respond to users' complaints, the app rating will drop down. This is where mobile DevOps come in.
You may want to get feedback as fast as possible and act on that feedback as fast as possible. It is very hard to increase this kind of speed without the principles of DevOps.
