DevOps – Bringing chaotic world together to work efficiently

DevOps acronym for Development and Operations is the new and the latest trend in the Software Engineering. People say it starts where Agile ends and there is fusion of mainly 3 functions in software engineering – Development, QA and Operations. In fact, it’s a way to bring these 3 chaotic worlds together to function more efficiently delivering higher anticipated value to customer. With compressed timeline, IT operations moving on the cloud, advent of enterprise mobility, Software Engineers are adapting to this new trend and partnering with QA and Production teams. There is no way these 3 worlds of chaos can work in silos in such a dynamic world of IT.

The above diagram explains the roles of Developers, QA engineers and Production Support teams. Everyone needs to collaborate at some point to achieve the desired results – efficiently and with higher quality.

Benefits of working in DevOps mode:

1. Delivering successful software is not the responsibility of any specific group.
2. Agile becomes more agile.
3. Finger pointing becomes effective feedback and correction mechanism.
4. Everyone contributes to the single goal – deliver highest possible value
5. Teams work collaboratively
6. Adapt to the newer trends in technology such as cloud computing and enterprise mobility.
7. Reduction in change scope and hence speedier deployments in the production environment.
8. More reliance on automation instead of putting manual QA testers.
9. Better release management.

Challenges for the teams

Change is difficult to adopt for any human being in general and DevOps methodology is no exception. Where IT is moving to cloud, people are using more smartphones and tablets than desktops and laptops, the entire paradigm of developing and delivering software solutions is changing across the industry. Professionals who are used to work in traditional ways are already finding these changes in technology very difficult to adopt. But when the underlying technologies change, processes are no exceptions and hence professional are coping up with 2 changes at a time – change in technology and change in processes. Speed is the key to success and not many people can run faster than a threshold required to reach the target. While good runners are finding DevOps interesting and enjoying the change it’s bringing in their professional life, the slow movers are finding difficult to gel with the fast runners.

What can the slow mover do to adapt to the DevOps model

Simple. Evolve and let others evolve in the process. Don’t become bottleneck for self and others, else system would flush you in the process.