Transition to DevOps

DevOps transformation becomes a more and more popular and necessary step for software development growth. DevOps culture is a practical implementation of Agile methodology. The classic model of software development is called the Waterfall. This is a cascade model where processes go one by one and you can’t skip something or make it simultaneously. You need to finish one step and after that go to another.

Step by step Waterfall model include the following points:

  • requirements;
  • design;
  • development;
  • testing;
  • deployment;
  • maintenance.

There are also some loops. For example, if the code has some bugs, Quality Assurance (QA) engineer gives in back to the developer, he is making some changes and returns the software to QA engineer. Such a process can be repeated a few times, so you can’t deploy the software before all the testing and changes. The DevOps methodology totally changes the approach to software development. You can read more about the DevOps services on the following link – https://itsvit.com/services/devops/.

What you can receive from DevOps methodology?

The very first thing you’ll get is the efficiency increase. This includes the following:

  1. Cost-efficiency. You might think, the DevOps transformation is something expensive, hard for accomplishing and taking a lot of time. Well, yes, you’re right. But as a result, you can save a lot of money for development and make updates faster and better. Thus, you’ll have a great profit after the implementation.
  2. Fast time-to-market. DevOps transformation will give you an incredible speed of development, so you will have the ability to deliver software to the end-users very fast.
  3. Security. DevOps transformation provides improvements to the infrastructure and removes the bottlenecks. So, your software and internal processes will have a high level of security and reliability.

DevOps transformation strategy

Young companies prefer to work with DevOps philosophy from the very beginning. The longer you work with Waterfall, the harder and more expensive will the transformation be.

Transition to DevOps includes the next steps:

  1. Assessment. DevOps engineers access the current system and decide what they need to change, what bottlenecks it has and other important moments. At this stage, engineers can create a plan of DevOps implementation based on the current system state.
  2. Transformation. This is a complicated process of preparing the system for the next steps. At this stage, specialists can redesign the system, make some changes in the infrastructure or build it from scratch. That’s why the process can be quite expensive. Also, probable infrastructure rebuilding is the main reason for postponing DevOps transformation. Business owners can be worried about expenses and pause in the work but this postponing will lead you to more expenses.
  3. Tools implementation and cloud migration. When infrastructure is ready, the DevOps team provides new tools and cloud migration if needed. Cloud migration is also a very important step in the DevOps methodology. On-prem servers are in the past and the most efficient businesses use the cloud. This is a profitable approach because cloud computing allows you to pay only for using capacity unlike the on-prem servers when you pay even if you don’t use the whole resources. Thus, DevOps engineers provide cloud migration and use modern tools like Terraform and Kubernetes to make your infrastructure automated and efficient. Also, this step includes the work with the software development lifecycle and its automation. When this step is over, you have an infrastructure ready to work using the newest tools and approaches.
  4. Integrated project teams. This is work with your in-house teams. Even if you have the most efficient system, your developers can try to work as they used to. So, DevOps specialists need to work with your teams and explain how to use the new system and technologies. Of course, you can have an experienced and skilled in-house team but still, there can be some moments they didn’t face yet, so you can’t skip this step. As a result, you’ll have transformed infrastructure, workflows and “trained” in-house developers ready to work more efficiently.

So, do you really need DevOps transformation?

Honestly, DevOps is the most efficient approach in software development nowadays. So, yes, you really need it. The Waterfall was a great decision in the past but now this model becomes obsolete. If you want to stay competitive on the market, you really need the DevOps transformation in your company. The earlier you start this transition, the earlier you receive the benefits. Such transformation is totally paying off, so you shouldn’t worry about investments in the DevOps methodology. This is modern, efficient and incredibly profitable.