Introduction

With this article I am taking on a new challenge that is to learn the art of DevOps and become good at it. I will learn how DevOps helps companies automate the development and deployment of applications faster and server its end users with better uptime.

Why Devops ?

Many of us wonder we already have a methodology to develop software faster i.e. Agile. Then why reinvent the wheel. Well the answer lies after the software has been developed. How do we go about deploying it on the servers. How to scale up the infrastructure in case our startup blows up overnight. The Answer to all these is DevOps.

Traditionally, the Dev team and the Ops team used work in silos. Meaning they were not sharing the information with each other. The idea with DevOps is to break this wall and bring everyone together and share knowledge and tools to reduce the overall development timeline and improve the end user experience. The CAMS framework is used to implement the DevOps mindset in the organization.

Culture

In DevOps we always keep people over process over tools. There are number of new tools emerging everyday but is it necessary to move to a new tool every 6 months. Similarly there are different process followed by different organizations but, does it suit our organizational needs. Before adapting to a new process we always keep the people in mind and similarly before adapting any new tool we keep our process in mind.

Automation

As a DevOps engineer one of our primary responsibilities is to automate as much repetitive tasks as possible so we can focus on innovation. At a large scale operation where we run thousands of servers its impossible to setup each and everything manually. We have to have a way to automate these tasks. This in turn challenge how much percentage of our system we have automated.

Measurement

Every system requires a unit of measurement in order to improve itself. In DevOps we call these measurable metrics as Golden Signals. We can use the same units o measurement to check business metrics, customer activity and even customer feedback.

Sharing

All the teams and stakeholders must know the end goal. A shared vision and end goal helps improve productivity and achieving the target faster. We need to setup various Key Performance indicators in order to achieve a shared ownership. Also make sure that the suggestion from team member are heard.

DevOps is a culture, a philosophy, and a methodology. Software Development and Operations teams that practice DevOps are more agile, more innovative, and more profitable.

Development and Operations teams can work more productively and efficiently through increased collaboration and greater visibility across teams than ever before.