According to Gartner, by the end of 2026, 25% of Global 2000 companies will be incorporating DevOps practices as part of their digital transformation. Some of these organizations already use various DevOps tools or custom-developed systems. However, workload automation is usually ignored in the DevOps sphere due to the proliferation of separate automation tools. Fortunately, organizations can simplify their DevOps approach and optimize its implementation by using a consolidated workload automation solution.
Collaboration between Development and Operations departments is known as DevOps. This process involves the creation, building, and refining of products by development teams, and the checking and monitoring of new products by ops teams. The communication between the two different teams of the organization is essential for ensuring the organization is up-to-date with the latest features and products. The coordination between the two teams can take a great deal of time and energy and is an ongoing association.
The aims of a DevOps initiative are based on a business's objectives. It is usually best suited for the purpose of assembling, examining, and fixing fresh components and products of the organizations. DevOps techniques could be complex since it usually unique to each enterprise. It could be hard to decide precisely how to initiate your DevOps implementation. Here are seven stages to start a successful DevOps initiative.
These steps are as follows:
- Establishing executive and organizational commitment;
- Defining DevOps objectives;
- Identifying the teams and stakeholders involved;
- Establishing the DevOps toolchain;
- Establishing automation;
- Establishing metrics and monitoring; and
- Continuous improvement.
Step 1: Create Your Own Definition of DevOps
It is essential for organizations to pay attention to their business goals. The strong aspect of forming DevOps is making sure that every team is on board during this process, since adhering to a DevOps system will guarantee that the initiative is secure and the communication is clear.
Step 2: Choosing the Initial Team
It is necessary to take the time to properly select the initial team when starting a new project. It is important to choose individuals that have the right skills and experience to help the project succeed. The success or failure of a DevOps initiative depends largely on the team working on it. The employees identified for this process should possess certain qualities like:
- Individuals who are team-oriented - Those who prioritize working in tandem with others and can get along with their peers.
- Enthusiastic - Individuals who recognize that they must be open to altering their methods of working.
- Proficient - People who can try new concepts, adopt fresh approaches, and take on extra responsibilities.
Creating a successful DevOps initiative requires effort and dedication. It is essential to have an idea of what is needed to get the venture off the ground and make it run smoothly. Working diligently and persistently is key to achieving success in this endeavor. To be successful, one needs to stay focused on their goals and have the necessary commitment to see it through.
Step 3: Choose the First Mover App
The DevOps principles can be applied to any application, but it is best suited for agile development and web-enabled applications that are automated and programmable. It can also be used for software of all types, from Microsoft to open source. To get the best results, IT teams should choose projects that are designed for change and possess a high tolerance for risk. Starting with a small team is recommended, and as they learn and progress, they can create new teams and scale the DevOps efforts as part of their enterprise agile mission.
Step 4: Utilize Different Reference Sources
While the DevOps initiative should be your major focus, you should not overlook other methodologies like ITIL. Scaling ITIL's change configuration and release processes is essential to a successful DevOps project. "DevOps" is the tagline, but it should not be the only focus of the transformation. The DevOps team should collaborate with other departments and processes, like security, architecture, and their business clients, in order to accomplish their goals.
Step 5: Change the Metrics and Goals
Currently, many companies take a siloed strategy to departmental goals, and IT staff are rewarded based on who addresses the challenges at hand. During a DevOps effort, objectives must be group-oriented and focused on the same final objective. Building shared objectives that correspond to business requirements and impacts should be done, but organizations should also ensure that their teams understand that they must collaborate. In fact, concentrating on enhancing agility and business value - referred to as velocity and quality - should be achieved.
Step 6: Utilize Automation to Overcome Limitations
The success of DevOps projects is often seen when starting on a small scale, even though automation is a pivotal part of automating workflows and connecting different systems. Every organization will have a different approach to automation technology for their DevOps initiatives.
The process of automation facilitates DevOps to be utilized in bigger, production-oriented scenarios. Therefore, the organizations should focus on the greatest challenge or problem. Since automation diminishes the need for manual participation and therefore eliminates human error, processes become repeatable. It is essential to seek a solution for automation that is tailored for DevOps tools as some are not built with them in consideration.
An automation tool that works well with DevOps must meet three criteria.
- DevOps-Ready, providing automation for DevOps purposes without needing additional setup
- DevOps-Enabled, made to work well in a pipeline setting
- DevOps-Capable, able to be incorporated into a DevOps pipeline when configured properly. It is beneficial to have a tool that has already been tried and tested.
Step 7: Consider a Toolchain Approach
An effective DevOps toolchain should outline every step of the process, including the activities associated with each stage. This will enable teams to recognize where automation and manual effort is necessary within and between each stage. Even though automation is essential, it is important to recognize the importance of toolchains in a successful DevOps plan.
An organization should evolve a "stop-the-line" outlook, in which any team member can pause a project if something is amiss. By doing this, you can quickly address challenges before they become complex issues.
Conclusion
In the ever-evolving automated environment, some corporations have grasped that the full-cycle application releases that are integral to the DevOps cycle can be automated with IT Automation, reducing the complexity DevOps carries for both their development and operations teams. By leveraging a modern IT workload automation solution, businesses can reduce the manual execution of multiple processes to enhance DevOps agility and free up developers and ops teams to concentrate more on crucial projects.
Automation is an efficient way for developers to initiate routine, time-consuming processes and for operations teams to build workflows efficiently. Automation also provides the required scheduling capabilities that many software delivery and development tools lack. When it comes to DevOps, leaders should focus on three fundamental components -- People, Process and Product. By selecting the right team, they can ensure that they can align with the Agile methodology which is the core of DevOps.
DevOps as a recent trend in IT encourages expedient IT service and consistent delivery by using latest DevOps techniques within a system-oriented approach. Its purpose is to bring together development and operations teams to generate more business-oriented outcomes quickly. By utilizing a DevOps approach, businesses can quickly deploy new initiatives through an agile process. This alignment of projects to overall objectives helps the teams develop greater expertise. Additionally, it encourages collaboration between IT and development teams, making sure that the projects are well-thought-out and aimed at taking the business forward.