What Is DevOps? How It Speeds Up Development (and Saves You Headaches)

I admit — I had no idea there was (and still is) a fair bit of confusion surrounding the exact definition and implementation of DevOps.

In its very essence, DevOps represents a cultural philosophy that emphasizes collaboration and communication between development (Dev) and operations (Ops). But, some see it as a set of tools and practices, while others associate it with specific job roles.

So what the heck is it? Despite a range of varying interpretations, the core ideas of DevOps remain consistent.

DevOps is the combination of cultural philosophies, processes, and technology that allows companies to release and update their applications quickly and reliably through automation and teamwork.

It sounds a lot at first, but once you scratch beneath the veneer a bit, it actually makes a lot of sense. Bear with me for the next few minutes as I take a look at the nitty-gritty of DevOps.

So, why is something that sounds clunky by default an important — nay, vital — part of modern software development?

It’s because DevOps breaks down silos between development and IT teams.

Now, there’s a shared responsibility, a focus on efficiency, and a healthy dose of automation throughout the software development lifecycle.

When you add its collaborative and communicative facets, DevOps outpaces traditional, slower development methods with its smoother workflows. That way, businesses can swiftly adapt to changing market demands and customer feedback.

Whatever we ultimately agree on what DevOps is (and isn’t), you can’t deny that it’s primarily a shift in mindset. As a result, developers can do their thing without friction while the infrastructure is built on top and controlled by automated processes.

This blend of developer empowerment and operations stability results in several tangible benefits, such as:

• Faster development and deployment
• Improved collaboration and productivity
• Enhanced software quality and security
• Greater scalability and reliability

Don’t worry. I’ll cover these benefits in more detail later on, which will give you a deeper sense of what’s going on here.

Did you know that DevOps is still in its teenage years?

It’s widely accepted that the term was used for the very first time in 2009, when Patrick Debois — a developer, network specialist, system administrator, tester, and project manager — formed a ‘DevOpsDays’ conference in October 2009, recognized today as a worldwide community conference series.

He was the first to use the portmanteau, though the idea itself already gained traction a year or two before. You see, DevOps was born out of sheer frustration, as the likes of Debois were experiencing a lot of back and forth between developers and operation engineers, sometimes accompanied by passing the blame to each other.

Life before DevOps was filled with gaps (pun intended) and conflicts characterized by “waterfall” models of software development. Any given project had to go through pre-defined stages, each to be completed before the next could begin.

Since development (Dev) and operations (Ops) were siloed, this led to slow releases and deployment bottlenecks — to the point it took years of building and testing in extreme cases before actual deployment.

So, it’s no wonder that Agile methodologies began to rise in prominence, focusing on iterative development and closer collaboration. However, bottlenecks remained a problem, in no small part because Agile primarily focused on the Dev side.

DevOps built upon this framework and added the Ops to the equation, extending the Agile technique to create a more seamless, automated, and efficient flow.

At the heart of DevOps lie these five principles that refine software development:

Now that we have the theoretical part down let’s switch to the practical part of DevOps.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

In this case, you manage and set up your computer systems and networks using code, just like you write software.

Through version control and platforms such as Terraform, Ansible, and others, you get to keep track of changes and automate deployment setups without manual labor. This way, the process is more consistent, and you can do the same configuration over and over again.

Basically, engineers can leverage code to manage their infrastructure, just like they manage their application code. And since it’s all defined in code, IaC allows you to rapidly spin up, say, new servers with standard setups, update them with the latest patches, or easily make copies of them.

CI/CD Pipelines

A pipeline is a series of automated steps that move code from development to production in a structured way. Much like with an actual pipeline (hence the name), each step flows into the next, making sure everything is in order before a code reaches users. In a CI/CD pipeline, these steps typically include:

• Code integration
• Compiling the code
• Automated tests check for bugs, security issues, and performance problems
• Deployment

The main objective of CI is to prevent integration problems (which tend to take forever and are annoying to deal with), while CD makes sure the code passes all the tests and is ready to go live whenever, thus minimizing the inherent risks that usually come with releasing new features.

Jenkins, GitHub Actions, and GitLab CI/CD are some of the most popular CI/CD tools.

Containerization & Orchestration

Normally, you have to install the right version of a program for your computer’s operating system, like Windows or Mac. Spearheaded by Docker, containerization changed all that.

It enables code-savvy people to create a single package (container) that is highly scalable and simply works the same in development, testing, and production, no matter what.

Due to their portability and resource efficiency (at least compared to virtual machines), containers are in almost every cloud-based app these days.

Naturally, you need something to manage and scale them all, which is where container orchestration comes in. It’s software that automatically handles containers for you because, let’s face it, trying to manage hundreds or thousands of them would be a nightmare.

DevOps practitioners use tools such as Kubernetes to automatically start, stop, and manage all their containers. This lets them easily scale their cloud apps up or down, and it helps prevent mistakes that creep up when trying to do it all manually.

Monitoring & Logging

These two practices are crucial as they ensure observability and troubleshooting. Their watchful eyes see to it that applications are running without a hitch, while also detecting issues early and boosting system reliability “on the side.”

Monitoring tracks system performance, availability, and health in real time while logging records of system and application events for debugging and analysis.

The two work off each other. Logging supplies a constant stream of raw data about all the important things that happened. Monitoring takes that raw data from the logs and turns it into useful information.

Tools such as Prometheus and Grafana provide cloud-native monitoring with powerful metrics and alerting, while ELK Stack and Splunk offer a comprehensive solution for log management and analysis.

Adopting a DevOps approach translates to all kinds of good vibes, most notably:

• Faster development and deployment cycles: DevOps teams can deliver software quicker and more efficiently, reducing time-to-market for new products and features. You get to release software more often and faster to better respond to what your customers want.
• Improved collaboration and productivity: Because DevOps promotes teamwork for everyone involved, they can’t help but work side-by-side. On a very basic level, everyone is talking more, which means teams click better, take ownership, and waste less time (think long delays during hand-offs).
• Enhanced software quality and security: When you automate not only testing and deployments but also compliance policies with DevOps, you cut down on mistakes and end up with better software overall that doesn’t waive security principles.
• Scalability and reliability for modern applications: Using automation and maintaining a high level of consistency helps you handle complicated or changing systems more easily and with less risk, all the while delivering a reliable product without compromising the user experience and the standards you set.

If you’re still a doubter, how about some stats: 86% of professionals favor a DevOps culture for fast software development and release, while businesses that adopted it have 33% more time to spend on infrastructure improvements.

DevOps was supposed to be a bidirectional blend of development and operations. I say ‘supposed’ because it’s not always the case, mostly due to:

• Cultural shift and team buy-in: Despite the advantages, DevOps is not an easy sell both from a culture and mindset standpoint. It takes patience to adopt the new workflows, tools, and people, as well as to break down the established mentality and routines of doing things your way. A lot of it falls on proper encouragement and communication, which isn’t everybody’s forte.
• Tooling complexity and integration: From the get-go, Dev and Ops use different tools for CI/CD, monitoring, automation, and so on, often leading to integration difficulties that come with steep learning curves. This complexity can slow down workflows and create maintenance overhead, which particularly holds true for companies still squeezing out life from legacy systems.
• Security concerns and compliance: The sheer speed at which DevOps moves can lead to more chances of security holes, wrong settings, and compliance failures. The truth is when you’re automating deployments and changing bits and pieces all the time, it’s harder to spot potential security problems and follow all the regulations while still staying agile.
• Measuring DevOps success (KPIs and metrics): With DevOps, there are just so many different metrics and monitoring tools, to the point where standard KPIs like MTTR (mean time to repair) and deployment frequency don’t tell you if you’re hitting your business objectives. Sadly, companies sometimes switch to DevOps without being clear on how they’re gonna measure if it’s working or not.

My one takeaway from all of this is that before you even think of embracing DevOps, be 100% sure you have the time, expertise, and funds to see it through.

I’m no software guru by any chance, but it seems to me DevOps is the rock star of software development. It’s pretty good at making the whole process smoother, getting apps out faster, and saving a few bucks with all that automation. The transformational power is undeniable, and though it asks a lot from you — it gives so much more in return.