According to the definition given by Microsoft, DevOps is a compound of development (Dev) and operations (Ops), translating this as the union of people, processes and technology to provide value to customers continuously.
This process is one that can bring valuable benefits to all companies that apply it. Among the most relevant are:
- Faster and more frequent delivery of updates and features that will not only satisfy customers, but also help your business gain a foothold in a competitive marketplace.
- Collaboration between the development and operation teams and the frequent capture of user feedback lead to a significant improvement in product quality.
The best practices when applying the DevOps methodology
Apply an agile development methodology
Agile software development is one of the most popular development methodologies, especially in the United States. Its basic principles focus on teamwork and flexibility. Focuses on resolving customer pain points by developing an MVP (minimum viable product) early on, frequently getting feedback from end users to gain valuable information that will allow changes to be incorporated before development is too far along. This reduces risk, saving time and money.
Make sure you use the right tools
To correctly apply what a DevOps methodology is as such, you must have the appropriate tools in each phase of the life cycle, ensure that the tools to be used have the capabilities to improve software quality and delivery speed.
Implement automation
Automatically checking code is a thing of the past within the DevOps process in a project. The team in charge must automate everything from batch processing to frequent confirmations. Automated tests should also be included, within these are comprehensive, unit, integration and performance tests.
Monitor Devops Applications
It is of the utmost importance to verify the applications in production at all times to identify failures or deficiencies in performance and thus anticipate a possible report from customers about these failures. The DevOps pipeline should also be monitored so that a failed test doesn't slow down the entire process.
Pillars of observability
You may not have heard this phrase before, but it is key to every DevOps team. The “pillars of observability” are logs, traces, and metrics. System components and applications generate logs, these are serial data about the operation of the system. Traces are responsible for tracing the flow of application logic, and metrics allow DevOps to observe CPU/RAM usage or reservation, disk space, connectivity, and more.
Help with quality control
A DevOps, through continuous monitoring tools, parameterizes all kinds of automatic tests instead of employing a person to review each page of the app. These can stop and prevent problems in: Development cycles, deployment, vulnerabilities, servers, and performance.
Continuous feedback
Having an ongoing conversation with the team or sending constant reports ensures that they have the accurate information they need to do their job effectively. Developers will be able to get quick results from code tests, so they know if there is a bug and fix it immediately. It was believed that a development team could only optimize for speed or quality, but continuous feedback is one of the elements of DevOps that allows optimization of both aspects.
A change in the culture
The DevOps methodology is based on collaboration, trust, transparency and empathy. If the organization or company that will implement this practice does not have these words cemented in its work culture, a radical change must be made to later think about implementing DevOps within the development process of a technological product. Communication lines between teams must be open and always used.
Taking each of these aspects into account, we can conclude that DevOps will undoubtedly help detailed work, facilitate the work of developers and operators, creating a productive relationship in your team, bringing positive results.
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