DevOps vs Agile! Everything You Need To Know
DevOps is a buzzword that has been trending in the industry for quite some time now. But in spite of its popularity, there is a lot of confusion pertaining to how different it is from Agile. What’s worse? The DevOps vs Agile is a never-ending debate in the IT industry.
If you want to understand how different they are, and which of them is better than the other, then stick around till the end of this ‘DevOps vs Agile’ blog where I will be uncovering a number of industry secrets. But, a synopsis of the differences between them is in the table below.
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DevOps vs Agile
Agile’s founding principle is bringing Agility to Development. But, DevOps’ founding principle is bringing Agility to both Development and Operations. Before I talk about the technical differences between DevOps vs Agile, I want to set the context straight. Hence, I will be talking about a few non-technical differences which you should be aware of.
The important point to note is that DevOps is not a replacement for Agile! Sounds wrong? No, Agile is not dying. But, is DevOps better? Yes, it is an improvement.
While Agile was a natural replacement for the Waterfall model and other Scrum practices, DevOps is not a replacement. But, it is a direct successor to Agile.
Similar to how with time, practices get better; over time, Agile has also grown its challenges, and DevOps has turned out to be the more optimized practice.
Why Is DevOps Better Than Agile?
Let’s understand this by first learning what were the challenges with Agile software development.
Agile software development is about following a set of best practices for creating quality software in a timely manner. But the problem is, the best practices followed, involves people working in Silos.
By Silos, I mean there are people who will be working as Developers, or as Testers, or as ITOps with very little communication between them. And since, there is very little communication between them, they are not aware of what the others are working on despite being a part of the same process.
This Silos-ed working of teams is the reason for the infamous “Blame Game” that goes about when the software fails or has major flaws.
The Blame Game
When a client has complained about software, the blame is internally thrown at each other. The ‘Dev’ team would point fingers at the ‘QA’ team. ‘QA’ team will then point fingers at the ‘ITOps’ team, who would redirect the blame to the ‘Dev’ team.
Irrespective of the problem residing in the code developed, or on the systems where the code is deployed, the problem remains in isolation, as nobody wants to take ownership of the screw-up.
Solution To This Everlasting Problem?
DevOps! You could have guessed this. But, can you guess how DevOps overcomes the Silos?
Simple- DevOps breaks the Silos right through the middle. In DevOps, the ‘Dev’ team, the ‘ITOps’ team, and ‘QA’ team are not independently working pieces of the gamut. But, they are ‘one’.
DevOps practice uses a DevOps Engineer — who does everything:- developing the code, testing that code, and deploying the very same code to production. So, does the unification solve the problem?
Yes, it solves one major aspect of the problem. Since the same DevOps Engineer is multi-skilled, he will be given ownership of the entire process: developing the code, unit testing/ functional testing the code, and deploying that code to staging/ testing/ production server.
Since he is the sole owner, there are very few problems that will arise. And even if problems do arise, the person who knows the product best will be on the job.
Speaking of the best person, another issue that DevOps solves is the dependency problem. So, even if the ‘ITOps’ guy is not available, there won’t be any delay. Because as DevOps Engineers, the role of ‘ITOps’ can be easily assumed by anybody else.
Is DevOps Performed By Only DevOps Engineers?
Well, that’s the catch. It always seems like DevOps Engineers are the only folks involved. But, in the real world, DevOps Engineers are restricted to only performing a specified role even though they are capable of being involved throughout the entire lifecycle.
Technical Differences Between DevOps vs Agile
Agile development involves a set of practices such as Agile Scrum & Agile Kanban.
DevOps involves a set of technical processes such as Continuous Development, Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Testing (CI), Continuous Deployment (CD), and Continuous Monitoring.
Key Focus Area?
Agile development focuses mainly on releasing quality software in a timely manner.
DevOps goes one step further. It focuses on guaranteeing quality software in a timely manner. Quality is guaranteed by Continuously Monitoring the software application after its deployment.
Release Cycles/ Development Sprints
Agile focuses on smaller release cycles with incremental software delivery.
DevOps focuses on smaller release cycles with incremental delivery & immediate feedback.
Who Gives Feedback?
In Agile, feedback is mostly given by customers.
In DevOps, feedback is mostly measured by the internal team (by using Continuous Monitoring tools).
Scope Of Work
Agile mainly focuses on working with Speed or Agility.
DevOps mainly focuses on achieving automation by orchestrating various DevOp tools.
Now that brings an end to this DevOps vs Agile blog. Stay tuned to Edureka for more interesting blogs on DevOps. For a better understanding of the differences between DevOps and Agile, you can refer to the below video.
This is the end of my article on Nagios interview questions. If you wish to check out more articles on the market’s most trending technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Python, Ethical Hacking, then you can refer to Edureka’s official site.
Do look out for other articles in this series which will explain the various other aspects of DevOps.
2. Git Tutorial
9. How To Orchestrate DevOps Tools?
13. Continuous Delivery vs Continuous Deployment
14. CI CD Pipeline
15. Docker Compose
16. Docker Swarm
18. Ansible Vault
19. Ansible Roles
20. Ansible for AWS
21. Jenkins Pipeline
23. Git vs GitHub
24. Top Git Commands
25. DevOps Interview Questions
28. Git Reflog
30. Top DevOps Skills That Organizations Are Looking For
33. Ansible Interview Questions And Answers
34. 50 Docker Interview Questions
36. Jenkins Interview Questions
39. Linux commands Used In DevOps
42. Nagios Interview Questions
44.Difference between Jenkins and Jenkins X
46.Git vs Github
Originally published at https://www.edureka.co on February 20, 2018.
