DevOps Demystified
What is DevOps?
The word DevOps is a portmanteau of the words Development and Operations. DevOps is a concept with different interpretations and definitions, but when you get down to its core, it’s a set of practices, tools, and culture. Practices similar to continuous integration and continuous delivery let Enterprises deliver rapidly in a safe and reliable manner, while other practices like micro-services make their applications more flexible and enable quicker innovation. The culture philosophy behind DevOps is removing the barriers between development and operations teams which makes them work together to optimize both their productivity and reliability. DevOps is all about developers and operations teams breaking down silos and collaborating to innovate and provide products and services swiftly. All teams will be involved in all the stages of the DevOps lifecycle. The image below portrays the DevOps lifecycle.
For many companies, the ability to innovate at a rapid pace — responding to market needs and changing conditions, as well as customer feedback — is a key factor for success and outsmarting the competition.
Benefits of DevOps?
The software methodologies preceding DevOps did recognize the value that Dev, Ops, and QA teams can bring if they coexist. But, they didn’t lay stress on fostering collaboration among the teams. DevOps is an improvisation on lean and agile software development methodologies. DevOps promotes an environment where the different teams work together to achieve common organizational objectives. DevSecOps extends DevOps’ core components of development and operations and introduces security as a separate component in the pipeline. It helps reduce costs and detect security issues in the early stages of development. It also accelerates the speed of recovery if and when any security incidents happen.Use Cases
In American Airlines’ multi-year journey with DevOps, the primary goal was getting the company to deliver value faster. Slow development times were perceived as a hurdle for improving company operations and the IT department struggled to get support from stakeholders. The company’s journey involved creating concrete goals, formalizing a toolchain, enlisting coaches and mentors, using experience and automation, and doing immersive practical training. Rapid design sessions helped teams arrive quickly at a minimum viable product, which led to a 145% increase in boarding pass scans to start check-in sessions and a 57% increase in the prepaid bag functionality. Average session time at the touchless kiosks was reduced by 17 seconds, and all that was done across 2,100 kiosks in 230 airports in six weeks.
