As we all know,
DevOps is a software development and delivery process. It can help emphasize communication between product management, software development and operations professionals, and cross-functional collaboration.
We have carefully selected twelve
DevOps tools based on our accumulated experience in the IT industry in the past decades, especially in infrastructure, to give you a functional introduction. At the same time, we will also discuss with you the DevOps transformation roadmap, as well as relevant guidance for step-by-step implementation.
Since the main goal of
DevOps is to improve the state of collaboration between various stakeholders, it can achieve from planning and deployment to operation and maintenance of IT projects:
Increase the frequency of deployment.
Reduce the time between updates/fixes.
Achieve fast delivery.
Shorten the recovery time.
Reduce the failure rate of the new version.
DevOps transformation roadmap
According to the software development life cycle,
DevOps implementation methods are generally divided into the following three main stages:
Build (DevOps continuous integration).
Testing (DevOps continuous testing).
Release (DevOps continuous delivery).
The main focus of DevOps is to improve the efficiency, security and predictability of delivery by simplifying the delivery process and standardizing the development environment. DevOps gives the entire team the autonomy to build, deliver, verify and support their software applications. It enables developers to better understand the infrastructure and thus better control the entire production environment.
12 tools to successfully implement DevOps plans
Before starting DevOps transformation, enterprises must first define the existing business processes, IT infrastructure, and delivery pipelines; then, by setting clear goals, the DevOps implementation strategy can truly land in the enterprise.
Although the way to implement DevOps is different in different enterprises, the processes related to DevOps usually include the following 6 C stages:
Continuous development-Continuous development involves planning, overview and introduction of new code. The purpose of continuous development is to optimize the code construction process and reduce the time between development and deployment.
Continuous Integration (CI) – The practice of DevOps implementation involves integrating the developed code into a central repository. In this repository, configuration management (CM) tools are integrated with test development tools to track the development status of the code. In addition, CI also includes the formation of rapid feedback between testing and development, so as to be able to identify and solve various code problems that may occur during this process.
Continuous testing-The purpose of continuous testing is to accelerate the delivery of code to the production environment. DevOps at this stage involves updating the application code and running scheduled, automated code tests.
Continuous Delivery-Continuous delivery is designed to: quickly and continuously deliver updates and changes that will be deployed in a production environment. Continuous delivery can ensure that even if developers continue to make frequent changes, their code can always be deployed.
Continuous deployment (CD)-Similar to continuous delivery, continuous deployment is the use of various
container technology tools (such as Docker and Kubernetes) to automatically release new or modified code into the production environment. At this stage, maintaining the consistency of the code in different deployment links is particularly critical.
Continuous monitoring-This phase involves continuous monitoring of the operation code and the infrastructure supporting the code. At the same time, we also need to continuously monitor changes related to application deployment in the production environment to ensure the stability of the application and the best performance.
Advantages of DevOps
Enterprises implementing DevOps can obtain the following main advantages:
Deliver products better and faster.
More advanced automation and scalability.
Clearer systemic results.
Stable operating environment.
Make better use of resources.
Although the concept of DevOps has been around for ten years, similar to other methods, it also has some pits that we should pay attention to and avoid during the landing process. Overall, its characteristics include:
a) Cost issues
The implementation of DevOps can reduce the possibility of project failure and the number of rollbacks, thereby reducing the overall cost of IT in the long-term dimension. However, if proper planning and budgeting are not done before DevOps is implemented, then you may have bottomless costs in the practice of transformation.
b) Insufficient skills
To successfully adopt DevOps, companies often need to hire qualified DevOps professionals. These DevOps consultants are often able to manage the team proficiently and establish a culture of collaboration.
c) Complex infrastructure
The complexity of the infrastructure is another challenge for successful DevOps implementation. Enterprises will gradually find that the different services deployed in isolated environments are difficult to be integrated into a common infrastructure to create new applications. Enterprises need to train the DevOps team to understand the goals of organizational transformation and the planned implementation route, and senior DevOps consultants to manage the complex infrastructure transformation.
DevOps implementation-step-by-step guide
1. Build a competent DevOps team
Generally, before migrating to any new technology, we first need to correctly identify resources and form a team that is adequate for the challenges of IT projects. Then the basic qualities of DevOps team members should include: critical thinking to find the source of the problem, proficiency in the latest DevOps tools and the ability to learn such new tools, as well as the ability to troubleshoot and experimentally solve problems. Only by forming a competent team can the enterprise organize the requirements as needed, plan the implementation path, deploy the software, and finally achieve perfect software delivery.
2. Formulate a reliable DevOps strategy
Based on the following six parameters, implement DevOps strategy:
12 tools to successfully implement DevOps plans
Fast execution-The ultimate goal of any organizational plan is to: on the basis of continuous innovation, to achieve faster execution to improve customer satisfaction. Then, continuous deployment in the
DevOps practice link can ensure the accuracy and speed of delivery.
Scalability – The practice of infrastructure-as-code (Infrastructure-as-code, https://dzone.com/articles/why-use-infrastructure-as-code-and-how-to-be-succe) can assist in All stages of the software product life cycle (including development, testing, and product delivery) are managed with scalable precision. This is crucial to the successful implementation of DevOps.
Reliability – Practices such as continuous integration, continuous testing, and continuous delivery of DevOps can provide a good end-user experience and operational reliability by ensuring safety and high-quality output.
Collaboration-Through effective cross-team collaboration and communication, DevOps can eliminate inefficient processes, limited management time, and the possibility of project failure.
Frequent Delivery-DevOps continuous delivery, integration and deployment practices can achieve fast delivery cycles and shorten the necessary recovery time in the implementation process, thereby further leaving more time for innovation.
Security-Various automated compliance policies and configuration management technologies enable the DevOps model to achieve greater security through the practice of infrastructure as code and policy as code.
3. Start small
We can start with small-scale projects and then gradually move to full-scale DevOps. Through small-scale changes, we can verify the management effectiveness for testing and deployment. On this basis, we will decide whether to implement DevOps at the organizational level in the next step according to its effect.
4. Automate as much as possible
The foundation of DevOps stems from the ability to execute quickly. By carefully selecting automated tools, we can avoid repetitive manual delivery and achieve faster process execution, thereby saving project participants time, effort, and overall budget.
5. Prepare the right environment
Preparing a suitable continuous testing and delivery environment is also critical to the successful implementation of DevOps. Even for minor changes to the application, we should prepare a stable test and delivery environment to ensure that the changed or added code is quickly deployed to the production environment based on the automated test results.
6. Choose the right tool and build a strong general infrastructure
In the implementation of DevOps, the same key step is to select the appropriate tool based on the compatibility of its own unique IT environment to achieve smooth integration. With the right tool set, you can use custom workflows and access control to build a powerful infrastructure and smooth feature set.
Want to read the following content, please click here to get more.
