DevOps is becoming a mainstream technology trend, and many companies are embracing this concept, hoping to use new thinking models to deal with development and operation and maintenance issues. Especially in the stage of enterprise digital transformation, DevOps can greatly improve the quality of software applications and increase the speed of software development, which in turn brings direct business value.
However, what is DevOps?
In fact,
DevOps is not a new word. Since about 2009, companies have been looking for the best collaboration model for development and operation and maintenance personnel, trying to
automate processes to make software construction, testing, release, operation and maintenance and other links more efficient and faster. However, in the traditional development and operation and maintenance mode, DevOps can only be a "moon in water" and "flower in the mirror". Until the emergence of disruptive technologies such as
cloud computing and big data, DevOps really has room for its skills.
Now, in the new round of technological change that emphasizes cloud first and application-driven, some head companies have taken the first step bravely, through DevOps strategy to help enterprises add value. Taking a large enterprise as an example, the main reason for building a
DevOps platform is to solve two major problems: first, to improve the ability of automated development and test management; second, to build efficient operating modes such as unified resource planning, unified allocation, and unified view. In fact, development, test management and operation management are an organism, and the three are complementary. If there are problems with development and testing, later operations management will also be hindered. Therefore, to successfully implement DevOps, the first thing to be solved is the problem of insufficient control capabilities in the R&D process, such as: the R&D process cannot be clearly defined, viewed and analyzed, the process specifications are not standard, and each project team is independent. Most importantly, because of the lack of a unified R&D management support tool, existing process specifications cannot be effectively implemented. The lack of control capabilities directly leads to low development efficiency and poor version quality, and finally the phenomenon of slow delivery of the business environment.
Large-scale DevOps platform construction starts with the underlying architecture
So, how exactly should DevOps land? I believe that for most companies, they are still in a state of inability to start! Because from the organizational structure, culture, process to tools, specifications, etc.,
DevOps to implement successfully, involves too many complex factors. However, if you find a true way and open up various tool chains, you will find that the DevOps journey can be so easy and simple.
As for the shape of a large DevOps platform, what specific functions are included? Zhao Safety, the vice president of BoCloud products, gave a detailed introduction starting from the underlying architecture.
"The bottom layer of DevOps is a collection of various tool chains, including self-developed, open source, and commercial version tools. These tools are connected together through a unified platform and portal, and then a process of curing, automation, and visualization is realized. Ultimately, All resources are managed by the unified resource platform to manage the entire business environment." Zhao Safety emphasized that the core application scenario of the entire program is initiated from the demand side, and then involves task decomposition and planning, code submission, continuous integration, self-test, and multi-environment management , On-line release and operation and maintenance and other links. Among them, several important concerns should be implemented in parallel. For example, how to plan and decompose demand management? There are many ways in the industry, some companies will adopt code branch management. Carefully sorted out, the whole process involves only two major elements: one is the tool chain, and the other is the assembly line. In addition to the tools themselves, norms and standards are also important. Only by adopting process management and metric analysis can all things finally be settled, and the goals of process controllability, rapid delivery, and sustainable evolution can be achieved.
From the landing results, the whole process will include several important contents. First of all, it is the design of the landing process. It should be divided into several important stages according to the company's business status. At different stages, different goals must be achieved, and everyone's responsibilities must be well defined. Generally this process will take a lot of time, because from the understanding of the existing process to incorporating more people's experience into it, and then finally determined that it is a long-term work. Secondly, it is the design of organizational structure. A special architecture committee must be set up, and the structure must override R&D and operation and maintenance. The purpose is to connect the two departments together for integration.
It is important to note that in the entire process planning and design, everyone's role must be planned, what stage to do, what specifications to observe, and even to combine various assessment indicators and measurement data, this is the key point of
DevOps landing . And, as far as possible, all the specifications can be solidified with the platform and controlled by dedicated personnel.
Choose a professional platform solution
If you want to quickly enter the DevOps journey, save all the complicated processes in the middle, and choose a professional platform solution may be the best strategy for most companies.
Take the Beyond DevOps platform of Boyun (Bonasoft Software Co., Ltd.) as an example, in addition to greater flexibility, usability and functionality, it can also bring more additional experiences to users. For example, you can customize the workflow, let the user's workflow realize standardized management, make all processes clear and easy to use, and can be directly matched in the background. In addition, the compatibility is stronger. For many development teams, not only working on an application, but also doing a lot of microservices because of one project, or may need to provide support for more than 20 projects through one service. How to proceed from the perspective of various projects, applications, and services Fully integrated, this is one of the biggest advantages of Boyun’s BeyondDevOps platform from other platforms. Just like a "service tree", through the core view function, users can start from the code and connect various resources.
Zhao Safety believes that in addition to being fast and good,
DevOps has three particularly important values:
First, visualization and digitization of R&D progress management. From the perspective of managers, I hope that the entire R&D management process is visual and can be updated at any time. It is a digital process. For example, when an important project is about to be released, managers want to see today's version release time, for example: the current progress has reached 51%, and there are 12 days to release.
Second, the R&D management process is standardized and standardized. Only through standardization and standardization can we guarantee that we can achieve A today and A tomorrow.
Third, the requirements are relatively clear, the entire development and testing environment is automatically generated, and is efficiently managed and operated. Many people may ignore this part before, but now it has become a very important thing, and there are many solutions.
In short, if the DevOps concept really wants to penetrate deep into the enterprise, so that the development and operation and maintenance of the enterprise can effectively collaborate, when we deploy the DevOps strategy or choose related solutions, we must not only focus on the rapid delivery of software development, but also care about many hidden factors For example, the ability to control and visualize the whole process, and the stability of the quality and efficiency of the entire R&D.
At present, in the private cloud market for enterprise users, there are not many that can implement DevOps from the solution level to the product level. They can achieve strong functions, and there are fewer product-level DevOps.
Market research shows that although the pace of digitalization in China has been accelerating in recent years, companies are still one to two years behind European and American companies in using DevOps, an advanced technology to improve their IT R&D efficiency. The impact of the new crown epidemic on business operations has also made DevOps tools that can help enterprise IT teams achieve remote collaborative development receive widespread attention.
