📍Introduction
In this blog, we will explore the world of DevOps, its definition, its importance, the challenges it aims to solve and some technical terms related to it.
Let's begin by understanding the common software development process followed by IT companies💻.
📍Traditional Software Development🚀
This image represents the Software Development Life Cycle(SDLC).
It includes 7 Steps which are:
💡 Idea / Planning Stage:
It includes defining goals and outlining the scope of the project. It's where stakeholders collaborate to determine the purpose, features, and objectives of the software.
📋 Requirements Gathering:📝
The software development process begins with gathering requirements from stakeholders and documenting them.
💻 Development: 👩💻
Programmers write the code based on the design specifications, turning the plan into a working software product.
🧪 Testing: 🧪
The testing team conducts various tests, including unit testing, integration testing, and system testing, to identify and resolve any defects or issues.
📦 The package and build:🔨
This stage involves packaging the code and building it into a deployable form. This includes compiling the code, resolving dependencies, and creating executable or installable files ready for deployment.
🚀 Deployment: 🚀
The software is deployed to the production environment, involving manual configuration, installation, and infrastructure setup.
🔧 Operations and Maintenance: 🛠️
The operations team takes over, monitoring the software's performance, addressing bugs(issues), and applying updates or patches as needed.
📍What is DevOps?
Definition
DevOps is a collaborative and efficient approach to software development and delivery. It promotes better communication, faster releases, and higher-quality software, ultimately benefiting both the development teams and the end users.
After reading the above definition we understood that DevOps was introduced to make Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) more efficient.
Now, let's explore the limitations of traditional software development that necessitated the emergence of DevOps.
This answers the next section:
📍Why DevOps is important?
Limitations of the SDLC DevOps tries to solve:
Differences between developers and the Operations team create the following barriers to software release:
😶Miscommunication & Lack Of Collaboration🤝🚫
Miscommunication between developers and operations can lead to delays in deploying applications/software, resulting from:
Poorly documented deployment guide or lack of clarity.📝
Lack of capability or expertise in the operations team responsible for deployment.
Code issues identified by operations, requiring improvements📈 from developers before deployment.
These challenges lengthen the release process and hinder the timely delivery of applications/software⏳🚀.
💥Conflict of Interest.💥
The separation of responsibilities between the developers and operations teams creates different incentives for software release and slows down the software release process:
Developers💻🧑:
Incentive: Fast development of new features.
Focus: Rapidly delivering new functionalities and enhancements.
Goal: Speed up the development process and introduce innovation.
Operations Team⚙🧑:
Incentive: Maintaining stability and error-free software in production.
Focus: Ensuring the software remains stable and reliable.
Goal: Prevent disruptions and ensure the software runs smoothly.
👨✈️Security.🚫
In the traditional process, just as the Operations team ensures system stability, the Security team is responsible for safeguarding the system's security.
However, manual operations in this traditional approach can be time-consuming, taking weeks or even months. Consequently, this manual process significantly slows down the software release cycle.
DevOps aims to address this roadblock, but the significance of integrating security in DevOps practices led to the emergence of a dedicated term called DevSecOps. 🚀🔒
🧪Application Testing🔍
Testing the software on different levels involves:
Test specific features: Conduct tests to verify the functionality and performance of specific features within the software.
End-to-end tests: Testing the software's complete flow, including multiple components and interactions, to ensure seamless integration and functionality.
Testing on different environments: Verifying the software's performance and compatibility across various environments, such as different operating systems or browsers.
Performance tests: Evaluate the software's performance under different load conditions to identify bottlenecks and ensure optimal performance.
These tests are often done manually as teams cannot fully rely on automated tests. They are typically performed by dedicated testers, who have a separate role from development and operations.
Therefore, Application Testing is also an important part of the release role and may slow down the release process.
👩💻Manual work👩💻
Many of the tasks during the release process used to be done manually like:
This manual work is slow & more error-prone, it is hard to trace, intransparent, who executed what when. Moreover, it was difficult to recover and replicate the exact infrastructure state.
📍♾DevOps goes over Development, Operations, Security and Testing helping to collaborate and make software release fast and efficient.
By overcoming these limitations making the SDLC process fast with minimal bugs and ensuring high-quality well-tested software/products will be deployed integration of DevOps in SDLC becomes very important.
Let's now again see a more elaborate explanation of :
📍What is DevOps?
DevOps is a collaborative approach that unites developers and operations professionals throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC). By sharing responsibilities and emphasizing automation, DevOps accelerates release cycles and enhances reliability. Automation reduces errors and repetitive tasks, leading to faster and more dependable software deployments.
📍What is Automation, Scaling, and Infrastructure?
Automation, Scaling, and Infrastructure are essential aspects of DevOps:
Automation 🤖🔧 :
Automation involves using tools and scripts to streamline and optimize repetitive tasks in the software development and deployment process. For example, automating the build and deployment process allows developers to consistently and efficiently package and release software updates.
Example: Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) pipelines automate the process of building, testing, and deploying software, ensuring faster and more reliable releases. This eliminates manual interventions, reduces errors, and improves overall efficiency.
OR
A simple explanation can be to automate day-to-day manual repetitive tasks using various DevOps tools🧰 & scripts which reduces time & errors thereby increasing efficiency.
Scaling 📈🔩 :
Scaling refers to the ability to adjust the capacity of software systems to handle increased workloads or demand. With scaling, software applications can accommodate growing user bases or sudden spikes in traffic.
Example: One real-life example of autoscaling is seen in video streaming platforms like Netflix. When demand surges during the release of a popular show, Netflix automatically adjusts its server capacity, adding or removing instances to handle the increased load, ensuring uninterrupted streaming for users.
Infrastructure 🏗️🌐 :
Infrastructure in DevOps refers to the underlying foundation required to support the software development, deployment, and operation processes. It includes hardware, software, networks, and related components.
Example: Imagine a company wants to launch a new online store. The infrastructure for web development would include:
Web Servers host the website's files and handle user requests. They ensure that web pages are delivered to users' browsers when they access the website.
Hosting Environment, The website needs a hosting environment, which can be provided by a web hosting service or by setting up servers in-house. The hosting environment ensures that the website is accessible to users via the Internet.
A Database system is used to store and manage product information, customer data, and other relevant data. This allows for efficient retrieval and management of information required by the website.
Content Delivery Network (CDN): A CDN can be employed to improve the performance and reliability of the website. It stores cached copies of the website's static files in servers distributed across various locations. This reduces latency and ensures faster content delivery to users worldwide.
Security Measures: Implementing security measures crucial to protect user data and prevent unauthorized access
Scalability and Load Balancing: As the website gains more traffic, it needs to scale to handle increased demand. This can be achieved by adding more servers and using load balancers to distribute incoming traffic across multiple servers, ensuring efficient resource utilization and improved performance.
By embracing automation, scaling, and infrastructure as part of DevOps practices, organizations can streamline processes, improve efficiency, and enhance the scalability and reliability of their software systems.
Make sure to check out this amazing blog on DevOps Pipeline by Mariusz Michalowski: Building the DevOps Pipeline - Key Concepts & Stages. This will help you understand DevOps practices & pipeline concepts in depth.
📍Conclusion
After integrating DevOps practices, the software development lifecycle (SDLC) becomes more streamlined and efficient. DevOps brings continuous integration, continuous delivery, and continuous deployment into the SDLC, enabling a seamless flow from development to production. The SDLC now incorporates a continuous feedback loop, automated testing, and frequent software releases, resulting in faster delivery of high-quality software and quicker response to customer needs.