DevOps isn’t just the latest buzzword floating around the IT sphere. It’s an actual paradigm shift in how technology companies evaluate the relationship between the development of software and the infrastructure that powers it.
It’s a common misconception that only enterprise businesses need or can benefit from having a DevOps strategy. Regardless of if you have an organization the size of Google and Facebook or a one-man startup, DevOps is considered a way of life and ignoring this may hurt your business in the long run.
Defining DevOps
If you are new to DevOps, you may want to know – exactly- what it is. Just as the name implies, DevOps refers to a union between Developers (Dev) and IT Operations or Systems Engineers (Ops). DevOps is many things. It’s a collection of the best practices, a philosophy, and a set of tooling that puts an emphasis on collaboration and automation.
The actual term “DevOps” emerged from the faster-paced “agile” software development movement. Agile methodologies put an emphasis on shorter iteration cycles, regular new function releases, and a close collaboration between the development and business stakeholders.
It has helped to make quick “fixes” common practice, which is something that has increased the need to create software in a way that delivers ideas to market faster. Both startups and established companies are working hard to test their new ideas and to provide more value for customers and using modern day software, like what’s used with Agile and DevOps, this is now possible.
The Endless Possibilities of DevOps
If you haven’t adopted DevOps practices in your tech projects, you may be wasting time and increasing the risk of delaying tech projects along with accumulating expensive technical debt. The time to start DevOps adoption is now. It’s easiest to implement early in the lifecycle of a tech project. The longer that you wait, the more effort you are going to have to put into re-work DevOps and make it work with the pre-established workflow.
If you are working to build a startup, this type of iteration and speed is important. When you are developing software for a certain customer, you have to figure out what features are most valuable to them in a timely manner. If you are adhering to “Lean Startup” ideas and methods, the goal is to eliminate the amount of time you waste and to focus more on value.
For a lean startup, specifically, using DevOps is a huge component of being able to eliminate all the waste that is seen around the provisioning of new servers, configuring and installing new software, and deployments across environments. If you don’t have a DevOps strategy in place, these tasks may become vulnerable to mistakes and they will be more time-consuming. By automating this process, you can move new features into production faster, allowing them to be tested and then validated faster, leading to less wait time for customers.
