Time to market for software companies is critical, especially with your competition fighting every step of the way to make sure they have the first mover advantage for their product.

Recent reports show that those companies that adopt DevOps report a significant reduction in time-to-market for their software and services. Specifically, 49% of companies noted a decrease in their software delivery times.

But simply implementing DevOps without a solid action plan and knowledge of DevOps' best practices won’t guarantee success. Like with anything, there are always unexpected pitfalls that can derail your plans.

So, in this guide, we’ll explore how you can navigate the challenges of implementing DevOps and the best practices you should follow to see the best results.

What is DevOps

DevOps represents a set of practices and cultural values that have been designed to enhance the software development process by fostering collaboration between the development and operations teams. DevOps came about to address the fundamental inefficiencies and dysfunctions between software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) teams that were common in the traditional waterfall development model.

The roots of DevOps trace back to the Agile methodology, which emerged in the early 2000s and began shifting the emphasis toward iterative development, regular feedback, and more fluid, cross-functional team structures. Agile practices highlighted the need for more collaboration and quicker iteration cycles, but they often did not extend beyond the development teams to include operations.

Older models and methodologies often led to siloed teams that worked independently, resulting in conflicts, slow production cycles, and a lack of cohesion that could lead to errors and operational issues. The aim of DevOps is to merge Dev and Ops into a single, continuous process that emphasizes collaboration, automation, integration, and communication across the entire application lifecycle.

How Does DevOps Work?

DevOps works by automating and integrating the processes between software development and IT teams. This allows them to build, test, and release software faster and more reliably. DevOps merges software development with IT Ops with the aim of shortening the development life cycle, increasing the frequency of deployment, and ensuring a high rate of software production quality. You can break it down into a few components, each with its own importance.

Continuous Integration is a foundational practice in DevOps where developers frequently merge code changes into a central repository, after which automated builds and tests are run. The primary goals are to find and address bugs quicker, improve software quality, and reduce the time it takes to validate and release new software updates.

Following CI, Continuous Delivery automates the software release process, allowing DevOps teams to ensure that the software can be reliably released at any time. This practice goes hand in hand with CI, automating further stages of the pipeline to include the release of changes to a staging environment after the build and test stages. It aims to make deployments predictable and schedule them at almost any time with minimal intervention.

For teams that take CD further, Continuous Deployment automates the release of every change that passes the automated tests directly into production, eliminating human intervention in the deployment process. This allows organizations to accelerate the feedback loop with customers, providing rapid iterations based on user feedback.

A reliable DevOps toolchain is essential to support these practices, including tools for managing project builds, automations, deployments, monitoring, and collaboration. Monitoring remains a critical component throughout the DevOps lifecycle. It involves tracking the application’s performance and operational health to ensure reliability and availability.

Common DevOps Tools

Docker: Docker is a widely used containerization platform that enables developers to package applications into containers—standardized executable components combining application source code with the operating system (OS) libraries and dependencies required to run that code in any environment. Docker simplifies the setup of environments and ensures consistency across multiple deployments.

Jenkins: Jenkins is a cornerstone tool for Continuous Integration (CI), providing an automation server to support building and testing software projects continuously. It is open-source, so it is even easier to extend with a vast ecosystem of plugins or setup integration with practically any tool in the DevOps toolchain.

Kubernetes: Kubernetes is an open-source system for automating the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. It groups containers that make up an application into logical units for easy management and discovery. Kubernetes excels in automated scaling and management of container applications, making it an essential tool in modern DevOps pipelines, particularly when dealing with microservices architectures.

Ansible: Ansible is an open-source tool focused on configuration management, application deployment, and task automation. It uses YAML syntax for expressing automation jobs (playbooks), which allows you to describe automation jobs in a way that approaches plain English.

Terraform: Terraform by HashiCorp enables infrastructure as code (IaC), allowing developers to define and provision infrastructure using a high-level configuration language. It is cloud-agnostic, supporting multiple service providers, and also enables the management of both cloud and on-premises resources.

Git: Git is a distributed version control system that is fundamental to DevOps workflows. It supports distributed workflows, allowing multiple developers to work on a project simultaneously without interfering with each other. Every clone of a Git repository is a full backup of all the data, and it allows for powerful branching and merging.

Prometheus: Prometheus is an open-source monitoring and alerting toolkit originally built at SoundCloud. It has a powerful query language and integrates well with a graphical representation tool like Grafana to visualize and make sense of the monitoring data.

DevOps Best Practices

1. Managing CI/CD Collaboration: CI/CD is a cornerstone of DevOps. Managing these aspects efficiently will ensure that your DevOps workflows are effective. CI encourages frequent code integration, automated builds, and tests to detect errors early, reduce conflicts, and streamline software delivery.
2. Automate Everything Possible: Automation minimizes errors and speeds up processes. Automate tasks like builds, testing, and deployments using tools like Jenkins, CircleCI, and Ansible for infrastructure automation.
3. Embrace Configuration as Code: Use tools like Terraform for infrastructure management and Docker for containerization to keep environments consistent and under version control.
4. Prioritize Continuous Monitoring and Logging: Use tools like Prometheus for monitoring and ELK Stack for logging. Proactively monitor performance and security to maintain high service quality.
5. Incorporate Security Practices Early (DevSecOps): Integrate security into the development process using automated tools like SonarQube and OWASP ZAP. Conduct security training for teams to minimize risks.
6. Use Microservices Architecture: Adopt microservices for flexible, scalable applications. Containerization tools like Docker and Kubernetes can support this architecture, making deployments faster and more manageable.
7. Continually Evaluate and Improve: Regularly review tools and processes. Be open to new technologies and adjust workflows based on performance metrics and feedback.

Big Takeaway

Whether you are just beginning to integrate DevOps principles or refining your approach, continuous learning and adaptation are key. Every step toward implementing these practices can reduce development times, decrease deployment failures, and enhance service quality.

If you’re seeking guidance on where to start, contact MSH today to set up a consultation. We’ll look at your unique situation and find the best path to optimize your operations and accelerate your development cycle.