13/10/21 15:45 What Is DevOps?

The Ultimate Guide

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DEFINITION

What is DevOps? The ultimate guide

By Meredith Courtemanche,
Director of Editorial Training Emily Mell,
Site Editor Alexander S. Gillis,
Technical Writer and Editor

The word DevOps is a combination of the terms development and operations, meant to represent a collaborative or
shared approach to the tasks performed by a company's application development and IT operations teams. In its broadest
meaning, DevOps is a philosophy that promotes better communication and collaboration between these teams -- and
others -- in an organization. In its most narrow interpretation, DevOps describes the adoption of iterative software
development, automation and programmable infrastructure deployment and maintenance. The term also covers culture
changes, such as building trust and cohesion between developers and systems administrators and aligning technological
projects to business requirements. DevOps can change the software delivery chain, services, job roles, IT tools and best
practices.

While DevOps is not a technology, DevOps environments generally have common methodologies. These include the
following:

continuous integration and continuous delivery or continuous deployment (CI/CD) tools, with an emphasis on task
automation;

products that support DevOps adoption, including real-time monitoring and incident management systems,
configuration management and collaboration platforms; and

cloud computing, microservices and containers implemented concurrently with DevOps methodologies.

A DevOps approach is one of many techniques used to execute IT projects that meet business needs. DevOps can
coexist with Agile software development; IT service management frameworks, such as ITIL; project management
directives, such as Lean and Six Sigma; and other strategies.

Some IT professionals believe that the simple combination of Dev and Ops is not enough, and the term DevOps should
explicitly include business (BizDevOps), security (DevSecOps) or other areas.

∙ How does DevOps work?

DevOps is a methodology meant to improve work throughout the software development lifecycle. You can visualize a
DevOps process as an infinite loop, comprising these steps: plan, code, build, test, release, deploy, operate, monitor and -
- through feedback -- plan, which resets the loop.

Ideally, DevOps means that an IT team writes software that perfectly meets user requirements, deploys without any
wasted time and runs optimally on the first try. Organizations use a combination of culture and technology to pursue this
goal.

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To align software to expectations, developers and stakeholders communicate about the project, and developers work on
small updates that go live independently of each other.

To avoid wait times, IT teams use CI/CD pipelines and other automation to move code from one step of development and
deployment to another. Teams review changes immediately and can enforce policies to ensure releases meet standards.

k From automated code preparation to a CI/CD pipeline, orchestration, monitoring a

feedback -- here's how every piece contributes to successful a DevOps methodolo

It's easy to write software quickly; writing software that works is another story. To deploy good code to production, DevOps
adherents use containers or other methods to make the software behave the same way from development through testing
and into production. They deploy changes individually so that problems are traceable. Teams rely on configuration
management for consistent deployment and hosting environments. Problems they discover in live operations lead to code
improvements, often through a blameless port-mortem investigation and continuous feedback channels.

Developers might support the live software, which puts the onus on them to address runtime considerations. IT operations
administrators might be involved in the software design meetings, offering guidance on how to use resources efficiently
and securely. Anyone can contribute to blameless post-mortems. The more these specialists collaborate and share skills,
the more they can foster a DevOps culture.

∙ What problems does DevOps solve?

Each company faces its own challenges, but common problems include releases that take too long, software that doesn't
meet expectations and IT that limits business growth.

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Without wait times, manual processes and lengthy reviews, a DevOps project moves from requirements to live software
faster. Shorter cycle times can keep requirements from shifting so that the product delivers what customers want.

DevOps solves communication and priority problems between IT specializations. To build viable software, development
teams must understand the production environment and test their code in realistic conditions. A traditional structure puts
development and operations teams in silos. This means developers are satisfied when their code delivers functionality.
And if the release breaks in production, it's up to the operations team to make the fixes.

With a DevOps culture, developers won't have the "It worked on my machine" response when a problem arises. Changes
rolled out to production are small and reversible. Plus, the whole team understands the changes, so incident management
is greatly simplified.

With a faster process from idea to live software, companies can capitalize on market opportunities. In this way, DevOps
provides a competitive advantage for businesses.

∙ The evolution of DevOps

Patrick Debois, a software development consultant, is credited with creating the term DevOps in 2009, by naming a
conference DevOps Days. DevOps addressed a shortcoming of the Agile software development methodology, which was
that iterative, rapid code development did not necessarily lead to iterative, rapid code deployment.

Concurrent with the Agile push deeper into operations, IT administrators chafed against what were sometimes laborious
and overly complex change management steps in ITIL. ITIL champions stable, reliable and predictable IT, while Agile
advocates for collaboration and change. DevOps struck a chord with people on both sides. In fact, organizations can do
both ITIL and DevOps, especially if they embrace the cloud.

The concept of DevOps was then popularized with the book The Phoenix Project in 2013. The Phoenix Project uses a
fictional narrative to illustrate endemic problems and help IT managers understand the concepts and benefits of
collaboration and shared technologies.

Early proponents of DevOps included the following people:

Debois and collaborator Andrew Clay Shafer;

The Phoenix Project authors Gene Kim, Kevin Behr and George Spafford;

Paul Hammond and John Allspaw, influential early adopters at Flickr;

continuous delivery pioneers Jez Humble and Dave Farley;

containerization advocate John Willis; and

state of DevOps Report organizers, including Alanna Brown and Nicole Forsgren.

As DevOps became popular, organizations formalized DevOps approaches. Retailer Target originated the DevOps Dojo
training method, for example. Vendors touted DevOps-enabling capabilities in tools, from collaboration chatbots to CI/CD
suites built into cloud services. DevOps engineer emerged as a job title.

DevOps continues to evolve, as artificial intelligence surfaces to aid in everything from code creation to incident
management. AI for DevOps means smarter automation and even shorter wait times, even seamless translations from
business need to technological offering -- but plenty of barriers remain before this becomes reality.

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While DevOps has achieved mainstream status, not all adopters are full DevOps converts. Many rely on a DevOps
approach for revenue-generating IT projects, where they see a return on investment in the leading-edge tooling and skills.
For many internal IT services that are relatively stable and mature, DevOps does not offer significant benefits.

∙ Methodologies, principles and strategies

DevOps is associated with Agile software development because Agile practitioners promoted DevOps as a way to extend
the methodology into production. The approach has even been labeled a counterculture to the IT service management
practices championed in ITIL. DevOps does not have an official framework. To hone their strategies, organizations should
understand the related contexts of DevOps, Agile and Waterfall development, site reliability engineering (SRE) and
SysOps, and even the variations within DevOps.

DevOps vs. Waterfall development. Waterfall development comprises a series of steps and gates in a linear progression
to production. Its phases are requirements, analysis, design, coding and implementation, testing, operation and
deployment and maintenance. In Waterfall teams, development tests new code in an isolated environment for quality
assurance (QA) and -- if requirements are met -- releases the code to operations for use in production. IT operations
deploys multiple releases at once, with extensive controls. Support is operations' responsibility. Waterfall approaches
engender long waits between software releases. Because development and operations teams work separately, developers
are not always aware of operational roadblocks that prevent code from working as anticipated.

The DevOps model aligns development, QA and IT operations efforts with fewer gates and more continuous workflow. For
example, some of the operations' team responsibilities shift left in the app delivery pipeline to the development team. IT
operations provides feedback for code improvements. Rather than gated steps, DevOps relies on continuous
development, continuous integration, continuous delivery and continuous monitoring processes.

DevOps vs. Agile development. Agile is a software development approach defined in the Agile Manifesto. Agile teams
focus on incremental and rapid cycles of code creation and delivery, referred to as sprints. Each sprint iterates upon the
last, which creates a high level of flexibility in the software and adapts to changing requirements. It is possible for the
original vision of a project to be lost through this cycle.

DevOps arose from Agile's success at improving development speed, when it became clear that disconnects between
development and operations teams -- as well as between IT and the business side of the organization -- significantly
hindered the Agile software's delivery to users.

In an Agile-only workflow, development and operations teams have separate objectives and leadership. When an
organization uses DevOps and Agile together, both development and operations teams manage code throughout the
software development lifecycle. While Agile work is often formalized with a framework, such as Scrum, DevOps does not
have a framework.

DevOps vs. SRE. Site reliability engineering arose concurrently with Agile and DevOps. Started in the early 2000s at
Google, it is essentially a programming- and automation-focused approach to the software development lifecycle.
Problems should be solved in a way that prevents them from occurring again. Rote tasks should be minimized.

The SRE toolbox closely matches that for DevOps. Both disciplines aim for continuous improvement. SRE and DevOps
engineers seek to abolish silos between development and operations. While DevOps also can extend to business
stakeholders, SRE typically stays within the confines of IT processes.

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DevOps vs. SysOps. SysOps typically denotes an IT administrator or IT team managing production deployment and
support for a large, distributed application, such as a SaaS product. As with DevOps adopters, SysOps teams should be
versed in cloud computing and automation, as well as other technologies that enable applications to perform well at a
large scale. SysOps teams troubleshoot IT outages and incidents, monitor for performance problems, enforce security
rules and optimize operations.

They focus on high availability, fault tolerance, security and performance just like other IT admins. While SysOps
professionals are likely to use some development tools and understand development processes, their work is not as
enmeshed with development as in a DevOps job. However, SysOps roles can exist within DevOps and SRE
organizations.

DevOps vs. DevOps. Some organizations broaden the scope of DevOps to include other departments. In DevSecOps,
security planning, scans, testing and reviews occur continuously throughout the DevOps loop. BizDevOps focuses on
connecting executives, application owners and other business stakeholders to the technical team, which develops, tests
and supports the software. While more collaboration is arguably always better than less, these collaborators must share
effective, timely and precise input.

k For developers, a DevSecOps role incorporates security into various stages of the
DevOps pipeline, from code analysis to automated testing to threat modeling.

Another variation on DevOps, or a different faction of the same movement, is GitOps. So named because of its focus on
the eponymous repository and version control technology, GitOps espouses declarative source control over application
and infrastructure code. Everything about the software -- from feature requirements to the deployment environment --
comes from a single source of truth.

∙ DevOps benefits and challenges

DevOps benefits include the following:

fewer silos and increased communications between IT groups;

faster time to market for software;

rapid improvement based on feedback;

less downtime;

improvement to the whole software delivery pipeline through builds, validations and deployment;

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less menial work, thanks to automation;

streamlined development processes through increased responsibility and code ownership in development; and

broader roles and skills.

However, DevOps challenges abound:

organizational and IT departmental changes, including new skills and job roles;

expensive tools and platforms, including training and support to use them effectively;

development and IT tool proliferation;

unnecessary, fragile or unsafe automation;

scaling DevOps across multiple projects and teams;

riskier deployment due to a fail-fast mentality and job generalization vs. specialization;

regulatory compliance, especially when role separation is required; and

new bottlenecks.

∙ DevOps adoption
DevOps transformations don't happen overnight. Many companies start with a pilot project -- a simple application where
they can get a feel for new practices and tools. For large-scale DevOps adoption, try moving in stages.

k These benefits show how DevOps enhances IT organizations even if they have alr
adopted Agile.

Initially, DevOps can mean a commitment from development and IT operations teams to understand the concerns and
technological boundaries that exist at each stage of the software project. Agree upon KPIs to improve, such as shorter
cycle times or fewer bugs in production. Lay the groundwork for continuous processes by communicating across job roles.

Evaluate the existing tools for development and IT operations. Identify shortcomings, such as a step that's always handled
manually or a tool without APIs to connect with other tools. Consider standardizing on one DevOps pipeline for the whole
company. With one pipeline, team members can move from one project to another without reskilling. Security specialists

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can harden the pipeline, and license management is eased. The tradeoff with this approach is that DevOps teams give up
the freedom to use what works best for them.

5 Essential DevOps Pipeline Stages

The organization now has a DevOps mindset in place, metrics to track for success and capable tools. Focus on best
practices, knowledge sharing and skills development to continue improving. Optimize tooling and technologies, identifying
roadblocks and gaps that affect your KPIs.

Organizations can use the DevOps maturity model as a guide to adoption:

Initial: Teams are siloed; work is reactive and done with ad hoc tool and process choices.

Defined: A pilot project defines a DevOps approach, basic processes and tools. It is a proof of concept.

Managed: The organization scales up DevOps adoption with lessons learned from the pilot. The pilot's results are
repeatable with different staff members and project types.

Measured: With processes and tools in place, the teams share knowledge and refines practices. Automation and tool
connectivity increase, and standards are enforced through policies.

Optimized: Continuous improvement occurs. DevOps might evolve into different tool sets or processes to fit use cases.
For example, customer-facing apps have a higher release frequency, and financial management apps follow
DevSecOps practices.

∙ DevOps tools
DevOps is a mindset, not a tool set. But it's hard to do anything in an IT team without the right tools. In general, DevOps
practitioners rely on a CI/CD pipeline, containers and cloud hosting. Tools can be open source, proprietary or supported
distributions of open source technology.

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k Make sure your DevOps toolchain supports the flow of work from application deve
through testing and deployment.

Code repositories. Version-controlled source code repositories enable multiple developers to work on code. Developers
check code out and in; they can revert to a previous version of code if needed. These tools keep a record of modifications
made to the source code. Without tracking, developers may struggle to follow which changes are recent and which
versions of the code are available to end users.

In a CI/CD pipeline, a code change committed in the version-control repository automatically triggers next steps, such as a
static code analysis or build and unit tests. Tools for source code management include Git and GitHub.

Artifact repositories. Source code is compiled into an artifact for testing. Artifact repositories enable version-controlled,
object-based outputs. Artifact management is a good practice for the same reasons as version-controlled source code
management. Common artifact repositories include JFrog Artifactory and Nexus Repository.

CI/CD pipeline engines. CI/CD enables DevOps teams to frequently validate and deliver applications to the end user
through automation during the development lifecycle. The continuous integration tool initializes processes so that
developers can create, test and validate code in a shared repository as often as needed without manual work. Continuous
delivery extends these automatic steps through production-level tests and configuration setups for release management.
Continuous deployment goes a step further, invoking tests, configuration and provisioning, as well as monitoring and
potential rollback capabilities. Common tools for CI, CD or both include Jenkins, GitLab and CircleCI.

k This example CI/CD pipeline covers code development and delivery and a samplin
tests that help ensure releases are ready for production.

Containers. Containers are isolated runtimes for software on a shared OS. Containers provide abstraction that enables
code to work the same on different underlying infrastructure from development to testing and staging, and then to

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production. Docker is the most well-known containerization software, while Microsoft offers specific Windows container
options. Container orchestrators -- such as Kubernetes and commercial Kubernetes distributions Red Hat OpenShift and
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service -- deploy, scale and maintain containers automatically.

Configuration management. Configuration management systems enable IT to provision and configure software,
middleware and infrastructure based on a script or template. The DevOps team can set up deployment environments for
software code releases and enforce policies on servers, containers and VMs through a configuration management tool.
Changes to the deployment environment can be version controlled and tested, so DevOps teams can manage
infrastructure as code. Configuration management tools include Puppet and Chef.

Cloud environments. DevOps organizations often concurrently adopt cloud infrastructure because they can automate its
deployment, scaling and other management tasks. AWS and Microsoft Azure are among the most used cloud providers.
Many cloud vendors also offer CI/CD services.

Monitoring. Additionally, monitoring tools enable DevOps professionals to observe the performance and security of code
releases on systems, networks and infrastructure. They can combine monitoring with analytics tools that provide
operational intelligence. DevOps teams use these tools together to analyze how changes to code affect the overall
environment. Choices are wide-ranging, but include New Relic One, Dynatrace, Prometheus, Datadog and Splunk.

Cloud-based DevOps pipelines. Public cloud providers offer native DevOps tool sets to use with workloads on their
platforms. An incomplete list includes AWS CodePipeline and CloudFormation, Azure DevOps and Pipelines, and Google
Cloud Deployment Manager. Cloud adopters have the option to use these pre-integrated services or run third-party tools.
For example, an organization can use HashiCorp Terraform or CloudFormation to make infrastructure-as-code templates
for its AWS workloads.

As-a-service models. Lastly, DevOps as a service is a delivery model for a set of tools that facilitates collaboration
between an organization's software development team and the IT operations team. In this delivery model, the provider
assembles a suite of tools and handles the integrations to seamlessly cover the overall process of code creation, delivery
and maintenance.

∙ DevOps skills
DevOps is often said to be more of a philosophy or collaborative IT culture, rather than a strictly defined job description or
skill set. Because the area is so broad, DevOps positions suit IT generalists better than specialists.

The role of DevOps engineer does not fall along one career track. Professionals can enter into the position from a variety
of backgrounds. For example, a software developer can gain skills in operations, such as configuration of the hosting
infrastructure, to become a DevOps engineer. Similarly, a systems administrator with coding, scripting and testing
knowledge can become a DevOps engineer.

Many DevOps job listings call for container, cloud and CI/CD knowledge, as well as soft skills. A DevOps engineer might
also need to change processes and solve organizational problems to achieve business outcomes.

Other titles often found in DevOps organizations include the following:

infrastructure developer;

site reliability engineer;

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build and release engineer;

full-stack developer;

automation specialist; and

CI/CD platform engineer.

Most entry-level DevOps jobs require a degree in computer science or a related field that covers coding, QA testing and IT
infrastructure components. Higher-level positions may require advanced degrees in systems architecture and software
design. People on this career path should also expand their knowledge via DevOps books, and connect with other
members of the community through blogs and conferences.

There is no industry-wide recognized DevOps certification, as there are for formalized frameworks such as ITIL. IBM Red
Hat offers DevOps certification, while DevOps Institute has vendor-neutral options for levels from foundational knowledge
to expert.

This was last updated in September 2020

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