Implementation of DevOps

I hope my previous blog provides you an insight about what DevOps is all about. In this blog, I am going to discuss about its implementation. How this DevOps methodology can be utilized in our day-to-day activities?What are the problems we faced in past that made us to rush towards the solution : DevOps.
This snippet helps you to recall quickly how DevOps cycle actually runs. It is more broader than the cycle mentioned over here. When we are scaling up to meet the ever increasing demands of today's business environment, adopting the DevOps methodology is a good strategy. DevOps helps us address the changing needs of our business nimbly with greater control over final quality. Every organisation molds DevOps practices to make it fit for their requirement.

Following are the issues encountered in the past that makes the software development life cycle run in a more hassle manner.

• Below is the diagrammatic representation of Waterfall model that was being used earlier for Software development.  

Phase 1 - Complete Requirement is gathered and SRS (Software Requirements Specification) is developed.
Phase 2 - System is planned and designed using SRS.
Phase 3 - Implementation of System takes place.
Phase 4 - System is tested and quality is assured.
Phase 5 - System is deployed to the end users.
Phase 6 - Regular Maintenance of the System is done.

This Waterfall model served well for several years however it had some challenges.
Considering the developer aspect - He needs to develop the entire code as per SRS. Sometimes, the requirements may change in mid-of-development. In that case, developer needs to develop the entire code again. This rework consumes much time, delaying the delivery timeline.
Considering the QA aspect - By the time, developer develops the code, he is idle testing nothing. In case, if he found any bug , Developer needs to troubleshoot that bug in the entire Code. Again there is wastage of time and our scheduled delivery has been procrastinated.
Considering the Operations aspect - It was difficult for them to maintain ~100% uptime of production environment in such scenario. Number of servers keeps on increasing which increases the complexity.
Therefore, there is an unstability in the system which makes the Software Development Life Cycle more painful.

Snippet shown alongside shows the difficulty faced during Software Development Life Cycle under Waterfall model. To overcome it, we have introduced the concept of DevOps which involves collaboration between Development, QA and Operations Team.By adopting DevOps methodology in our SDLC, the challenges of Waterfall model can be easily overridden.
 Each organisation has different strategies to implement DevOps at their Workplace. Some of the best practices are mentioned below -

• Understand the collaboration and shared tool strategy between DEV, QA and Operations team.  DevOps team need to come up with shared tools strategy to collaborate between Development , QA and Deployment teams by aligning it with Business objectives. It means discussing and concluding a common strategy for Tools selection (for different processes), process to be followed for SDLC, common plan  etc.
• Use tools to capture every request. DevOps  methodology provides you with huge set of tools and techniques which will automate each and every step in Software Development Life cycle. Initiate such approach in industry to implement DevOps to bring a fruitful result.     
• Create a culture of experimentation and learning. While implementing DevOps, there is no checklist provided to check which tool could be chosen over other. Each tools has certain specifications . In such scenarios, we should appreciate the culture of experimentation and learning. By this culture,we will get a glance about the use case of different tools  which will help us in long run.
• Remove corporate policies that separate development and IT. DevOps  is all about collaborating several team to work as a one single teams. Therefore, we need to remove all corporate policies that involve separation of Development, QA and Infrastructure teams. This culture change requires management sponsorship to break down these walls. 
• Ensure Continuous feedback to spot gaps, issues and inefficiencies. DevOps is not just about release automation or making it faster to deploy code to Production — it's also about providing more continuous feedback from Production back to Development, Design, and Product Management. In order to leverage DevOps, there should be a loop of continuous feedback from end users to different teams that will help them to understand the scope of improvements, inefficiencies etc.  
  
• Bring security into the fold early on.Organizations and Development teams need to address security early on in the development cycle. Any organisation who thinks they could make decisions about DevOps without bringing Security into the discussions is venturing down a very dangerous path.Security now needs to be a feature of the product that needs to be considered at the early stages of Software planning.
• Share your progress. Sharing information across the organization is an important DevOps concept that is often overlooked.Automating processes brings tools to others, but visible progress and results can be key to DevOps success.

DevOps is the result of growing need for frequent releases and disruption in market dynamics.At the core of DevOps is continuous development and delivery. Faster time to market, successful and frequent releases, shorter lead time and steadfast recovery are some of the compelling features of DevOps, along with the ability to segment projects into fragments providing overall project visibility. The trending software development approach has many quantifiable technical and business benefits, including shorter development cycles, increased deployment frequency, and faster time to market. But because it relies so heavily on increased communication, collaboration and innovation, it can also be a catalyst for cultural change within an organization. Therefore, above mentioned are the basic principles one need to follow to leverage the usage of DevOps in their organisation. 

I hope this blog provides you a clear picture about how we can implement DevOps in our organisation for its technical and business benefits.