Do you know speedy development with security is a huge challenge that impacts every business in the digital world?
Enterprises struggle to persevere with the demands of customers in today’s fast-paced world.
To stay competitive, businesses are looking for solutions that deliver flexibility, speed, and security together.
And, when we talk about speedy development with security along with flexibility, we probably hear more and more about DevOps.
DevOps has been praised for its shortening development cycles, and many organizations are adopting it, as it delivers better experiences to them and their end-users.
Let us understand more about DevOps, DevOps trends and tools, its benefits, and more.
What is DevOps Culture?
DevOps is a collaborative method that unifies the business’s complete development and operation teams. It alters how the two teams go about successfully performing the tasks.
DevOps is neither a process nor is it all about the resources. It is a culture and philosophy that changes how different teams in the company work together to achieve the business objectives. Collaboration is one of the most important benefits that DevOps offer. The complete software methodologies function of DevOps does identify the value that Dev, Ops, and QA experts bring when they coexist as it does not lay stress on development collaboration between such teams.
DevOps is creative with agile software improvement methods, and it draws the complete focus on business operations. It promotes an environment where various teams work together and achieve common business goals. These teams in the business would not get isolated and work toward the department-related goals anymore.
Let’s Recap: Top Widely Used DevOps Tools
While DevOps is a culture that advances gradually, choosing the right stack of tools makes collaboration and development easier. Before we talk about what’s about to come, let us see what’s happening currently, to help you implement the DevOps strategy successfully. We’ve put together this list of the current best DevOps tools here:
1. Jenkins
There are always prying eyes when it comes to running a successful business. In addition, the threat is twofold, as not only the transactions but also the customers’ data stored in the database are at risk. The central regulations, such as GDPR across various geographies, have stringent norms against a data breach. In such a case, any data leak from your business could imply serving for your application’s incompetence.
Well, the good news is, you can beat all these worst-case scenarios, by merely trusting Python for web development. There are some ways, which can ensure high security of applications developed using Python. At Quixom, our Python developers use the latest version of Python to comply with the security norms. Besides this, we leverage a virtual environment when installing new packages to offer security benefits of using Python for business.
2. Docker
This DevOps tool is well-known for delivering software in packages, also known as containers. Docker tools resolve issues faster, reduce bugs significantly, and makes sure changes are fully tested before the product release. It works to integrate developers who work on software development and developers who work on infrastructure.
3. Phantom
The Phantom DevOps tool helps build a defensible infrastructure from the beginning of the software development life cycle (SDLC). It encourages development teams to work together from the get-go rather than from the middle of the project. This DevOps tool bridges the gap between traditional software development methods and rapid application development.
4. Nagios
Nagios tool creates a collaborative workforce between software developers and IT operations staff. This helps to create a continuous flow of updates for code that drives a company’s digital products. It also enables a strong collaboration between software engineers, QA specialists, and system administrators.
5. Vagrant
The vagrant tool is mainly preferred for building and managing virtual machine environments. This DevOps tool allows you to run a virtual machine in a single workflow.
6. Ansible
Ansible is one of the powerful configuration management and orchestration tools that automates cross-platform computer support tasks and many other IT needs. Currently, this Ansible is labeled as one of the most advanced levels of DevOps tools available in the market.
Ansible DevOps tool comes with fully loaded features and brings automation to the software development process. It lowers the operational cost and increases the replication speed of scalability. It is also one of the reasons most software developers prefer to use this DevOps tool for their development.
Top DevOps Future Trends
Improved production time, reduced cost, deployment failures, and increased communication are the key persuaders behind DevOps. As the software development and operation landscape changes rapidly, it’s time to stay ahead of the competition by following some of the latest DevOps trends.
Here’s the list of top DevOps trends that businesses need to follow:
1) Automation Utilization
Automation is the cornerstone of DevOps. Top companies and industries worldwide prefer to automate their workflow, task, and operations. Automation reduces human dependency on task completion and offers real-time improvement. It simply accelerates the software development lifecycle (SDLC) and allows the team to publish directly to the applications.
Automated DevOps workflow reduces the error rate, eliminates the latency, and reduces lead times. It enables enterprises to understand the blockages or capacity issues before it happens through Machine Learning techniques that are applied to the delivery lifecycle. As a result, it empowers team performance, promotes reliability, and improves work efficiency to deliver consistent output.
2) Encroachment of Microservices Architecture
It is a pattern of organizing computer systems to scale its services to match the rising demands. Microservice architecture is the progression of service-oriented architecture (SOA) that allows you to structure your applications. As microservices architecture with a DevOps technology seemingly streamlined approach, it centralizes developers to decide on the tech stacks, tools, and standards to be used to continue driving innovation, reduce time-to-market, and faster release deployment.
Though the trend of Microservice architecture is very popular among DevOps developers, it is still in the emerging stage. Soon, there will be a large migration to microservice architecture as it will allow developers to improve their workflow through segmenting services and spot errors easily and quickly.
3) Serverless Computing
Serverless computing concepts have emerged as a new and exciting DevOps trend to deploy software and other services. It streamlines DevOps operations while maximizing architectural scalability and lowering costs. DevOps includes the overall software lifecycles, especially from the stage of software development to deployment. This life cycle also includes testing and maintenance. Effective serverless computing helps all developers reduce the workload by taking care of server maintenance, especially system updates and cloud monitoring.
DevOps brings the Dev and Ops teams together to eliminate the disparities. It successfully provides several benefits to DevOps. All developers do not require access to infrastructure execution associated with the cloud servers. Serverless computing generates code for DevOps pipelines without requiring any hosting to build tests and deploy. This success streamlines deployment and reduces expenses by centralizing infrastructure and a business strategy.
4) Giving Preferences to Security
During the pandemic, most organizations operate from remote locations, which has increased security concerns over the past two years. Security has been a hot topic with regard to DevOps in 2022, as the rise of a secure software supply network has been recognized by many organizations.
Security in DevOps refers to the practice of safeguarding the whole DevOps environment, not only in an organization’s network or in systems. Security should be built into every part of the system layer, from designing to development and support and maintenance through a shared responsibility to overlay the entire DevOps workflow.
DevOps engineers should aim to enhance security by identifying vulnerabilities and minimizing them before the software is deployed. This can also be done through cloud vulnerability scanners that understand security goals and fasten up code with standard tests.
5) Kubernetes (K8s) – Security
Kubernetes (K8s) enables developers to share applications and software between the IT department teams in real-time. Also, the open-source system K8s is mainly preferred for deploying automation and scaling business operations. In the past couple of years, Kubernetes (K8s) usage has increased rapidly among DevOps developers as it offers improved security features and techniques like Infrastructure as Code (IaC) scanning.
Kubernetes (K8s) security is expected to have a big leap in 2022 due to the rising awareness of security both internally and externally.
6) Cloud-Native Infrastructure
Cloud-Native Infrastructure is one of the popular DevOps trends in 2022, which supports the hardware and software of the applications specifically designed for cloud usage. Almost all applications designed for this infrastructure use APIs to run smoothly. As examples of cloud-native applications, microservices and dockers can be pointed out.
With more companies shifting to hybrid working environments, the preference for cloud migration among companies is expected to be doubled. Adopting or substituting a Cloud Management Platform for DevOps delivers benefits of on-demand self-service for computing resources, broad network access for multiple devices and platform access, resource pooling to assign virtual resources dynamically, and rapid elasticity for scaling inward or outward on-demand. The benefits of CMP for DevOps are not limited to this, it also provides measured service for optimizing cloud systems and service-based report resources that drive many teams and companies towards a cloud-based environment.
7) Edge Computing
Edge computing is defined as a part of a distributed computing topology that brings enterprises’ computation and data storage closer to network edge like IoT devices. The trend of edge computing among DevOps teams allows them for the safe and efficient handling of data. This enables business stakeholders and partners to complete the project quickly and deliver the applications well before the deadline.
Also, it brings data storage and computation processes much closer to the data source by avoiding data transmission to servers. Because of this safe and better data management, companies experience a big cut in connectivity costs resulting in more savings along with a secured data environment.
8) Growing Demand for the Infrastructure as Code
IaC (Infrastructure as Code) plays an important role in simplifying the task. What it does is, use code instead of the configuration tools making it overall simpler to automate resource management and provisioning. With such a complicated infrastructure in the picture, IoC works as a solution that helps with the delivery and ensures minimal errors. A key benefit of the IaC method is that it allows standardization of infrastructure and rapid implementation.
9) Increased Adoption of GitOps
GitOps is an advanced addition to the DevOps workflow. It is a solution for successfully automating and controlling infrastructures. It’s a Kubernetes-oriented paradigm that lets professional developers and IT operation experts use Git to manage the clusters and deliver mobile apps.
10) The Rise of DevSecOps
Security is an important concern in the emerging world of digital. Reliable companies are constantly pushed to move fast, and security teams struggle to keep up with the overall testing. This led to the design and development of DevSecOps. If you want to emphasize the overall security and observability, it is recommended to research the fundamentals and complex aspects of software design, development, delivery, and operations. The complete risks and vulnerabilities in the applications are reduced.
DevSecOps, one of the future DevOps trends, assists a lot in closing the security knowledge gap between the business and information technology. It successfully supports the early detection of complete cyber risks and the reduction of expenses related to remediation. The complete DevSecOps strategy assures the complete security and monitoring of the system as per the current DevOps trends and upcoming possibilities.
11) Hybrid Working Design
As businesses use hybrid technology, employees demand remote work or onsite. 75% of G2000 businesses will have a hybrid structure that allows employees to work remotely and at work by 2023, according to the IDC report.
According to the latest DevOps trends and practices, organizations will embrace hybrid workforces to merge and reap the benefits of both onsite and remote working teams.
The hybrid business models that businesses have adopted will also benefit from shifting to a more rolling product delivery approach. Hybrid is the norm for those companies who want to upgrade their stacks to take advantage of cloud-native technologies.
Benefits of DevOps strategy for Business Growth
Improved Collaboration
DevOps allows IT and business teams to collaborate, resulting in shorter feedback loops and higher business growth with lower development costs. Collaboration among Dev/Ops/QA departments helps make the DevOps model successful. Breaking down the organizational silos also encourages them to work towards the same goal, i.e., create greater value for the business, which will help deliver more value to customers.
Speed
DevOps accelerates the speed at which your software features and modifications are delivered through automated testing and integration. This allows DevOps engineers to keep an eye on the product for software updates and bugs throughout its life cycle; as a result, it decreases the time to find, fix, and monitor bugs and speeds up time to market.
Fostering Innovation
DevOps enables streamlined operational workflows, efficient releases, and quality builds. As DevOps encourages rapid software delivery, it frees up some developers’ time. DevOps encourages teams to be innovative and creative in their free time to be more engaged and productive.
Costs Reduction
The greatest benefit of a solid DevOps strategy is maximizing profitability from a business perspective. As it can be a collaborative tool, DevOps helps to reduce production and management costs by covering maintenance and new updates under one umbrella.
Risk Reduction
Adopting DevOps will reduce the risk of digital transformation by 75%. The update in the existing system is a bit difficult, as it requires a lot of protection and adjustment and might show some errors. Installing DevOps as lifetime protection in software development eliminates such a risk. It also saves time by handling security problems on your behalf.
Quality and Reliability
Maintaining software quality is one of the key considerations, and DevOps helps improve software quality. DevOps transforms the way that organizations conduct traditional software testing. It makes testing an integral part of the SDLC and assigns it to all DevOps engineers. It encourages exploratory testing that can improve software quality by finding effective ways to test certain aspects of the software.
Better Product Delivery
DevOps adoption is a boon for businesses, as it allows them to be more agile. As software development cycles are shorter, it is easier to incorporate changes in the meantime.
Speed to market is a key consideration when developing software products in DevOps to avoid being outpaced. A faster development cycle allows rapid product deployment and corrections of bugs.
On the other side, DevOps tools and processes ensure that developers can work faster, which results in delivery on time. It also helps to ensure that business processes follow the best direction as it directly contributes to business success and profitability.
Customer Satisfaction
Customer satisfaction increases gradually when the development process is more efficient and occurs faster. DevOps teams can better serve customers and incorporate customer feedback into future product iterations more quickly, which leads to higher customer satisfaction.
DevOps allows customers to respond more quickly and efficiently to their project requirements, both reactively and proactively. An engaged and satisfied customer base directly correlates to a higher ROI (return on investment) and greater business gains.
DevOps Implementation: Is It Worth an Investment?
DevOps has emerged as the upcoming software delivery process. Many businesses shift their focus on successfully optimizing the software quality and time to market while leveraging automation tools across various product development life cycles like design, build, test, and deployment phases.
Companies in the IT sector shifted to DevOps business models. Around 77% of businesses today use DevOps to deploy software or plan releases. The complete reason behind its quick adoption is the ability to deliver applications and innovation quickly with minimum time to market for effective and dynamic software products.
The overall statistics revealed that DevOps popularity had taken a good hike in the past couple of years. DevOps consulting on time is an important and integral part of revenue generation for IT companies. The complete 2021 DevOps market will be worth around $5,114,57 million US dollars and reach 12,215,54 million US dollars by 2026, as per the top survey firms’ experience. The main purpose of the DevOps implementation is to reduce the budget of the IT team. The DevOps adoption can make extra revenues for the business as the top company claims that DevOps adoption saves around 1.3 million US dollars.
Implementing DevOps Trends Could Be A Game-changer
Considering the evidence laid out above, implementing DevOps in business can have a huge payoff for your company’s profitability. It promotes improved business outcomes and enables operations teams to deliver an automated infrastructure with LESS engineering. Also, developers can deliver predictable and expected environments with less friction, ultimately, organizations can maximize developer productivity in both on-premises and cloud environments.
