Best DevOps practices to streamline your business

Why DevOps matter.

Quick turnaround times, constant upgrades and new releases are a must if you want to stay on top of the game in today’s tech-driven industries.

It’s not just the fact that, in the words of famous Silicon Valley entrepreneur and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, “software is eating the world”...but also that its appetite can’t hardly be sated. The days when you had the luxury of running software development cycles that stretched for days, weeks, or even months, are truly over.

The good news is that a well streamlined software development cycle can also be a source of competitive advantage.

Those firms that can count on a proficient team that is well versed in DevOps methodology can be reasonably confident to stay ahead of the pack. Simply applying some of the best DevOps practices that are out there in the industry can go a long way.

What are DevOps?

The core principle sounds straightforward enough: a well-executed DevOps framework relies on a combination of tools and processes to shorten considerably software development and deployment cycles.

By executing continuous code deployments, and performing the subsequent testing, fixing and redeployment on an ongoing basis you can guarantee high quality output in relatively short periods of time.

DevOps imply small and frequent changes with focused value to the end customer. Not for nothing this way of working has generated its own set of acronyms, the aptly named “Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery” or CI/CD system.

This approach is also reflected in the way services and applications are structured. They can be broken down in segments, or “containerized” and made to run on the so called “microservices”, which allow for separate functions to work separately and in parallel, therefore, allowing for changes or potential issues to be addressed in smaller chunks without affecting the rest of the system.

The fractionated, “batched” if you like, nature of the projects that are executed within this framework acts also as a risk limiting factor, because only a limited amount of resources is committed before the code is either validated or fixed.

So far so good, on paper at least...and, yet, as the old saying goes, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

And by “enemy” we mean here bugs, development bottlenecks, infrastructure constraints...These are part and parcel of any project, something that even the most experienced and talented teams have to deal with when working on any project worth its salt.

The key is not so much how to avoid these issues, but how you can prepare in order to react as fast as possible when they happen...because happen they will...Having in place a proper DevOps framework can help you deal with them and keep your software development cycle firing on all cylinders, all while maintaining top-notch quality standards.

Best DevOps practices.

Mastering DevOps is not rocket science, but it may take time and practice to build the expertise and have a well calibrated methodology in place, like we do at 1PT.

Since we have been in this business for quite a long time, we have seen our fair share of software development projects, in multiple industries, from gaming to e-learning. We have been able to perfect the DevOps process in real life conditions and we have, then made this market-tested expertise available to our customers.

A case in point is, for example, the set up of automated testing procedures that allow for new code to be tested as soon as it gets to the version control repository. Frequent and abundant testing saves countless time and resources by preventing bugs by detecting issues early on in the process.

Monitoring, that is knowing how the application is working, and proper logging, making sure there is a relevant track record, are also important for an effective DevOps set up.

When operating within a DevOps framework, the high degree of automation of some functions may make it easy to underestimate the importance of human capital and, in particular, of the availability of cross-functional teams that bridge engineering and operations areas and link possible functional silos.

This is why, at 1PT, in addition to taking care of all technical aspects, we are also able to assign dedicated professionals with different levels of seniority (junior, mid-level and senior) to match your specific project requirements in the field of DevOps.