DevOps: a collaborative approach to improve delivery

The adoption of a DevOps culture and specialized roles can help companies become more efficient in delivery, reduce software time to market and ensure a reliable service.

INTRODUCTION

Software development has always required multiple skills that span different areas: on one hand coding-focused skills, related to the specific technological application context, on the other hand skills more focused on the infrastructures that support the applicative component. The specificity of these two faces of the same coin has historically led to their segregation into different teams, introducing an obstacle in communication, planning and collaboration between the two worlds that can have repercussions on release quality, process efficiency, and delivery time to market.

Technology Reply uses DevOps in its delivery activities. This is a software development methodology that provides a set of principles and techniques borrowed from both worlds to improve the end-to-end delivery process, first of all maximizing the collaboration between the two parties. Moreover, the adoption of tools and technologies that promote the automation of activities makes the release of new application features more reliable and more frequent.


OPPORTUNITIES

Nowadays business needs change quickly and require continuous adjustments; for this reason, it is essential that software development teams have a consolidated and highly performing delivery process. The adoption of DevOps enables progress in this perspective thanks to the principles of collaboration and the high degree of automation that it usually brings with itself. The use of DevOps matches perfectly with the adoption of Agile project management practices and finds an optimal location in microservices contexts.


DEVOPS PRINCIPLES AND BENEFITS

DevOps is based on Agile principles that include collaboration, flexibility and the continuous improvement of the software development process. Below are the main key points of the methodology and their related benefits.


DevOps is focused on collaboration between developers and operation teams. By unifying in a unique team all the skills that contribute to the delivery, it is possible to work with a smoother process, that guarantees efficiency, speed of intervention and quality.

DevOps aims to automate time-consuming manual processes. The adoption of automation promotes an increase in the frequency of release of new application features in line with what is required by Agile management methodologies and supports microservices contexts in which the solution is generally composed of a large number of components. Automation allows standardization of release procedures and greatly reduces the risks associated with manual errors, improving the overall quality of the delivery process.

Process automation allows the adoption of Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD), that are essential processes in a modern software factory. The combination of CI/CD makes it possible to quickly share and integrate frequent changes made by different developers involved in system implementation, with the aim to automate the testing phase and rapidly intercept any problems.

Infrastructure as a Code (IaC) is a method of infrastructure management and distribution based on its encoding. IaC promotes a faster and more homogeneous implementation and simplifies infrastructure management and scalability. This approach also simplifies the management of Disaster Recovery (DR) issues, making these procedures more easily testable and more quickly executable if needed.

Monitoring and logging are essential to ensure the application integrity and performance. Thanks to these, the DevOps team can quickly identify and diagnose issues, as well as track progress and performance by acting on both application and infrastructure components. These aspects are fundamental in terms of the continuous improvement of the system.

The security aspect is a critical component of any software system. Thanks to the DevOps approach, it is possible to integrate specific security practices into delivery management processes to guarantee a high level of security through the use of tools designed to scan the code, the execution of automated tests and the constant monitoring of the security of the applications.

OUR TEAM

Technology Reply has long embraced the DevOps methodology in order to ensure high-quality delivery processes for its customers. In the process of adopting the methodology, the figure of the developer has evolved in order to integrate classic skills, more related to coding issues, with the knowledge derived from the DevOps world. In this context, the figure of the DevOps specialist was born. A figure that can support new project initiatives with the provision of tools and technologies that enable a well-structured delivery process and can follow the entire system lifecycle with the aim to continuously improve the delivery process and maintain a high monitoring of system performance.

Alongside the DevOps figure it came the Platform Engineer, who helps to automate the provisioning, configuration and management of the infrastructure in order to provide developers with all the components and services needed for the application.