DevOps and Cloud: The Synergy Driving Digital Transformation in Enterprises

In today’s swiftly evolving world if you want to increase the competitiveness of your business then you cannot leave digital transformation out of the picture. To achieve this much needed digital transformation many companies are leveraging two independent yet mutually reinforcing strategies – DevOps and Cloud.

DevOps and Cloud: 3 Key Factors that led to the symbiosis

DevOps is a software development methodology aimed at process improvement, while Cloud computing is about technology and services. Although the relationship between DevOps and Cloud is often confusing, let’s dig out what brought them together:

1. The transition of development companies from products to services and its impact on software delivery.
2. The shifting focus of companies from stability and efficiency to agility and innovation dictated by the accelerating pace of technology disruption.
3. Digital dimension is infusing every dimension of our day-to-day life  thus raising the stakes of IT.

Defining the links between DevOps and Cloud

Here’s how DevOps and Cloud computing work in tandem as a cohesive whole, while minimizing the latency that existed around software development.

• Cloud offers DevOps a centralized platform for production, testing and deployment with automation. Moreover, Cloud also resolves the issues associated with complex and distributed nature of some enterprise systems that do not align with centralized software deployment.
• Most of the Cloud computing providers, both private and public, are offering support for DevOps, including continuous integration and continuous development tools, on their platform. This merger provides centralized governance as well as control for a streamlined DevOps process while reducing cost attached with on-premises DevOps. As we design and develop DevOps solutions and services, the centralized governance by the Cloud keeps our developers on track and out of trouble.
• Cloud-centric DevOps leverages usage-based accounting that keeps track of the usage of resources by developer, user, data, application, etc. Thus, it becomes easier to track the cost of development or resources and make adjustments as and when required. Traditional systems, however, do not provide this service and  would need accounting for resources utilized.

DevOps & Cloud: Driving digital transformation together

Now let’s try to understand how Cloud and DevOps, though independent, work in sync to help you achieve your digital transformation objectives successfully.

• Streamlined developer processes and quick access to development environments reduces time to market for products.
• Infrastructure as code approach along with DevOps automation tools lowers cloud complexity and system maintenance as well.
• Automation of repeatable processes eliminates the likelihood of fat-finger error and builds security controls from the very start.
• Cloud-based continuous operations not only eliminate downtime but also enable developers build stateless applications which in turn increase availability of applications leading to enhanced customer satisfaction.
• Cloud computing coupled with DevOps significantly increases scalability of organizations while reducing cost of infrastructure and maximizing global reach.

Invest in DevOps and Cloud training

Implementing DevOps in the cloud is not just about fighting a technological battle but a cultural one as well. As both areas are relatively new, IT professionals often lack understanding and make mistakes that could have been averted easily.

Training and some mentoring for the key players in your organization would lead to understanding and subsequently acceptance of DevOps in the cloud.

Do not overlook security

As Cloud demands different set of security models, typically identity-based security models, you would need to ensure that security is extended to the DevOps tools and organization as well.

Furthermore, security must be built into automated testing, continuous integration and continuous deployment processes as they move to the cloud. You can also appoint a dedicated resource to monitor security within DevOps in the cloud.

Avoid Cloud platform lock-in

While selecting DevOps tools make sure that they work with more than one cloud rather than walking the path of least resistance and getting yourself locked into a single cloud platform. Your apps must be deployable on different cloud platforms so that you are not stuck with just a single choice.

Do not forget governance

You would need to build a governance infrastructure to efficiently manage the services and resources. Often companies tend to forget about service and resource governance until their number increase and reach a tipping point.

Among various resource and service management tools available, most of them help you track, secure and manage, resources and services. Moreover, they also allow you to create policies to govern how to leverage services, their time of access and much more.

Incorporate automated performance testing

Performance issues are often a part of application design in the cloud and unfortunately many of these issues even make their way to the production to be found and reported out by the end users.

Therefore, automated performance testing should be an integral part of your DevOps stream so that your issues are detected way before they reach the production, apps provide optimum performance and the most important, enable efficient use of resources.

The automated performance testing should mesh with existing API testing, stability testing, accuracy testing, etc.

Invest heavily upfront in the initial years

Although DevOps in cloud will save your enterprise money down the line, however, to get your DevOps and projects off the ground and earn the projected cost savings you would need to invest heavily for at least couple of years.

Initially, you must allow DevOps and Cloud to run independently, later you can use the savings earned to fund your digital transformation.

Do not push all your apps to the Cloud

When you consider migrating your existing applications to the Cloud, prioritize them based on the value in the order of most to least that they would provide to your business if migrated. Once you have placed them in priority order, analyze them to find out how much change would be required to host them in the cloud.

You might also like to read the Prerequisites of Mobile App Moving to a Cloud Platform!

DevOps and Cloud: Reaping the benefits

Many companies are harnessing the power of DevOps in Cloud by investing a great deal of brainpower in addition to up-front investment to attain their digital transformation goals. You too can leverage the DevOps in the Cloud to enhance agility and time to market while minimizing operating costs.

Do you want to leverage these two enabling strategies – DevOps and Cloud to accelerate your digital transformation? Get in touch with our IT consulting experts now!