This article will attempt to explain the concept of automated DevOps for people who don’t have advanced computer science degrees or work in tech. Many people find themselves with a huge headache whenever they try to understand how any of it works. Most of the population has no idea of what DevOps is, let alone why it needs to be automated. Therefore, let’s start with the logical jumping off point by answering the question: What is DevOps?
DevOps Defined
The term DevOps is, in its most basic form, a portmanteau of “development” and “operations”. It is a term that has developed in the tech sector to describe the partnership between software development, which is the Dev part, and IT operations, which is the Ops. DevOps is the set of practices that helps combine the two distinct entities, often as one department in tech companies. This is done to shorten the time between the concept and launch of new software or apps.
DevOps is often a very intensive process that requires many different people doing things like programming and Quality Assurance (QA) testing. In large tech firms, DevOps teams can consist of hundreds of highly qualified software engineers and IT professionals. Most of the time their jobs are centered around large software projects. There is usually a very collaborative spirit in these departments. In fact, key principles of the practice are shared ownership, rapid feedback, and workflow automation.
Why is DevOps important?
In short, DevOps is an important part of the tech industry because of innovation. Software and its applications need to be constantly evolving and it usually falls on DevOps teams to push them forward. Whenever something radically new and innovative comes from a tech company, their DevOps people have been hard at work.
Software programs and apps quickly turn into millions of lines of code. Testing and troubleshooting these programs also happens at the DevOps level. That means once the genie is out of the bottle, it needs constant care and management. This is where automation starts to come into play.
Why does DevOps need to be automated?
Recently, some companies have been exploring the expansion of automation in DevOps departments. Many of the jobs on DevOps teams, especially on the continuous integration and delivery ends, can be done by computers. The idea of DevOps automation is to maintain consistency and reliability, while increasing efficiency.
One of the reasons automated DevOps is becoming more prevalent is because of efficiency. It saves companies the time it takes for someone to develop and maintain custom scripts manually, as well as integrations with tens to hundreds of third party providers.
The biggest reason that DevOps automation has hit new heights is out of necessity. For a long time, even the largest tech companies have had trouble keeping personnel on hand for DevOps projects. Good software engineers and IT professionals are in demand and often jump from company to company. The pandemic has compounded this problem and even the tech sector isn’t immune to the staffing shortages that have come with it.
There are fewer qualified people to help on DevOps teams, so some companies saw an opportunity to make even better automated DevOps tools. These cutting-edge DevOps tools make it possible to run DevOps with fewer people than ever. The hope is that this new generation of tools can help overcome the gap in available personnel.
Another potential outcome for this automation is making DevOps more readily available for everyone. Many of the new automated DevOps tools come with easy-to-use visual interfaces. This means that someone with very little training can start working in DevOps. For instance, someone could drag and drop existing software into a new system, getting that new system instantly online. Previously, that software would have had to be programmed into the new system manually.
In theory, automated DevOps will make software usage and ultimately tech more democratic. It takes something that was previously only performed by the few and makes it available to the many. The greater number of companies that can engage in DevOps on their own should in turn keep these software systems moving forward. More people with bright ideas have been the key to innovation in the past. DevOps automation is going to be key for innovation moving forward.
