DevOps - The Road to Continuous Agile Improvement

What is DevOps Methodology?

Before we discuss the DevOps methodology and how it is interconnected with the agile model, let’s see “What is Agile methodology”.

Right from the beginning, the software development has comprised of development and operation teams which followed the linear method called Waterfall Model to deliver working software for stable projects. But according to today’s fast and competitive world, where everyday demands for regular updates or changes, following the same traditional model proved to be useless. Waterfall model was not able to meet the contemporary requirements as it takes months or years to complete the production process and then making changes was way too time and effort consuming.

To fill this gap, emerged the Agile methodology which involves breaking down tasks into smaller divisions called sprints to deliver the product faster and receive feedback sooner. Though implementing agile methodology does increase agility among the team members, conflicts arose between development and operation teams due to their silos working culture. To rectify this condition, evolved the extension for agile model called DevOps methodology where both of these teams collaborated together to develop desired results with continuous agile improvement.

As per Scaled Agile Framework, DevOps is a mindset, a culture, and a set of technical practices. It provides communication, integration, automation, and close cooperation among all team members needed to plan, develop, test, deploy, release, and maintain a Solution.

How does DevOps work?

The DevOps process resembles the infinity sign which denotes that it is a continuous development process. This approach has been develop to improve the agile methodology practices. With the use of several tools, the DevOps culture is carried out in several phases of the software development cycle. The phases are:

1. Planning: The development team designs a plan based on the product requirements.

2. Coding: Once the plan is made, coding starts where the team develops different versions of the code stored in a repository with the help of tools like Git.

3. Build phase: The code is then built with the usage of tools like Maven and Gradle.

4. Testing: Then the code is tested for any errors or bugs using the tool Selenium.

5. Deployment: Once the code passes several tests, then it is set for deployment and sent to the operation team.

6. Operation team: Now the operation team applies the code in a working environment using automation tools like Ansible, Docker and Kubernetes.

7. Product Monitoring: In this phase, the product constantly monitored using the most popular tool Nagios. Then the feedback is send to the planning phase.

Difference between Agile and DevOps

Based on the agile principle, both processes have a lot in common but there are some key differences :

Agile	DevOps
Agile merges the gap between development teams and project management through improved interaction, continuous iteration, collaboration and frequent releases.	DevOps acts as an extension of agile by bridging the gap between the development team and operation teams for a better engineering processes.
Agile can be applied to any industry that focuses on continuous improvement and collaboration.	DevOps is used within the software development process.
The Agile model consists of several different frameworks that can be utilize according to the needs of an organization.	DevOps compliments the agile methodology.
Agile focuses on small releases called sprints.	DevOps works on continuous testing and continuous delivery automation.
In the agile process, each sprint takes 2 to 4 weeks to submit one release.	DevOps emphasizes on delivering code every day or every few hours.
Feedback receives from customers.	Feedback receives from internal team members.

Conclusion

At last Agile methodology is a proven project management process which improves the agility among the team members of an organization to produce working applications in a given period. Surprisingly, DevOps came as a supporting model utilizing the same agile practices in order to fill the void between the development and operation team by implementing continuous integration and collaboration for continuous agile improvement.

FAQs

1.What are the advantages of DevOps methodology?

By implementing DevOps methodology:

• businesses can enhance agility,

• garner maximum results,

• increases continual improvement and product delivery in the shortest possible time frame considering to agile principles and practices.

2. Do Agile and DevOps are interrelated with each other?

Where agile lays the foundation for the DevOps model that enables the team to develop products. Still, both complement each other for the success of an organization. Agile is responsible for the development of the software and DevOps is for optimizing the process.

3.What are the core principles and prerequisites of DevOps implementation?

The basic principles of DevOps that help developers are infrastructure as code, continuous deployment, automation, monitoring and security. And the useful prerequisites are proper interaction between the team members, one version control software, automated testing, and automated deployment.