DevOps: 11 Things You're Forgetting to Do

DevOps is a critical component of an effective development strategy and an integration tool that all companies can leverage. It sets apart quality production mechanics from generic-level outputs. That’s why the DevOps market is set to be worth around $12.85 billion by 2025 (CAGR: 18.60%) according to estimates. Engineers need to focus on these 11 areas so that they can maximize the potential of the core framework. These are key areas within DevOps that can be optimized keeping best practices in mind.

1. Integrated Communication

One of the most challenging aspects of introducing new products in the market is communication errors. The development and operations teams aren’t on the same page many times, which leads to launch-time errors and running bugs that need fixes. In certain areas, there is a lack of communication in the way that the features are integrated. Having a coherent communication strategy is essential to building a successful product under the DevOps framework.

2. Excessive Feature Building

This is another challenge that most DevOps teams face from time to time. They’re eager to launch a successful product and spend months on developing feature-rich integrations. However, this means that the date to launch gets pushed further and essential resources are tied up. This is where operations and marketing teams need to focus on building the MVP and work with customer bases to create a successful launch. Having a market-ready product should be the primary focus for DevOps teams.

3. Focusing on Security

Cybersecurity features must be integrated from the time of development itself. While the product is ready for launch, key database protection measures must be put in place. This is especially true when developing code for IoT applications. In fact, analysts at PwC predict that IoT cybersecurity is one of the focal points for all businesses in 2019. With the billions of connected devices in the global ecosystem, focusing on cybersecurity is critical.

4. Remembering to Reduce Friction

The whole idea behind DevOps has always been to reduce friction via seamless integration. That’s why teams shouldn’t remain stringent in their approach. They need to use the tools offered under DevOps rather than solely relying on them to bring about efficiencies. Teams need to work together and innovate on current paradigms if the existing DevOps model isn’t working for them. Reducing inefficiencies and friction should be the number one priority in this case.

5. Automation Where Necessary

Developers and operations teams need to automate non-core processes as much as they can. This is done to streamline communication and create a more efficient environment. Automation in checks and balances, quality testing, controls analysis, and communication can help in reducing the load on the project management teams as well. Automation can help in introducing all stakeholders to the process while gathering feedback from key focal points within the value chain.

6. Improving Upon The Product

While many teams may be satisfied with existing product launches, a handful of successful companies focus on constant iteration. They take in information from the market and develop new features simultaneously. This helps them become agile and launch new features that will become market ready when the time is right. The pushing out of updates is also streamlined in this case, and development teams can be aligned under one single goal.

7. Leveraging Tools to Their Maximum Potential

Developers and operations teams should be aware of all tools available to enhance their workflows. From Docker to GIT, there are several tools in the marketplace that can help you enhance your development program. Teams should also experiment with multiple tools that offer niche impact in domain specific areas. There are language-centric tools as well, that DevOps teams can leverage to scale their strategy better.

8. Having Consistency in Testing

Having a consistent testing environment is important as well. It’s the key to having a more streamlined approach, so as to develop as much quality code as possible. This starts from the core testing mechanism itself, whether that be for existing features or new additions. It starts with having a clear testing goal and ensuring that the appropriate mechanisms are put in place. It also includes a wide range of teams that are involved in the training process. There needs to be consistency in testing, which starts by having a robust testing environment.

9. Reducing Time to Develop

The critical idea behind DevOps at the primary stage has been to reduce time to develop quality code. If a single development team pushes a piece of code to a tester, the testing time should be reduced significantly. Otherwise, the development team may be sitting idle, or worse yet working on the buggy code. That’s why the goal of DevOps at the primary stage is to reduce the time to quality check and work on better coding mechanisms. When companies can launch code faster, they can test it in a controlled market environment that much more smoothly.

10. Standardization in Output

As the code is being developed, there is a tendency to create new features and additions that may not scale effectively. These may be created for certain customers or for B2B applications that rely on specific features. For example, a cloud database may be created that is uniquely designed for only certain geography of customers. This reduces the standardization of the output, which can lead to challenges in the future. All teams must focus on the core goal of creating a standardized product that can be scaled across global zones.

11. DevOps for Maintenance and Updates

Many development teams may have a notion that DevOps is only used during the production stage. This can’t be further from the truth. DevOps principles can be used for maintenance and updates as well. Using the same philosophy and strategy under DevOps, companies can launch new updates in a streamlined manner. They can test out these updates and perform quality maintenance processes using the DevOps framework. Similar to production stages, communication is key when it comes to performing maintenance as well.