Currently, within the current environment of the IT world, we find an increasingly recurrent term associated with digital transformation strategies: the DevOps methodology.
What is DevOps?
DevOps stands for “Development Operations”. It refers to both a cultural and professional movement focused on communication, collaboration and integration between software developers and IT operations professionals.
In order to expand the concept a little more and in an accurate way, we will use the definition given by Microsoft :
“DevOps allows previously siloed roles – development, IT operations, quality engineering and security – to coordinate and collaborate to create better, more reliable products.”
For many years software companies have operated by keeping different departments independent and isolated from each other. On the one hand, there would be the developers (seeking to innovate, streamline and adjust products to the demanding market). On the other hand, the operations team (which seeks to implement, configure and optimize the resources sent to them by the development team, trying to stabilize the products generated).
In this exchange of information, errors often occur, slowing down the output of products, since both departments work without taking each other into account. And this is where DevOps comes in, to build bridges between the two teams:
- Encourages communication with regular meetings.
- Share your assets through process automation.
- Facilitates continuous integration and feedback.
What are the benefits?
When a company implements DevOps culture, practices and applications, it generates a number of positive changes in its business ecosystem:
- Departments are more responsive to customer needs.
- Increases the flexibility and quality of the services and products offered.
- Reach marketing objectives in less time (high frequency of launches).
- They are more competent in the market.
- Maintain system stability and reliability.
- Improves recovery time in the event of an incident (increases productivity).
- Lower costs.
What should the DevOps culture look like?
At this point, we take for granted that technology has a great weight in the automation and optimization of the processes carried out in IT departments. But the reality is that there is no such thing as a good DevOps culture without considering the people involved. The important thing here is the commitment and the change of mentality that employees must assume. In addition, an environment must be created that facilitates collaboration between development and operations:
- There is visibility between the two teams and they share ideas, objectives and concerns.
- Responsibility is shared. Developers will not only focus on innovation and quality, but will also learn how to find product stability. For their part, IT operators, in addition to providing security and standardization, will support the initial development plans.
- Launch cycles become shorter. By being more agile and everyone being more involved in the process, progress is generated. There are no longer so many errors in the chain and you are able to react in time to the changing needs of the market and customers.
- The mentality that is generated is one of evolution, since learning is continuous. The departments, by feeding back to each other, implement each other’s benefits, which translates into innovation for the company and increased customer satisfaction. Growth is steady.
Bonus. Why should DevOps get more involved in RPA initiatives?
Even today there is still a great disconnect between the different departments that companies have. The role that DevOps plays can be crucial to the successful implementation of RPA projects. RPA projects . Robotization needs to be accomplished by integrating software tools, but it also requires communication and collaboration of people. If all departments share their knowledge with each other, processes will be enriched and problems will be solved and anticipated more quickly. This favors the operation of the organization.
Because, without a clear path, companies can fall into the trap of automating for the sake of automating, without taking into account the practical and technical objectives, which is a big mistake.
