What is DevOps?

DevOps defines a philosophy of how people and processes should work together.

It’s about managing technology to create the maximum value for an organization’s customers, emphasizing the need for its development (Dev) and operations (Ops) functions to mutually prioritize customers’ needs. Customers want both innovation and stability.

When DevOps is working well there is a positive dynamic tension as Dev works primarily on innovation and Ops works primarily on stabilization. Mutual respect and careful handling of the concerns of the other side are what prevent this dynamic tension from degrading into conflict.

Customer-centric focus

The spectrum of a company’s development process will vary dramatically between one organization and another. Some work in highly commoditized domains and may not innovate to the same extent as a start-up that is introducing a whole new business model to the world. This means each company’s priorities will be different.

In both scenarios, it is possible to innovate for the sake of it and for developers to make something hyper-stable simply because it fits their metrics, rather than because it benefits the customer.

Companies must learn to put the customer first and concentrate on the fact that customers want both innovation and stability. That is why the DevOps philosophy requires every team member throughout the entire software mechanism to adopt a more customer-centric focus to properly serve these two key competing priorities.

Incorporating the DevOps philosophy creates unity across the spectrum. It allows organizations to ensure their problem-solving solutions deliver new value to customers while making them both stable and useful.

Integration approach

DevOps is essentially a broad approach to integrating other development methods. Agile, for instance, allows engineers to innovate quickly while IT service management enabled by ITIL best practice provides availability and stability once an application is put into production.

Integrating a proper DevOps perspective will affect both disciplines; frequently improving the practices of each and making sure they are cohesive and focused on delivering customer value.

Cultural shift

DevOps should be seen as a shift in culture that will cause changes in process and technology.

Many technical people will be familiar with upskilling to a technology and think of this primarily as acquiring a technical skill. However, DevOps requires a shift in perspective to understand the cultural artefacts involved:

Consider a software engineer working in an organization that does not appreciate these artefacts or is performing “DevOps Theatre”: essentially, everything has been renamed to be like DevOps but the organization is still using the same methodology as before. If they are properly trained in the disciplines, the engineer will be able to recognize this; they can then either operate within this framework or try to be an agent of change and bring their colleagues into a true DevOps perspective.

Certifications, such as those from the DEVOPS INSTITUTE portfolio , build on this by focusing on the philosophy’s cultural elements and how they integrate with other methodologies, frameworks, and approaches. DevOps-certified engineers can look for areas in an organization that are starting to reflect the DevOps perspective and quickly volunteer for them.

Ultimately, both a global perspective and practical hands-on experience of its cultural elements are essential to a full appreciation and application of the DevOps philosophy.

Significant career opportunities

Some organizations argue that DevOps should not be a position but just the way everyone approaches their jobs. The truth is that it’s important to have practitioners familiar with unifying these different disciplines and applying this new cultural paradigm. Consequently, there are significant career opportunities for an experienced, certified DevOps engineer.

But DevOps engineers deal with several cultural changes and culture doesn’t change overnight. They will find individuals and teams in the organization that don’t respond well to the latest ideas, so an applied capability and willingness to lead is vital. Not only will engineers have to participate in these cultural shifts, but they will also need to promote and support them, often by applying them successfully themselves.

DevOps is ultimately concerned with unification. DevOps engineers who understand the people, processes and culture of both developer and operations functions will thrive in helping organizations become more focused on the customer, meeting their competing demands for innovation and stability.

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