It’s time for another release event, and everyone is waiting for that last-minute problem to appear and spin everything into a chaotic race to troubleshoot. The development team says it isn’t their problem, and that the issue must have emerged thanks to something operations did. Operations points the finger back; it had to be something development messed up. If this story causes unpleasant feelings of deja vu, it may be time to shake things up. DevOps tools are an efficient way to get your development and operations teams on the same page and working collaboratively toward the same end goal — no more blaming required.
Get the Complete Primer on DevOps
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DevOps is a relatively new development strategy that’s taken the software world by storm. Thanks to some innovative practices and specialized tools, it can take the conflict out of development and replace it with speed. In this article, we’ll give you a brief rundown of how the methodology works and some of the software it uses to succeed. If you want a deeper look, check out our indepth primer.
What Is DevOps?
At its most basic level, DevOps is the combination of development and operations teams into one cohesive unit that shares responsibility and workflow. This group, which can include QA and security teams as well, shares responsibility for the entirety of the product life cycle and closely collaborates to surface and fix issues rapidly.
DevOps has roots in the Agile and Lean development styles, but it differentiates itself with its collaborative foundations. It combines the waste-cutting and software optimization associated with Agile and Lean strategies while also tearing down the walls of siloed development processes.
As you can guess, adopting DevOps is no small task. There are sweeping cultural changes that need to be made while also learning how to work under a brand new set of best practices.
Get the Complete Primer on DevOps
Practices and Culture
Getting into the swing of DevOps requires much more than surrounding yourself with the hottest tools on the market. To really benefit from this development style takes a bit of foundation shifting and breaking of the mold.
Our DevOps Primer can give you an in-depth look at all of these changes, but fostering a collaborative environment without silos is vital. Breaking down the walls between development and operations and getting both teams working together on the same workflows heads conflict off at the pass.
DevOps prides itself on maintaining continuous integration and delivery practices as well. Basically, instead of merging code once every few months developers continually integrate their code with the master branch. This way, when problems surface, they can be studied and fixed in easily manageable batches.
Best DevOps Tools
DevOps leverages powerful software to get the job done. These range from communication and collaboration focused solutions to automated testing platforms and incident tracking software. Adopting a strategy is tough in and of itself, but keeping things running smoothly is no small task either.
Maintaining these cultural changes and best practices requires a strong set of tools. The following list of this specialized software are all seeing popular use by those that have moved their teams over to a focused strategy:
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1. Jira
This go-to project management and issue tracking platform has been widely adopted by practitioners of DevOps. Handling complex projects is a must, and Jira has everything needed to simplify the management of the numerous tasks associated with development.
2. Puppet
Puppet is an infrastructure automation tool seeing large adoptions by companies that have adopted the methodology. With so many stages involved in IT infrastructure, having something that can help manage aspects such as provisioning and patching is key.
3. OpenShift
This open-source platform lets users deploy, create and control container-based applications. With Red Hat’s OpenShift, users can easily manage multicloud and hybrid environments by leveraging a suite of automation software.
4. TestComplete
Strong testing practices are vital to a successful strategy, and TestComplete offers users a powerful, AI-assisted UI testing platform. Teams can execute and maintain tests for mobile, desktop and web applications with this tool.
5. Jenkins
Automating tasks is a key tenet, and Jenkins is one of the most widely used open-source automation tools available. Continuous integration and delivery are practices that make DevOps stand out, and Jenkins makes for a great continuous delivery hub.
6. Bamboo
Practitioners leverage Bamboo for testing. Painstakingly building out testing servers to maintain isn’t the DevOps way. Bamboo lets users create multi-stage testing plans that can trigger testing environments as needed.
Get the Complete Primer on DevOps
7. Ansible
More automation software, hardly shocking at this point. Red Hat’s Ansible is an easily-implemented platform for enterprise-wide automation. Users can gain a competitive edge with Ansible’s automatic analysis features that generate reports on automation deployments.
8. Docker
Docker leverages containerization to help users create, run and deploy applications. It allows users to quickly package up an application, along with all of its components, and move it out as a singular package.
9. Kamatera
DevOps and the cloud, more often than not, go hand -n-hand. The flexibility, compatible infrastructure and managed cloud services make the cloud a wonderful place. Kamatera offers a number of valuable services like server migration, disaster recovery, load balancers and more.
10. Buddy
DevOps tools are all about faster deployments and delivering applications at high-velocity, making software a must-have. With an average 12-second deployment time, vCPU and Rm scaling, repository and artifacts caching, reusable environments and concurrent pipelines; Buddy is a popular platform.
11. Basis
Basis Technologies provides release automation software for SAP that focuses on replacing outdated and error-prone processes with quick and accurate automation. Basis lets users automatically run and enforce valuable quality and impact checks to guarantee system safety.
12. PagerDuty
Quickly responding to incidents is another key facet of successful software. PagerDuty uses machine learning to spot incidents in real-time. These finders are immediately passed on to the correct team members to take action within seconds.
13. Git
Git is an open-source version control system that meshes with the need for speed. No matter the size or complexity of the project, Git provides frictionless context switching, role-based codelines and disposable experimentation. Its operations are performed locally, which gives Git a speed advantage on centralized systems communicating with outside servers.
Culture, practices and effective software make DevOps successful. Check out our primer for more examples of each.
Get the Complete Primer on DevOps
Conclusion
As DevOps picks up steam, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that this strategy is no mere flash in the pan. Increased delivery rate, collaborative environment and reliable testing methods make it an attractive strategy for software development teams around the globe. If you’re intrigued, make sure to check out our primer for a more complete look at all of the moving parts that make the methodology successful.
Have more questions about the best DevOps tools or want to sing its praises? Let us know with a comment down below!