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Shrikanth G
shrikanthg@cybermedia.co.in
Decoding DevOps
The escalation of DevOps as a software development hygiene practice is
all set to alter the way IT is being developed and delivered
D
evOps- the chances are you might have heard to industry experts; this is what they have to say.
this term numerous times. Even market trend Pradeep Shilige, Executive Vice President, Digital
watchers consistently post this as the biggest Systems and Technology, Cognizant says, “DevOps may
trendsetter that will alter software development not be the panacea for all problems and it is certainly an
methodologies and will have an overall disruptive impact important capability in addressing them effectively. By
on enterprise IT. driving automation across the software delivery lifecycle,
DevOps is clearly a disruption that will get entrenched in DevOps alleviates hand-offs and delivers the ability to
2017 as IT services companies and software developers quickly respond to feedback on demand. Further, by
increasingly use this as the key differentiator to be fostering a collaborative culture and necessitating skills
relevant to business demands and to add value to client enhancement across IT and operations staff, DevOps
side IT organizations. DevOps is all about agility and also helps build a more robust organization.”
continues delivery that gives a high degree of modularity Experts also say that the software development world is
to software development. rapidly moving towards development of next-generation
products and services that are mass-personalized and
SETTING THE CONTEXT deployed at massive scale. These systems are also
Let’s try and understand why DevOps is critical to IT- both typically always on, continuously adapted to changes
to the supply and demand side. Probably a good starting and connect the physical and digital worlds. At the same
point would be to ponder about a key question: What ails time, these systems need to be delivered with shorter
current software development practices and why DevOps development cycles and higher programmer productivity
is being touted as the panacea? We posed this question while maintaining the quality of the offering.
says, “Certainly, Dev and Ops are part of different unable to appreciate the design required for scalability,
hierarchal structures within an organization. They both redundancy, firewalls, backup etc. Hence, getting the
have different visions, missions, and SLA metrics, making right mix where both these perspectives come together is
it quite difficult to bring together people, processes, the challenge. So, we have a situation where the required
and technologies but they have the same goals. Here, skill is programming, but with a domain understanding of
standardized processes and the right mindset can drive infrastructure. Cloud computing makes this a little more
collaboration between these teams.” manageable,” adds Karanth.
Clearly, the chasm between ‘Dev and Ops’ is a mindset Meanwhile, Madhavan Krishnan, Vice President Cloud
problem that can be bridged by a combination of best Solutions, VirtusaPolaris Corporation says, “One of the
practices and until unless both these teams collaborate, reasons why it is difficult to bring the ‘Dev and Ops’ teams
DevOps can never succeed. to work together in order to meet the business objective
Manoj Karanth, GM, Digital Business, Mindtree quips, is because of the way teams were goaled and structured
“This difficulty arises from determining involved roles and in a form that was good for the past but is not relevant
responsibilities. These change as per the project type anymore. The development cycles of yesteryears were long
and customer expectations. But more fundamentally, it and companies had independent ‘Dev and Ops’ teams
is a question of skill. Most of the traditional ‘Ops’ teams working in silos because the life cycles of both teams
do not have an appreciation of programming. Hence, had minimum overlap, if any. And typically in a period of
infrastructure automation and release management transition, during a hand-over between ‘Dev and Ops’,
becomes a challenge at their end.” teams would overlap briefly and there was ample time for
“On the other hand, most programmers though do not knowledge transfer during the transition process, which is
have an understanding of how the code they developed typically not the case anymore because the product and
works and scales in the real world. Hence they are development life cycles are shrinking very swiftly.”
the delivery frequency with deployment readiness. capabilities that the IT organization brings to business by
The Operations (IT) teams are concerned about the way of learning, standardizing and institutionalizing best
stability of their live environments and do not want to practices and managing the technology sprawl within
compromise for faster but potentially unstable releases. the organization. The enterprise IT is in a very interesting
It also requires planning often and more cycle time from phase, where they can be strategic for a business if they
operations to deploy. Continuous Integration (CI) and are able to bring in new innovations but if they are slow to
Continuous Delivery (CD), which are part of DevOps, respond they face the risk of becoming non-relevant. The
address this challenge. need to lead the change on behalf of their organizations,”
adds Krishnan.
DEVOPS & THE IT ORGANIZATION Pradeep Shilige agrees, “IT is one among the many
Let’s look at DevOps from and its impact on IT departments in an enterprise such as human resources,
organization. Says Abhay Pendse, “Enterprises are finance, marketing, business, security and risk. With
moving to a virtual/cloud infrastructure (both hybrid and DevOps coming into play in IT, all other departments will
public) and therefore have the ability to incorporate an on- be affected to varying degrees. In light of automation, HR
demand and cost-effective DevOps solution. DevOps is will have to look at revising the roles and responsibilities
especially relevant to the digital transformation journeys of the IT staff. Instead of treating IT as a shared service,
for large enterprises, which tend to have rigid ‘Dev and business will be more involved with IT by way of quicker
Ops’ separations and are accustomed to longer release feedback. Finance will have to look at funding the
cycles. Cloud-source your infrastructure; crowd-source integrated collaborative DevOps teams instead of the
your development is a mantra for success in today’s earlier functional, shared services-based models. With
software-driven world for born-in-the-cloud companies frequent releases, security and risk will have to collaborate
and large enterprises alike.” even more closely with IT in order to make security and
IT organizations have the mandate to align IT with risk into the continuous delivery cycle.”
business for tangible profitability and outcomes. So if a
business side of the enterprise requires solutions to start OUTLOOK
a project, IT, unlike in the past cannot go back to the As Nageswara Rao sums it up, “Adoption of DevOps is
businesses with a long drawn out schedule to deliver the definitely on the rise and will continue to rise further in
project. Putting this thought in the backdrop Madhavan 2017. However, one-size-fits-all approach cannot work,
Krishnan says, “IT organizations need a quick way of as enterprises become increasingly discerning and the
responding to these business needs. As, with the tooling industry matures in use of models like DevOps, Agile-
and its ability the advancement of technology (such as based and non-linear service delivery. While we have
cloud), IT organizations are positioned well to make a big already seen the emergence of tools that support CI/CD,
contribution towards the growth side of the business for the future trend will be a comprehensive CI/CD tool beds
an enterprise.” evolving as a single stack. There will be increased focus in
“The role of a CIO gets amplified here because of the shifting the culture towards DevOps in large enterprises.”