What is DevOps?
DevOps is a set of practices that automates the processes between software development and IT teams, in order that they can build, test, and release software faster and more reliably. The concept of DevOps is founded on building a culture of collaboration between teams that historically functioned in relative siloes. The promised benefits include increased trust, faster software releases, ability to solve critical issues quickly, and better manage unplanned work.
DevOps gave us an edge
“DevOps has helped us do very frequent releases, giving us an edge on time to market. We are now able to make daily product releases as opposed to 6-month releases, and push fixes to our customers in a span of a few hours.”
— Hamesh Chawla, VP of Engineering at Zephyr
History of DevOps
The DevOps movement started to coalesce some time between 2007 and 2008, when IT operations and software development communities got vocal about what they felt was a fatal level of dysfunction in the industry.
They railed against the traditional software development model, which called for those who write the code to be organizationally and functionally apart from those who deploy and support that code.
Developers and IT/Ops professionals had separate (and often competing) objectives, separate department leadership, separate key performance indicators by which they were judged, and often worked on separate floors or even separate buildings. The result was siloed teams concerned only with their own fiefdoms, long hours, botched releases, and unhappy customers.
Surely there’s a better way, they said. So the two communities got together and started talking – with people like Patrick Dubois, Gene Kim, and John Willis driving the conversation.
What began in online forums and local meet-ups is now a major theme in the software zeitgeist, which is probably what brought you here! You and your team are feeling the pain caused by siloed teams and broken lines of communication within your company.
You’re using agile methodologies for planning and development, but still struggling to get that code out the door without a bunch of drama. You’ve heard a few things about DevOps and the seemingly magical effect it can have on teams and think “I want some of that magic.”
The bad news is that DevOps isn’t magic, and transformations don’t happen overnight. The good news is that you don’t have to wait for upper management to roll out a large-scale initiative. By understanding the value of DevOps and making small, incremental changes, your team can embark on the DevOps journey right away.