As crucial and commonplace as code-enabled services have become in our daily lives, it is easy to forget that IT management has always had and still has, more than its fair share of flaws. Even with instant messaging and cloud computing, employees and managers can still struggle to collaborate and share information, especially between departments that each have individual targets to focus on.
This is despite the fact that, in many ways, the IT service market has never been more demanding. Customer and client expectations are constantly evolving, and it is easier than ever for hungry businesses to gain ground against static competitors.
There is also the fact that new opportunities for improvement are appearing regularly, to the extent that large-term projects often need to be adapted at several points if they are to be successful. Naturally, this can cause serious delays for projects managed in traditional styles, with huge releases of code being completed with only sporadic testing or reviews.
In short, IT teams need to be quick, collaborative and adaptive if they want to achieve the best possible results. Enabling this kind of culture is the exact purpose of ‘DevOps‘, a management methodology that has maximized efficiency, fluidity and cooperation across the world of IT.
A blend of ‘Development’ and ‘Operations’, DevOps not only leads to speedier code releases and repairs, but also greater ROIs as both development and operations staff are able to maximize the value of their work. However, because DevOps primarily deals with human elements, training in the methodology can sometimes be hard to sell.
How can a DevOps Certification Help my Business?
There was a time when it was rare for C-level executives to have technical backgrounds. Although that has changed a great deal (just take a look at all the tech-wizards dominating some of the world’s biggest corporations), justifications for IT-related expenditure still need to resonate with those whose specialties lie elsewhere.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the biggest benefits of investing in DevOps training.
Solving human errors
These days, it is not enough to simply invest in IT talent. More importantly, having the right IT skills will not make up for human errors when it comes to management. As long as an organization fails to provide the right environment and expertise, it can be easy to find that even highly-capable staff are not able to contribute as much as they could be. This is precisely the kind of winning-approach that DevOps has enabled across hundreds of world-leading companies.
One of the most prominent issues tackled by the methodology is siloed thinking; that is, the compulsion of individual teams and departments to focus on their own goals and requirements, rather than larger business aims which everyone should be working towards. This kind of attitude limits collaboration, and can often leave operations teams lacking valuable expertise when working with newly completed code that has simply been dumped on them.
DevOps encourages staff across different teams and departments to share insight and expertise, not only in relation to their own tasks but also in how their work impacts others. This can provide a huge boost to efficiency, in turn reducing costs, leaving more time for making improvements and even increasing morale.
In short, DevOps can encourage the kind of attitude that will help you make the most from your IT operations.
Automate key processes
Automation is hardly a new concept. In fact, it’s been a driving force of industry for hundreds of years! At the same time, it is still as easy as ever to defend inefficient routines simply because of comfortable norms (and because the hassle of making changes can appear to outweigh the potential gains).
In following DevOps, users are expected to utilize open-source automation software wherever possible. Doing so not only makes said processes more efficient and reliable, but also greatly reduces their associated costs. This is especially true when mixed with aspects of the wider DevOps methodology.
Lets’s take a look at an example. One of the most frequently automated processes (and a HUGE point of focus for DevOps) is ‘testing’, a key task for highlighting errors in code before deployment. In DevOps-enabled environments, testing is mixed with a preference for short-term projects within larger programs and a focus on iterative releases.
Altogether, this gives teams the freedom to test and amend their work much more frequently, often allowing them to solve problems in advance of deployment. It also helps them to avoid expensive delays, and with the right DevOps tools, the testing itself can be completed in no time at all.
All of this relates to one of the most important aspects of DevOps: speed. DevOps-empowered companies can deliver services, repairs and updates at a much faster rate than competitors without having to sacrifice quality. However, being able to make such changes requires both insight into the DevOps methodology and experience in applying it in practice.
Boosting the skills of capable staff
While DevOps encourages collaboration, it also aims to have skilled staff members take on further responsibilities. This is not necessarily meant in the sense that it forces them to learn new skills. Instead, it encourages them to share their skills and expertise in a way that can help them to develop as employees.
For example, those in development may offer insight to operations teams on key aspects of new code. This can also help them gain insight into operational and deployment concerns, which can then be factored into their own work further down the line. Similarly, operations staff could relay their front-line experience to those involved in testing, to give them an idea of what issues generally cause the most problems. This style of overlapping departmental expertise is so common, in fact, that the methodology is often referred to as ‘DevTestOps’.
DevOps also highlights the importance of specific key skills and ensures that they have a greater amount of involvement throughout the development lifecycle. For example, security specialists are given more of a say, providing ongoing recommendations from a project’s inception rather than simply advising on add-ons once the bulk of development work has already been completed.
Helping employees to gain this kind of experience, especially in a DevOps environment, can provide them with excellent opportunities later on. Some may even utilize the experience in order to become DevOps engineers – a prospect that will soon bring out the best in your most ambitious members of staff.
A safe long term investment
DevOps is a well-practiced methodology with a long list of successful case studies. Amazon, Netflix and NASA are just a few of the organizations that have found success with DevOps. Some of your more experienced IT staff may even have been part of successful DevOps-powered projects in the past.
A large part of this success comes from the fact that DevOps encompasses and enriches the entire chain of ‘Dev’ and ‘Ops’. This includes:
-
Planning
-
Production
-
Release
-
Maintenance
-
Quality assurance
-
Security
-
Operations
-
Engineering
-
Quality development
With this in mind, it is worth recognizing that the value of DevOps lies well beyond a single project. Rather, it creates a stable long-term environment that can enrich all future projects, boosting quality, increasing efficiency and even ensuring speedier release schedules that will be sure to keep customers and clients happy. You can even use the mistakes made in your initial transitioning period as a valuable learning experience as you adapt the methodology to suit your own organization requirements.
Benefit from qualified DevOps engineers
As useful as DevOps can be, it is not merely a set of clear cut rules which anyone can follow. In order to fully benefit from the methodology, an organization needs to have DevOps-certified users in the correct roles. This is where DevOps engineers, candidates with years of experience in applying the methodology and nurturing DevOps cultures, come in.
Strictly speaking, there is no set path to becoming a DevOps engineer. They are generally just IT specialists who have gained the skills and experience to be able to effectively manage and advise various departments in accordance with the DevOps methodology. It may be that a development specialist has spent enough time working with operations staff to be able to factor in their concerns, or maybe an operations employee has become familiar with various coding languages – either would make an excellent candidate, given the right DevOps training.
A trained DevOps manager or engineer will be able to establish the methodology in your workplace culture, get all the necessary actors familiar with DevOps tools and ensure that your organization can start enjoying the benefits as quickly as possible. They can even help to train other employees to turn them into DevOps engineers in their own right. Given the average salary of a DevOps engineer, this kind of opportunity can act as an incredible incentive to driven employees.
