It seems everyone’s talking about it DevOps. It’s the buzzword of the moment. It’s growing so fast in popularity, according to Gartner, that a quarter of Global 2000 organisations will deploy it by 2016. That’s huge.
So what exactly is DevOps? More importantly, what business benefits can it offer organisations that deploy it?
At the heart of DevOps are four crucial elements: speed, quality, control and cost. Speed is fundamental to competitive execution and market positioning. Quality is vital to successful implementation and long-term viability. Control, the command of data use, security, access and process is crucial to safe operations. And cost, of course, is a key element of nearly all business decisions.
The need for speed within enterprises is essential and the pressure for faster execution constantly increases. Applications are a number-one priority for CIOs because the results they bring are a key focus of CEOs, customers and shareholders.
Every line of business will regularly have new requirements. A new app or changes to improve existing apps are vital. So, if the essential IT mission is to host applications, they need to get all that surrounds them accomplished quickly. Speed is critical.
The transition of application development to a comprehensive DevOps environment is a natural but not necessarily smooth progression, and quality is no less important than speed. The intent is simple: accelerate quality software development. Catch and fix bugs early. Minimise last minute surprises. Release products timely.
If business differentiation comes in part from the quality and sophistication of applications, DevOps helps. It’s designed to remove barriers between operations and engineering – to improve quality. It can smooth and speed communications, and help integrate development, operations and QA functions. Customer satisfaction improves and profits increase.
Application development is a complex and demanding process. With access to multiple near-instant virtual data copies, quality issues and time delays get substantially reduced. With minimal storage consumption, applications can attain maximum scalability, consistency, data control, automation and ease-of-use fundamentals.
Take control
In product development, data has to be both accessible and secure. It’s a tricky balancing act, made all the more difficult by excess physical copy growth. So, the idea is to create fewer physical copies, decrease the number of security targets, mask sensitive data, create an audit trail, and reduce overall risk.
The control of sensitive data starts with reducing excess physical copies. What’s essential is that the system incorporates all key technical standards and multiple levels of data security that will address physical, virtual and hybrid environments. It’s fast, simple to understand and operate.
>See also: Bringing DevOps to the legacy side of the business
Adoption of DevOps provides a very effective opportunity to enhance application quality and time-to-market. In effect, costs are reduced in multiple dimensions – staff costs, capital costs, quality costs, complexity costs, and, most important in the eyes of many business leaders, the costs of time.
The right data management process helps businesses operate faster and more efficiently. As new software is released more timely to customers, organisations add value faster. They are more competitive and see direct impacts on revenues and profitability.
DevOps has now become a key part of enterprise IT planning and if it hasn’t been employed it will certainly be considered.
Sourced from Ash Ashutosh, CEO, Actifio
