With over 80% of organizations already practicing DevOps, it's no longer a question of "if" but "how."

This rapid adoption is fueled by the undeniable benefits DevOps brings to the table, transforming how companies develop, deliver, and maintain software. 

But what exactly makes DevOps so essential for a company?

In this article, we'll explore how it fosters faster development cycles, enhances communication, reduces risk, and ultimately drives business growth.

What is DevOps?

DevOps combines two words: development (Dev) and operations (Ops). It's a set of practices that integrate and automate the processes between software development and IT operations teams.

It’s practices, tools, and a cultural philosophy that automates and integrates the processes between software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) teams.

DevOps shortens the systems development life cycle while delivering features, fixes, and updates frequently in close alignment with business objectives.

Example of DevOps in Action

Imagine a company building a new e-commerce platform. In a traditional setup, developers write code for a new "add to cart" feature. 

They finish their work and toss it over the wall to the QA team. QA finds bugs, sends them back. This cycle repeats. 

Finally, weeks later, the (hopefully) bug-free code goes to the operations team, who struggles to deploy it because of mismatched environments.

Now, with DevOps, instead of separate silos, developers, QA, and operations work as one unified team throughout the entire process.

• Early Collaboration: Operations folks provide input early on, ensuring the code is designed to run smoothly on their infrastructure. QA engineers integrate automated tests directly into the development workflow.
• Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD): Developers commit code frequently to a shared repository. Automated tests run with every change, catching bugs instantly. Successful builds are automatically deployed to a staging environment that mirrors production.
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC): No more manual server setups! Infrastructure is defined in the code by using tools like Terraform. This means environments are consistent, deployments are automated, and scaling is a breeze.

With this collaborative approach, the e-commerce company releases the "add to cart" feature in days, not weeks. 

They can even do A/B testing with different versions, gathering real-time user feedback to make improvements. Everyone has visibility if an issue pops up, leading to faster resolution.

This is DevOps in action: increased speed, reduced risk, and happier teams (and customers!).

Benefits of DevOps for Companies

Adopting DevOps practices offers companies numerous advantages, enhancing operational efficiency and business outcomes. Key benefits include:

1. Faster Time-to-Market

DevOps streamlines development processes, enabling you to deliver new features and updates to your customers quickly. 

Automated testing, continuous integration, and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines allow for rapid and reliable software releases. This means you can respond to market demands and customer feedback faster, giving you a competitive edge.

For example, companies like Amazon and Etsy deploy code to production thousands of times daily using DevOps practices.

This agility allows them to respond quickly to customer feedback and market changes, giving them a significant competitive edge.

According to the 2021 Accelerate State of DevOps Report, elite performers deploy code 973x more frequently and have 6,570x faster lead times for changes compared to low performers.

2. Enhanced Collaboration and Communication

DevOps breaks down silos between development, QA, and operations teams, fostering a culture of shared responsibility and transparency.

Collaboration tools and practices like ChatOps and shared dashboards enable real-time communication and problem-solving. This leads to better alignment, faster issue resolution, and improved overall productivity.

Imagine a situation where a critical bug is detected in production. 

In a traditional siloed environment, it might take hours or even days to identify the root cause and resolve the issue. 

With DevOps, developers, QA, and operations teams can collaborate in real-time, sharing information and expertise to quickly diagnose and fix the problem.

3. Improved Software Quality and Reliability

With DevOps, continuous testing and monitoring are integrated throughout the development cycle.

Automated tests catch issues early, reducing the risk of defects entering production. 

Monitoring tools provide real-time visibility into application performance, enabling rapid identification and resolution of problems. This results in more reliable and stable software for your users.

For example, consider a company that uses DevOps to build a mobile banking application.

Continuous testing ensures that the app functions correctly across different devices and operating systems. Monitoring tools track performance metrics like transaction processing time and error rates, alerting the team to any anomalies that require attention.

4. Increased Efficiency and Productivity

DevOps automation eliminates manual and repetitive tasks, freeing up your teams to focus on higher-value work.

Puppet's State of DevOps Report found that high-performing DevOps teams spend 22% less time on unplanned work and rework. This directly correlates to increased efficiency, as teams avoid time-consuming fixes and revisions.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) allows for version-controlled and repeatable infrastructure provisioning. Standardized environments and processes reduce errors and inconsistencies, leading to faster and more efficient development cycles.

Instead of manually configuring servers and deploying applications, a DevOps team can use IaC tools like Terraform or Ansible to automate these tasks. 

This saves time and ensures that environments are configured correctly and consistently.

5. Greater Scalability and Flexibility

In the fast-paced world of technology, your company needs to be able to adapt quickly. DevOps provides the tools and practices to build dynamic systems that can effortlessly handle change.

DevOps enables you to treat infrastructure as code (IaC). This means you can define your infrastructure components (servers, networks, storage) in a declarative manner, specifying the desired state rather than manually configuring each element. 

IaC allows for dynamic provisioning of resources based on demand.

Example: Imagine your e-commerce platform experiences a spike in traffic during a flash sale. With IaC, you can automatically provision additional servers to handle the increased load and then de-provision them when traffic subsides, optimizing resource utilization and costs.

Additionally, the ability to quickly recover from incidents is crucial for maintaining business continuity. DevOps practices contribute to greater resilience by enabling faster incident response and recovery.

The Accelerate State of DevOps Report shows that elite performers have a 2,604x faster time to recover from incidents compared to low performers. This resilience is partly due to the scalability and flexibility that DevOps enables.

By adopting DevOps practices, you gain the ability to:

• Scale on Demand: Quickly adapt to changing workloads and traffic patterns.
• Embrace New Technologies: Easily integrate new tools and technologies into your infrastructure.
• Reduce Time to Market: Deploy applications and updates faster.
• Improve Reliability: Minimize downtime and ensure business continuity.

How Does DevOps Work in Practice?

DevOps integrates development and operations teams to streamline the software development lifecycle, enhancing efficiency and collaboration.

Here's how DevOps functions in practice:

1. Continuous Integration (CI)

Take an example of a team of developers all working on different features of the same application.

In a traditional workflow, they might work in isolation for days or even weeks before merging their changes. This leads to painful integration issues and conflicts.

CI changes that with:

• Frequent Code Merging: With CI, developers integrate their code changes into a shared repository frequently, sometimes multiple times a day. This keeps everyone on the same page and helps identify conflicts early on.
• Automated Builds and Tests: CI tools like Jenkins, GitLab CI, or CircleCI automatically build the code and run a suite of tests whenever new code is pushed. This provides immediate feedback on the quality and stability of the codebase.some text

Example: A developer introduces a bug that breaks a critical feature. With CI, this bug would be detected immediately through automated tests, allowing the developer to fix it before it impacts other team members or, worse, reaches production.

2. Continuous Delivery (CD) and Continuous Deployment (CD)

Building upon CI, Continuous Delivery automates the entire software release process. 

After code passes the CI stage, CD pipelines automatically build, test, and package the software, making it ready for deployment.

This is done through:

• Automated Release Pipeline: Once code passes the CI stage, CD pipelines automatically build, test, and package the software into a deployable artifact. This artifact is then ready to be deployed to any environment with a single click or even automatically.
• Continuous Delivery: With Continuous Delivery, the deployment process is automated, but the final deployment to production is typically triggered manually. This allows for human oversight and approval before releasing to users.
• Continuous Deployment: Continuous Deployment takes automation all the way, automatically deploying every successful build to production. This requires a high degree of confidence in your automated tests and monitoring capabilities.some text

Example: Companies like Netflix and Amazon practice Continuous Deployment, releasing new features and updates to production multiple times a day.

3. Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

Then you have the IaC. IaC is about managing your infrastructure (servers, networks, databases) through code, just like you manage your application code.

IaC tools like Terraform, Ansible, or AWS CloudFormation allow you to define your infrastructure in a declarative way.

This means you specify the desired state of your infrastructure, and the tool takes care of provisioning and configuring the necessary resources.

Example: Instead of manually configuring a new server, a DevOps engineer can write a Terraform script that defines the server's specifications, operating system, and required software. Terraform then automatically provisions the server in the cloud, ensuring consistency and repeatability.

4. Monitoring and Logging

Lastly, monitoring and logging provide crucial visibility into the health and performance of your applications and infrastructure.

Tools like Prometheus, Grafana, and the ELK stack collect metrics and logs from your systems, providing real-time insights into performance, user behavior, and potential issues.

Example: Imagine a sudden spike in error rates in your application. Monitoring tools will alert you to this issue, allowing you to investigate and resolve it before it significantly impacts your users.

By implementing these practices and leveraging the right tools, DevOps transforms software development into a streamlined, automated, and highly efficient process.

This leads to faster releases, increased reliability, and greater agility in responding to changing business needs.

DevOps vs Traditional IT: What's the Difference?

The differences between DevOps and traditional IT practices come down to how teams collaborate, how quickly they work, and the level of automation they incorporate.

Here’s a breakdown of these differences:

1. Collaboration and Team Structure

• Traditional IT: Teams are organized in silos, with developers, testers, and IT operations working separately. Development teams build and hand off code to the operations team for deployment, leading to delays and potential miscommunication.
• DevOps: Encourages a collaborative culture where development and operations work together across the application lifecycle. This teamwork fosters shared responsibility, faster communication, and more cohesive workflows, leading to quicker problem-solving and alignment on goals.

2. Speed of Deployment

• Traditional IT: Deployments are usually slower, often scheduled for off-hours or specific maintenance windows. This slower pace is partly due to manual processes and less frequent testing, which can result in more extensive downtime.
• DevOps: Uses Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) pipelines to streamline deployment, allowing for multiple updates daily. DevOps speeds up development cycles with frequent testing and automation, reducing the risk of major disruptions and improving time-to-market.

3. Automation Level

• Traditional IT: Relies on manual processes for configuration, deployment, and testing, which can introduce human errors, increase costs, and slow down response times to issues.
• DevOps: Automates repetitive tasks using specialized tools, reducing manual errors and freeing up the team to focus on innovation. Automation is a cornerstone in DevOps, covering everything from code integration to infrastructure setup.

4. Infrastructure Management

• Traditional IT: Often relies on physical hardware and manual configuration, making scaling complex and resource-intensive. Adding new infrastructure can be time-consuming, requiring manual adjustments and configurations.
• DevOps: Uses Infrastructure as Code (IaC), where infrastructure setup and scaling are managed through code, ensuring consistency and quick provisioning. IaC enables environments to be created or replicated effortlessly, allowing DevOps teams to scale applications quickly as demand grows.

5. Monitoring and Feedback

• Traditional IT: Monitoring and troubleshooting are reactive, often responding to issues after they’ve impacted users. Feedback cycles are longer, making it harder to improve applications quickly.
• DevOps: Proactive monitoring is built into every stage. With continuous feedback loops from advanced tools, DevOps teams gain real-time insights into system performance. This enables them to detect, respond to, and fix issues before they impact the end user.

6. Risk and Stability

• Traditional IT: Emphasizes stability and may prioritize avoiding risk, often at the expense of innovation speed. Since changes are infrequent and carefully controlled, it may take longer to address bugs or add features.
• DevOps: Balances speed and stability, with automated testing and frequent releases. While this approach introduces controlled risks, it also allows for rapid fixes and improvements, ensuring applications stay up-to-date and adaptable to changing needs.

DevOps modernizes and accelerates the software development and deployment process by breaking down barriers between teams.

And while the traditional IT model can still work for certain projects with well-defined requirements, DevOps offers a more flexible, collaborative, and efficient approach that aligns with today's fast-paced, customer-driven market.

How Can Companies Adopt DevOps Through Outsourcing?

DevOps requires a unique blend of skills (automation, cloud, security, etc.). Finding and hiring all those experts in-house takes time and money.

Outsourcing gives you instant access to a skilled team. 

Here are ways your company can effectively adopt DevOps through outsourcing:

1. Assess Current Processes and Identify Pain Points

The first step in adopting DevOps is to map out your existing development and deployment workflows.

This will help you identify bottlenecks, manual tasks, and areas for improvement.

• Map out Your Workflow: Draw a flowchart of how software goes from an idea to a finished product. Where are the bottlenecks? Where do things slow down, cause frustration, or lead to errors?

• Talk to Your Teams: Developers, operations folks, and even security and QA teams – get their input! What are their biggest challenges? What tools do they wish they had?

For example, let's say your deployments are a nightmare, taking weeks and often causing outages. This is a prime pain point that outsourcing DevOps can address.

2. Develop a Clear Governance Framework

Outsourcing doesn't mean losing control. You need clear guidelines and agreements in place.

Who's doing what? Be crystal clear about what tasks you're outsourcing and what remains in-house. This avoids confusion and ensures accountability.

What are your goals for outsourcing? Faster releases? Better quality? Define your desired outcomes and how you'll measure success.

Establish how you'll communicate with the outsourced team. Regular meetings, shared dashboards, and clear reporting structures are crucial.

Additionally, define performance metrics, establish regular review processes, and set up channels for reporting and resolving issues quickly.

3. Foster a Culture of Collaboration

DevOps is also about people and culture. To successfully adopt DevOps through outsourcing, you must encourage communication and knowledge sharing between your internal and outsourced DevOps teams.

Treat the outsourced team as an extension of your own. Include them in relevant meetings, share important information, and build trust.

So, don't just throw tasks "over the wall" to the outsourced team. Involve them in planning and decision-making for better outcomes.

4. Embrace Continuous Learning and Improvement

DevOps is about constant evolution.

So, ensure you track your progress. Monitor key metrics (release frequency, deployment time, error rates) to see if outsourcing is delivering the expected benefits.

Also, gather feedback. That is, regularly solicit feedback from both your internal teams and the outsourced team.

What's working well? What can be improved?

And lastly, adapt and adjust. Use the feedback and data to refine your approach. DevOps is iterative, so be prepared to adjust your outsourcing strategy as needed.

How to Choose the Right Outsourcing Provider for DevOps

When considering the outsourcing of DevOps engineers and architects, selecting the right provider is crucial for ensuring successful implementation and maximizing the benefits of this strategic approach.

Here are key factors to consider when choosing an outsourcing partner for your DevOps needs:

1. Expertise and Experience

Evaluate the provider’s expertise in DevOps practices and tools. 

Look for a partner with a proven track record in successfully implementing DevOps solutions across various industries.

Do they have a proven track record of successful DevOps implementations? Look for experience with:

• CI/CD pipelines
• Infrastructure automation (IaC)
• Cloud platforms 
• Containerization technologies

Their experience should include familiarity with automation tools, CI/CD pipelines, and cloud infrastructure management.

2. Cultural Fit

A successful partnership relies heavily on cultural alignment. Choose a provider who embraces open communication, teamwork, and knowledge sharing.

Assess whether the outsourcing provider shares values and work ethics similar to your organization's. 

A collaborative culture emphasizing communication and shared responsibility will enhance teamwork between your internal staff and the outsourced team.

3. Service Offerings

Consider the range of services offered by the provider. They should provide comprehensive DevOps solutions, including automation, monitoring, and continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD).

Ensure they tailor their services to meet your business needs and objectives.

You can also ask for case studies or client testimonials that demonstrate their successful DevOps implementations. Don't hesitate to contact their references to get firsthand feedback.

4. Scalability

Choose a provider that can scale its services according to your business growth. As your organization evolves, you may need to adjust your DevOps capabilities.

Ensure that the partner can accommodate changes in team size, project complexity, and technology requirements without compromising service quality.

5. Communication and Support

Effective communication is essential for a successful outsourcing relationship. 

Studies show that a significant portion of outsourcing initiatives fail, with communication breakdowns often cited as a major contributing factor.

Evaluate how the provider manages communication channels and support systems. They should offer transparent reporting, regular updates, and be responsive to your inquiries or concerns.

6. Cost Structure

Understand the pricing model of the outsourcing provider.

Compare costs against the value of services offered to ensure you are making a sound investment. Look for providers that offer flexible pricing options based on project scope or ongoing support needs.

Also, consider:

• Value for Money: Compare costs against the value of the services offered. Consider their expertise, experience, and the potential return on investment (ROI).
• Flexible Pricing: Do they offer flexible pricing options based on project scope, team size, or ongoing support needs?

Ultimately, investing in DevOps depends on your organization's goals, challenges, and resources.

However, for companies looking to stay ahead, embracing DevOps is a strategic imperative that can unlock new levels of agility, innovation, and customer value.

When considering outsourcing for DevOps, choosing the right provider is paramount. 

Look for a partner with proven technical expertise, a strong cultural fit, and a comprehensive range of services. Effective communication, scalability, and a clear cost structure are also vital for a successful outsourcing relationship.

NeoWork provides a diverse range of services and we also assist in enhancing AI models through high-quality data labeling, MVP solutions for streamlined workflows, creative services, and global talent in software engineering, data science, and cloud architecture. 

Our client-centric approach ensures personalized attention, making NeoWork an ideal choice for businesses seeking a BPO solution that emphasizes both quality and employee engagement.

Book a free consultation with us to see how we can help your company.