DevOps, a combination of “development” and “operations,” is a set of practices that combines software development and IT operations. It aims to shorten the systems development life cycle and provide continuous delivery with high software quality. DevOps is closely associated with the Agile software development methodology and complements it in many ways.
At the core of DevOps is the concept of a cross-functional team, where developers, IT professionals, and other key stakeholders work together across the entire application lifecycle, from development and testing to deployment and operations. This collaborative approach helps to remove the silos typically found in traditional software development and IT operations, promoting open communication, shared responsibility, and rapid feedback.
DevOps practices include continuous integration, continuous delivery, and continuous deployment, collectively known as “CI/CD.” Continuous integration involves regularly merging code changes into a central repository, where automated builds and tests are run. Continuous delivery extends this by automatically deploying all code changes to a testing or staging environment after the build stage. Continuous deployment goes even further, automatically deploying changes to production, ensuring that software is always in a release-ready state.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is another key component of DevOps. It involves managing and provisioning computing infrastructure through machine-readable definition files, rather than physical hardware configuration or interactive configuration tools. This enables version control, repeatability, and rapid provisioning and de-provisioning of resources.
Monitoring and logging are also important aspects of DevOps, providing visibility into the application’s performance in production, and helping teams to quickly respond to problems.
By fostering a culture of collaboration and shared responsibility, DevOps practices aim to improve the speed, efficiency, and quality of software development and delivery, ultimately leading to more reliable products and happier users and customers.