Customized IT solutions are exactly what they are – a specifically designed project where nothing comes out of the box. As our consultants have discovered with nearly two decades of work, nearly anything can happen anytime, anywhere.
DevOps is one such example. Though it may seem simple and logical on the surface, successful initiatives require putting together a full toolset and simultaneously creating a smart team of developers, testers and project managers who are well-versed in cloud and agile technologies. Those deliverables alone can take many months of trial and error and require thoughtful experimentation and openness to failure. Once initial steps are complete, focus then shifts to more mature issues such as creating a fully integrated tools stack, supporting a test data environment that doesn’t undermine privacy and security, and determining the best DevOps infrastructure strategy.
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Regardless of where you are in your DevOps journey, we’ve put together some issues of consideration as your practice evolves. Check it out:
- Concern #1: Toolchain Integration – As the practice of DevOps matures, we have seen an explosion of tools, both open-source and commercial. These tools serve every discrete need in the process and there are an estimated 1,500 solutions available. Thus it’s only reasonable that these tools can work together in an integrated pipeline to achieve the effectiveness of DevOps. While some vendors offer out-of-box integrations with popular tools, it’s entirely up to you to do your due diligence to ensure compatibility.
- Concern #2: Watch out For What’s Free – Software teams have always wrestled with the need to balance speed with quality and cost. You can’t get the best of everything, but you do need to know where to compromise, especially since DevOps is all about speed. Working smartly can go a long way toward moving faster without sacrificing quality, even if it means abandoning some aspects of automation to do so. As always, evaluate your costs – ultimately, cutting corners could prevent you from going to market altogether, which helps nobody.
- Concern #3: Cloud vs. On-Premises – DevOps environments seem to run optimally in the cloud, which provide optimal scale, speed, and flexibility to run more builds, tests, and deployments through automated services. With many DevOps vendors hosting their products and services in the cloud as well, it’s logical to host the entire environment there. However, this isn’t possible for many organizations with strict security and compliance requirements where DevOps requires closer monitoring, customization, configuration, and maintenance. Automation and testing may be time-intensive on-premises, causing delays in deployments. One solution could be to use containers while other enterprises may consider developing additional infrastructure.
What do you think? Are you running into any of these concerns as you build out your DevOps strategy? Share your experiences with us in the comments below.
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