By now, it’s imperative that organizations who want to accelerate their innovation should be leveraging DevOps solutions in their toolchain. With a robust ecosystem that grows by the day however, choosing the right tools has become difficult. Notably, with each vendor offering their own messaging and intentions, IT leaders may be hard pressed to find a solution that fits their needs.
Setting up a DevOps toolchain is difficult already especially when there are numerous other priorities in the organization. According to Forrester Analyst Chris Condo in Cloud-Based DevOps Tools are Ripening Quickly, the toolchain is complicated for the following reasons:
- Integration: Larger DevOps teams can dedicate time and energy to the nuts and bolts of continuous innovation and integration, including coding languages and bug tracking. For smaller teams, a complicated integration process only takes time away from innovation.
- Resource Hogging: DevOps is the constant journey of trying to make the most out of resources while optimizing what is already there. What many think is a short-term project often drags several quarters out and takes up more time than needed.
- Expensive: Open-source leads DevOps, but implementing these free tools takes time and energy. While the cost is worth it, initial startup costs can be higher than originally imagined.
With this in mind, there is still an opportunity for both vendors and IT organizations to work together in innovation projects. Even with a number of different approaches to DevOps, Condo suggest that solution evaluators look at the following four qualities when selecting their solutions.
- Assess Intention: As we stated above, messaging is important. However, more important in the DevOps toolchain landscape is intention. When it comes to looking at a particular solution, research further and look at the upcoming investments and statements made by vendor leadership.
- Choose Strategically: Every organization is in a different place on their innovation journey. Obviously, an organization transitioning from the waterfall methodology will have different priorities one born in the cloud. Having the right solutions will not only smoothen your transition period, but also avoid any undue complexities that will keep your innovation in the weeds.
- Research Best Practices: One of the best ways to gauge DevOps readiness is to examine the efforts of other organizations. Encourage your team to network with colleagues in the industry and work through trial error so that you work towards the best outcomes.
- Include DevOps in Your Roadmap: DevOps needs to be included in your product roadmap, much like cloud migration for your data and applications. Remember to focus on being customer obsessed so that you can work with the most appropriate of solutions.
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Are you swamped by the art of possible in DevOps? Our DevOps Jumpstart solution will help you take your innovation needs to the next level so you can compete in a crowded marketplace. Get in touch at sales@perficient.com for more information and download our hybrid cloud guide below.
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