5 Steps to Building Momentum for DevOps

In today’s IT industry, some of the most successful professionals are the ones that have mastered multiple skill sets and can manage a wide range of critical activities in the app development and deployment lifecycle. DevOps is one such function that is giving software and IT organizations reasons to cheer. 

DevOps (or development + operations) is a discipline that ably bridges the gap between app development and delivery processes and aligns operations with business objectives. Forbes reports that 50 percent of companies have now implemented DevOps in their organizations, making it one of the most sought-after roles in the industry. DevOps is empowering better technology innovation and revolutionizing the way companies leverage technology for business benefit. 

If you haven’t yet made DevOps a business focus in your enterprise, here are five ways to help get some momentum.

1. Sell the Value Proposition to Management

   IT change usually takes place when tactical IT teams find a better way to perform a function, in a bottom-up approach. But gaining buy-in from your executive teams is critical for making DevOps work well. According to a recent Gartner survey, IT-related initiatives are the #2 priority for CEOS at 31 percent, behind only company growth at 42 percent, which is the highest rank ever since Gartner began their survey. DevOps brings critical business and financial benefits to the table, helping IT organizations to become more flexible and mitigate risk across the deployment process.

2. Incorporate DevOps Culture Into Your Model

   DevOps is all about collaboration, and those organizations that create a culture of better cross-department process management and sharing of tools across development and deployment teams will be in a better competitive position. Not surprisingly, 80 percent of companies report that development and operations now share at least some tools, which is the first step in establishing DevOps culture. But culture is not always easy to change. The number one barrier to DevOps over the past two years in enterprise deployments has been overcoming a “business as usual” attitude that didn’t include risk-taking and experimentation (among other factors). DevOps can drive the positive cultural change that embraces better collaboration and a work environment where everyone is working toward the common goal of higher quality software delivery.

3. Stay Current with DevOps Tools

   The DevOps function requires the use of software management tools, and the fastest growing tool for containerization – the standard unit of software that packages up code to help an application run quickly and reliably from one computing environment to another – is Docker. Docker adoption has surged to 35 percent of the market, taking the lead over Chef and Puppet at 28 percent each and Kubernetes at 14 percent. Docker helps to facilitate the app development and configuration management stages of the process and speed products to market. And when it comes to collaboration tools (a key to streamlining interaction between dev and ops), Slack (49 percent) and GitHub (48 percent) lead adoption or planned adoption by DevOps teams in the next 12 months.

4. Keep Shifting Security to the Left

   With approximately 30 percent of all data breaches resulting from a vulnerability at the application layer, organizations will need to adopt a mature, secure software development process that goes beyond just scanning and fixing security flaws. DevOps teams will need to embed security protocol (DevSecOps) in all of their operations as early as possible in the development lifecycle – known as “shifting left.” Performing tasks such as code analysis and automated penetrating testing earlier in the development process make it possible for organizations to identify and eliminate security issues at every step of the development process, ensuring a more secure deployment environment and faster delivery.

5. Develop Winning Skillsets from Within

   There’s no question that DevOps jobs are among the most prized in the technology industry. DevOps was featured as one of the 11 best jobs in America last year, as reported by CBS. And DevOps jobs are the third-highest tech role ranked by employer demand on Indeed.com but have the second-highest talent deficit (just behind software architect). Filling the talent gap in DevOps can be done by upskilling your teams from within. DevOps Certification Training helps prepare your teams to perform coding, scripting, and testing; leverage the most effective tools such as containerization; and help tighten the relationships between developers and IT operations. 

The line between development and operations is blurring more and more every year, and DevOps professionals are finding themselves at the heart of this technology- and business-oriented trend.