Companies strive to achieve the best possible products in the least amount of time. This competition has led to the creation of various methodologies and practices. In this article, we'll focus on the two main strategies used in the development field. These are DevOps and Agile Methodologies. We'll begin by looking into DevOps and what makes it essential. After that, we'll unfold its roles and tools. Then, we'll look at Agile and its key concepts and benefits. Last but not least, we'll see their similarities and differences. Let's dive in!
What is DevOps?
DevOps (Development and Operations) is a set of practices developed in 2008. Its creators are Patrick Debois and Andrew Clay. These practices aim to connect Software Development and IT operations as a concept. With it, companies can deliver superior products with fewer roadblocks. Also, the concepts of Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery are key within DevOps. CI/CD means teams are constantly building, testing, and updating changes and updates. As a result, it ensures a high-quality final product.
Why is DevOps Important?
You now have a general idea of DevOps, but why should a team apply these practices? Why makes DevOps important? In the past, Development and Operations teams used to work in separate lanes. In consequence, this process led to blind spots in implementation. If code gets kicked back and forth, there's usually no clear responsible party or course of action. Also, this can contribute to various issues and delays. Yet, when both teams work together, results are not only superior.
With collaboration throughout a whole life cycle, there are also fewer roadblocks. Nowadays, new software launches faster and faster. As a result, smooth and efficient processes are crucial to success. Further, DevOps has many other benefits. These include accelerated innovation, improved collaboration, reliability, security, and scalability.
How Does DevOps Work?
The concept behind DevOps is quite simple. It combines development and operations in a single team. As a result, this methodology encourages team members to work on cross-functional skills. The DevOps process typically involves four main stages: planning, development, testing, and deployment. Let's see what each stage entails!
1. DevOps Planning
The first phase, planning, is where teams describe and define the future-developed product's features. In this phase, they also organize and schedule tasks required to develop the product.
2. DevOps Developing
In the development stage, team members write, test, review, and integrate code. This phase entails code building, testing, and deployment via CI/CD.
3. DevOps Delivering
Once the software is developed, it moves to the third phase, delivery. Here, the software is deployed into production environments. This phase includes release management, deployment automation, and monitoring.
4. DevOps Operating
The operating phase is where the software is in use. During this phase, there's monitoring, maintenance, and troubleshooting within production environments. This phase is crucial to ensure the software is performing optimally, and issues are quickly resolved
| Development |
Testing |
Deployment |
Monitoring |
| 01. Plan |
03. Build |
05. Release |
07. Operate |
| 02. Code |
04. Test |
06. Deploy |
08. Monitor |
By combining development and operations in a single team, DevOps creates a culture of collaboration, communication, and continuous improvement. This methodology encourages team members to work on cross-functional skills and to take ownership of the entire software development lifecycle. The result is a faster, more reliable, and more efficient software development process.
What is DevSecOps?
DevSecOps is an approach that integrates security testing and protection into the DevOps model. The conventional security model focuses on checking and correcting security defects before release. However, DevSecOps incorporates security measures into every step of the development process, resulting in faster delivery and building secure code simultaneously.
What does a DevOps Engineer do?
A DevOps engineer focuses on finding and implementing processes, methodologies, and tools. These apply to all needs that arise during the software development life cycle. For instance, it covers coding, deployment, maintenance, and updates. DevOps engineers work on unifying and combining development and operations tasks. Besides their technical knowledge, they usually specialize in leadership and team collaboration.
What is Agile Methodology?
Agile is a Project Management and Software Development approach. It's often used for cross-functional teams and focused on iterative development. As a result, Agile teams deliver work in small increments. For example, they work in sprints or iterations, including development and testing. This style might ring a bell from DevOps, which focuses on improvements and delivery. This method involves close collaborations. These are often between developers and stakeholders. Also, it offers regular deliveries, frequent inspections, self-organization, and great adaptability to change. Techs and trends are constantly shifting and evolving. That's why adaptability is essential in the development industry. Also, it's part of why Agile gains constant popularity.
What is The Agile Manifesto?
The Agile Manifesto identifies the values and principles of this methodology. It declares the four value focuses they highlighted through working with this approach. In all these focuses, they present a hierarchy of priorities to handle an Agile approach. Here, individuals and interactions are over processes and tools, as well as working software is over comprehensive documentation. Likewise, customer collaboration is over contract negotiation, and answering to change is over following a plan.
The Agile Manifesto, written by seventeen professionals back in 2001, outlines twelve principles that emphasize simplicity, sustainability, and maintaining a consistent pace among sponsors, developers, and users. Adaptability to changes, even late in development, is also crucial. The delivery should occur frequently, ranging from a couple of weeks to a few months, depending on continuous delivery. The primary focus of the Agile Manifesto is working software, which serves as its measurement of results.
What is Scrum in Agile?
Scrum is an Agile Product Development Framework—i.e., a specific set of practices. Its focus lies on delivering value in the least amount of time. Additionally, work gets organized in sprints, which tend to last around two weeks. Each sprint has specific goals to reach within the specified amount of time. Scrum is ideal for cross-functional teams. Also, it works best on projects divided into clearly-defined increments. If you want to learn more about Scrum, you can do so inhere.
Why use Agile Methodology?
The advantages of Agile are plentiful. Yet, there are some main reasons why companies choose it. These include increasing performance, improving satisfaction, and increasing adaptability. And, as we've seen, adaptability is essential in the dev industry. Also, Agile makes it easier for teams to tackle changes during processes. As a result, this ensures that final products meet specific needs. Other benefits include faster time-to-market, predictable costs, higher-quality products, and project transparency.
DevOps vs. Agile Methodology
As you might have noticed, Agile and DevOps are pretty similar. They both aim to get high-quality products as fast as possible. But what sets them apart? Let's go over some of their differences.
| |
DevOps |
Agile |
| Team |
DevOps teams are often large. It brings the development and operations teams —which tend to be apart— together. |
Agile involves smaller teams, with developers and product managers reacting to clients’ changing needs. |
| Focus |
The focus of DevOps lies in testing
and delivery. Also, its aim is to deliver end-to-end business solutions. |
It focuses on iterative development and constant changes. Besides, it relies on Software Development. |
| Process |
It works with hyper-releases and may have several of these every day. |
Here, the focus is on iterative development and constant changes. |
| Stages |
The DevOps process also includes delivery and maintenance. |
The Agile process starts with ideation and finishes with code completion. |
Agile and DevOps can also work together like their different hybrid models. Teams mix the best of both to deliver faster products while having user needs at the forefront. Yet, given cultural shifts, their implementation should be well thought out. These methods apply mainly to larger companies.
Conclusion
DevOps and Agile are two excellent models. Both are available for devs to work more efficiently and achieve better results. Moreover, your choice will rely on composition and requirements. In some cases, combining the two might be the correct answer. We hope we've given you a comprehensive DevOps and Agile Methodology overview. Also, we expect to encourage you to look into these development strategies further!
