DevOps can help!
During the COVID-19 pandemic, companies all around the world needed to temporarily close their doors and switch to remote work.
Even in good economic times, going fully digital is not an overnight process. Instead, moving to remote work requires lots of strategizing, as well as significant investments in cloud-based technologies that will enable employees to communicate uninterruptedly.
Given that, it is not surprising at all that the crisis has been a true stress test for all organizations, especially those that are still struggling with the siloed business mentality.
To boost employees’ productivity while working remotely, eliminate the gaps between teams, and deliver products faster, many businesses have started adopting the DevOps mindset.
What is DevOps, and how can it reinvent the post-pandemic organizations?
Let’s find out!
What is DevOps?
Let’s take an example. Once your developers write code, they need to wait weeks for it to be placed into production. While waiting, you expect them to produce new lines of code. But, is this really possible, given they do not know whether the previous product features they had built work? After the product is finally tested and put into production, you learn that many issues need to be fixed. This means:
- more work for your software development team
- more work for the IT operations team that ensures the uptime of the product environment
- greater costs for you as an IT business owner
- negative brand experience for customers
That is a typical example of a siloed IT team, where there is no collaboration between software developers and IT operations teams. The lack of communication harms their performance and slows down product development and release.
To bridge this gap, many tech companies are adopting the DevOps mindset. Simply put, DevOps is a set of practices that break down the barriers between development and IT operations teams, ensuring faster product delivery without compromising customer experiences.
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Why Is DevOps Vital to Remote Teams?
DevOps uses several crucial processes, including:
- configuration management
- continuous-integration
- automated testing
- infrastructure as a code
- continuous delivery
- continuous deployment
- continuous monitoring
- orchestration
- containerization
Those practices are applied to synchronize, manage, and automate the pace of software development and release. Given that it is built on the principles of automation and orchestration, it is perfect for managing remote teams. No matter if your teams work from home or office, implementing DevOps can adapt to your business needs and increase productivity and innovation.
Implementation
GitHub recently performed a thorough report on the impact of COVID-19 on software development activities. What they found is that developers’ activities remained consistent and even slightly increased during the pandemic. Simply put, most developers remained productive and agile during these uncertain times.
However, what about other teams that worked mostly in on-premise environments? While DevOps can help your developers maintain or improve productivity, it can also optimize your operations, infosec, and networking teams. It can enhance their collaboration, streamline many business processes, and maximize their performance to shorten time-to-market and meet customers’ needs faster.
That is not surprising at all. Besides tech, many industries have already been implementing the DevOps approach, including finance, inventory management, hospitality, and healthcare.
The Major Challenges of Adopting DevOps
While DevOps brings numerous benefits to the table, it is often hard to implement. DevOps Institute finds that 50% of businesses struggle with managing people, operations, and tools associated with the DevOps transformation. Moreover, attracting and retaining people skilled in DevOps is challenging. Not to mention the costs of hiring a resourceful DevOps engineer and equipping them with the right tools.
Precisely because of that, many software development companies decide to consult a DevOps as a service provider. The benefits of outsourcing DevOps are multiple. First, DevOps service providers hire top-notch engineers that have managed numerous projects. Second, they will talk to you regularly, follow your instructions, and provide consistent feedback, letting your teams work together and make informed decisions.
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Things to Consider when Adopting the DevOps Mindset
When adopting DevOps to bring your remote teams together, here are a few factors to keep in mind:
- Migrate to the cloud – Your goal is to dismantle silos and enhance employee productivity, no matter if your employees work side-by-side or remotely. That is why you should move all the DevOps to the cloud or use cloud-native tools.
- Automate operations – automation will streamline many repetitive tasks, such as testing functionalities or identifying product vulnerabilities, allowing your teams to focus on more complex aspects of their jobs.
- Encourage a better work-life balance. The survey mentioned above found that, while working from the comfort of their homes, software developers worked longer hours. The incapability to balance their private and professional lives increases the likelihood of burnout. Precisely because of that, you should keep the workload reasonable, create a supportive online community, and inspire employees to take regular breaks.
Over to You
Once the COVID-19 pandemic is over, the global business landscape will be changed forever. For many businesses, the Coronavirus lockdown was a chance to understand the benefits of remote work. Some companies may even decide to switch from renting office spaces to adopting remote work policies. And, with the help of DevOps, they will streamline business processes, maximize employee productivity, and cater to their market faster.
Summary:
DevOps Can Benefit Your Remote Team
Going fully digital is not an overnight process. Moving to remote work requires lots of strategizing, as well as significant investments in cloud-based technologies that will enable employees to communicate uninterruptedly. To boost employees’ productivity while working remotely, eliminate the gaps between teams, and deliver products faster, many businesses have started adopting the DevOps mindset. DevOps is a set of practices that break down the barriers between development and IT operations teams, ensuring faster product delivery without compromising customer experiences. Given that it is built on the principles of automation and orchestration, it is perfect for managing remote teams. No matter if your teams work from home or office, implementing DevOps can adapt to your business needs and increase productivity and innovation. While DevOps can help your developers maintain or improve productivity, it can also optimize your operations, infosec, and networking teams.
