The move towards implementing DevOps to streamline communication between the various different teams involved in software development and operation within an organisation has revolutionised the way in which teams integrate, and this revolution shows no signs of slowing. With DevOps fast becoming standard business practice, the world of DevOps is evolving rapidly. Many tools and strategies aimed at facilitating and maintaining best practice in DevOPs have been developed and these are becoming increasingly more accessible. We take a look at the Top 7 trends which experts are predicting will emerge within DevOps in 2017, and how they could help your operation run a successful DevOps strategy.
1. DevOps will have a defining moment
Until recently, the definition of DevOPs has been very broad. Definitions of what actually constitute DevOps have ranged from small operations simply implementing more regular communication between teams to large organisations having a clearly defined set of DevOps principles aligned to their mission statement. As DevOps becomes the norm rather than a revolutionary way of working, a far more tangible definition is likely to emerge. A great deal of work has been done by trailblazing organisation to define exactly what DevOps is, and what it is capable of delivering, and as this work is disseminated and trickles down to smaller organisations DevOps’ defining moment will finally be here.
2. New DevOps tools will be emerging
Many of the larger companies, such as Google and Amazon, who paved the way in DevOps, created their own DevOps tools to successfully integrate different operations and enable effective collaborative working. As DevOps increases in scope and popularity, becoming mainstream, many more tools are being developed
externally which facilitate and manage collaborative working. These will start to become more widely available to organisations wishing to employ state of the art tools to implement manage their DevOps strategy, making what can seem like a daunting task far simpler for the inexperienced.
3. Automation will have its day
Many of the new DevOps tools coming onto the market are aimed at enabling automation to speed up software testing. Whilst it is sort-sighted to rely on automation alone – there are still some tasks only a human can realistically carry out – using automated testing of new software frees up resources within the software development and testing team, making automation an essential part of any successful DevOps strategy.
4. Operations role in testing will gradually become less important
With advent of automation, as well as the many other strategies employed in DevOps, turnaround times have reduced drastically and the role of operations in testing will become significantly less important. Some experts predict that operations will become so marginalised that in its current form it may well be eliminated entirely in the future.
5. Continuous testing will become essential
As operations become less and less involved in the testing process, continuous automated testing will be key, helping organisations to deliver quality in a timely manner. However,’ given that it is bad business practice to rely on automated tested alone, and given that as we have seen operations are likely to be taking a step back, developers will need to expand their remit to become fully versed in testing code and providing this data to operations in order to enable rigorous and speedy testing.
6. Security will be a significant issue
Whist the testing role of operations becomes less significant, security issues will still be a key consideration. As recent high-profile hacks have demonstrated, cyber-attacks continue to increase in sophistication and impact and no code can ever be 100% secure. Organisations will need to be savvy about addressing security concerns as soon as they start to implement DevOps, and all teams will need a sound understanding of security concerns in their current environment and their role in ensuring compliance. Forward thinking organisations have already started to imbed this concept within their teams and we are starting to see an entirely new integration strategy emerging which encompasses Development, Operations and Security – or DevSecOps. Forward planning for security will also become increasingly important for efficient DevOps and security will begin to be implemented early on the DevOPs lifecycle rather than becoming a secondary consideration which is thrown up at the point of testing.
7. Metrics will begin to matter
Very few organisations implementing DevOp have paid much attention to metrics, primarily because resources have been deployed in the development and implementation of DevOps. As DevOPs become firmly embedded in operations, metrics will start to become increasingly more important. Metrics will become an essential tool to measure the success of an organisation’s DevOps strategy, and to refine and improve the strategy for the future, making an understanding of DevOps metrics essential to the continued success of any DevOps strategy. There is likely to be an increase in uptake of the implementation of tools for DevOps which measure and analyse key metrics.
Des Nnorchiri
Des Nnochiri has a Master’s Degree (MEng) in Civil Engineering with Architecture, and spent several years at the Architectural Association, in London. He views technology with a designer’s eye, and is very keen on software and solutions which put a new wrinkle on established ideas and practices. He now writes for markITwrite across the full spectrum of corporate tech and design. In previous lives, he has served as a Web designer, and an IT consultant to The Learning Paper, a UK-based charity extending educational resources to underprivileged youngsters in West Africa. A film buff and crime fiction aficionado, Des moonlights as a novelist and screenwriter. His short thriller, “Trick” was filmed in 2011 by Shooting Incident Productions, who do location work on “Emmerdale”.