More businesses are turning to DevOps implementations to deliver software and updates with more efficiency. As much as business leaders know DevOps can help them to be faster and more agile, many of them are unsure how to get started. Many businesses even begin implementing DevOps only to run into unforeseen problems that hinder the process.Â
While DevOps can be beneficial, you do not want to make changes lightly. You need to know what you are getting into and prepare for ways the change can impact your company. Having a good team and providing them with the right infrastructure-as-code (IaC) tools will help, but there is so much more you need to consider before starting.Â
Here are five vital tips for successful DevOps implementations.
Evaluate Your Processes
You need to start by learning what DevOps is and what it means to your organization. Everyone on the team needs to understand what DevOps can do and the types of problems it can solve for your company.Â
Evaluate your entire development cycle from beginning to end. Look at the different processes that go into development to find different bottlenecks and inefficiencies. By finding the areas where your current processes come up short, you will be able to identify the areas to concentrate on when implementing DevOps.
Collaboration and Communication
Collaboration and communication are at the heart of successful DevOps implementation. You can get all of the best DevOps tools available, but if you do not have teams ready to work together and communicate, you will not achieve the full benefits of DevOps implementation.
If you are going to succeed, you need to instill a strong sense of collaboration and cooperation among teams. Beyond that, you also need to provide your team members with tools that will help them communicate and collaborate. Communications platforms and collaboration software can be just as important as the tools that contribute directly to development.
Set Goals
DevOps implementation is not just about getting the right tools and changing processes. You need to assess the operations of your company and set goals for the implementation. If you are just buying new tools without setting a new direction, the implementation will not result in that much change.Â
Another good tip is to start with one smaller, more easily achievable goal and then scale up from there. Changing everything at once might be too much of a disruption. Instead, select a smaller goal and once that is achieved, move on to goals that are larger and more complex.
Automation
Automation is a big part of what makes DevOps beneficial to modern businesses. If you are going to achieve the full benefits of the change, you should automate as much as you can. Whether it is scanning code for misconfigurations or automated testing, you can do a lot to make your operations more efficient by using a variety of different automation tools.Â
You may also want to take automation one step at a time. If you try to dive headfirst into automation, it might be a bit too much for your team to keep up with. Instead, take a manual process that has been taking a lot of time and toil from your team and implement an automation tool. Let your team monitor for a few weeks to see how it goes and then take what you learned and apply that feedback to automating more processes.
Know Your Key Metrics
Set your key metrics from the very beginning of the implementation process. Without metrics, you won’t be able to keep track of the progress you make. A lack of tracking will also make it difficult to identify issues that might be holding back your progress.Â
Most organizations will need to focus on three points: Lead time, deployment time and mean time-to-recover. Beyond that, try to think about your users when defining key metrics. What do they like? What do they care about? What makes for a more pleasing experience?
DevOps implementation is not simple. By taking the right steps to prepare, you can avoid the worst problems and put yourself in a position to respond well to the issues that do come up during implementation.
