A practical guide to starting your DevOps journey

There is more to DevOps than cutting-edge technology or smarter application development frameworks. DevOps is a critical piece of the digital transformation puzzle and a change in the culture of an organisation that helps it accelerate time to market and innovate to remain ahead of the competition.

At its core, DevOps is a smarter set of practices where organisations integrate software development and operations. This enables better collaboration and communication between the respective teams. It also enables organisations to accelerate the speed of software development and improve the quality of their software.

Here is a guide to getting started with this enormous shift in organisational culture:

1. Determine your goals and requirements:

Start by considering what your business’s goals and needs are. Do you want to accelerate software development? Improve end-user satisfaction? Enhance your ability to innovate rapidly. All of the above? Prioritise your goals, with the Dev and Ops teams working closely together to determine what resources you will need for a successful DevOps transformation.

2. Create a DevOps transformation roadmap:

Given the complexity of a DevOps transformation, you will need to roll out your strategy in a systematic manner. A roadmap will help you align your DevOps transformation with your business needs. Map out where you want to begin and where you want to go in a step-by-step guide. Assign clear responsibilities to each DevOps team member.

3. Look at your human resources:

A successful DevOps transformation depends on having a knowledgeable team that understands the new ways of working and the associated tools and technologies. Look at the mixture of internal upskilling and reskilling as well as outsourcing that will meet your needs. Consider creating a DevOps Centre of Excellence to oversee your transformation.

4. Think about the culture before technology:

Map out how you will drive cultural change, given that DevOps disrupts organisational power structures by breaking down the walls between the dev, ops, and security siloes. Train up employees in new DevOps practices, processes, and toolsets. Define new ways of collaborating and map out workflows, and also document these processes and workflows in a central repository.

5. Select the tools and tech:

The DevOps toolchain is, of course, a critical success factor. The right technologies will help you accelerate speed to market, innovate faster, simplify development and automate processes such as testing. Look for tools that are compatible with each other. Some key concepts to bear in mind as you embark on this journey include:

• Containerisation, serverless computing, and microservices are a must for successful DevOps transformation and digital transformation. They enable enterprises to create light, portable applications at high velocity.

• The toolchain must support continuous integration/ continuous delivery/ continuous deployment (CI/CD). CI/CD is the crux of DevOps. CI/CD refers to automation and continuous monitoring throughout a piece of software’s lifecycle from integration and testing to delivery and deployment.

6. Keep learning and getting better:

A DevOps journey, like digital transformation, never really ends. It’s about continuous learning and improvement as your team finds smarter ways to do things. Seek feedback from the DevOps team, stakeholders, customers, and end-users to identify challenges, risks, and opportunities, and keep finding ways to exceed expectations.

At 1Nebula, we guide organisations in their DevOps, FinOps, and digital transformation journeys. Get in touch to learn how our knowledgeable team, DevOps experience, FinOps solutions, and seamless process can guide your transformation.