Before the advent of DevOps, software development was carried out using different methodologies. Among them, Waterfall and Agile methodologies were the most prevalent.
Waterfall & Agile Methodologies
Waterfall model is one of the oldest methodologies to have been employed. It follows a sequential approach, i.e. each stage depends on information from the previous stage. In other words, this model follows a top-down approach.
Rigidity is the major downside of the Waterfall model. This model is not viable if the project needs flexibility or if the project is long term and requires ongoing changes.
However in Agile methodology, the approach is iterative. Agile methodology promotes continuous iteration of development and testing throughout SDLC. Design and testing activities happen simultaneously, unlike in Waterfall model. But in Agile, we create an ongoing release, each featuring small, incremental changes to the previous version. At every iteration, the project is tested. It helps to understand and identify minor issues at an early stage to avoid major issues as the project progresses.
DevOps
Though Agile methodology brought agility to development, it failed to bring agility to the operations. This was addressed by the DevOps Methodology. In the DevOps model, development and operation teams work together closely as one team. DevOps helps us to simplify both the development and deployment processes.
Automation is the key to DevOps. It configures continuous integration, continuous delivery and continuous deployment in the release cycle. DevOps helps in team collaboration, reduction in failures/rollbacks and also provides scope for continuous improvement.
Stages in DevOps:
DevOps Lifecycle
Waterfall model is one of the oldest methodologies to have been employed. It follows a sequential approach, i.e. each stage depends on information from the previous stage. In other words, this model follows a top-down approach.
Rigidity is the major downside of the Waterfall model. This model is not viable if the project needs flexibility or if the project is long term and requires ongoing changes.
However in Agile methodology, the approach is iterative. Agile methodology promotes continuous iteration of development and testing throughout SDLC. Design and testing activities happen simultaneously, unlike in Waterfall model. But in Agile, we create an ongoing release, each featuring small, incremental changes to the previous version. At every iteration, the project is tested. It helps to understand and identify minor issues at an early stage to avoid major issues as the project progresses.
DevOps
Though Agile methodology brought agility to development, it failed to bring agility to the operations. This was addressed by the DevOps Methodology. In the DevOps model, development and operation teams work together closely as one team. DevOps helps us to simplify both the development and deployment processes.
Automation is the key to DevOps. It configures continuous integration, continuous delivery and continuous deployment in the release cycle. DevOps helps in team collaboration, reduction in failures/rollbacks and also provides scope for continuous improvement.
Stages in DevOps:
- Continuous Development
- Continuous Testing
- Continuous Integration
- Continuous Deployment
- Continuous Monitoring
DevOps Lifecycle
Continuous Development
Continuous development involves constant planning, outlining and coding of the software/application. The main aim is to optimize the process of code-building and to reduce the time between development and deployment. Jira is an Agile-friendly planning tool. Multiple developers working on the same application can write the code in various languages. Maintaining a centralized code is called Source Code Management. Version control tools manage the code. Git, SVN, CVS, Mercurial are the most popular tools used for maintaining centralized code. Github, Gitlab, Bitbucket are few companies that provide cloud hosting for software development version control using Git.
Continuous Testing
Testing is the critical task of any development process. In DevOps, test cases are auto executed and build processes are validated. When a code is built in Jenkins, this will directly reflect in the testing environment. The testing team performs testing, and if an issue arises, it will be redirected to the developers who committed that change. For automation testing, tools like Selenium, JUnit and few others are available.
Continuous Integration
Continuous Integration is another critical stage in DevOps lifecycle. Whenever a commit happens in the code in Git, this practice will build the application and allow for early detection of problems. Code building here involves not only compilation but also unit testing, code review, integration testing and packaging.
Jenkins is one of the most popular continuous integration tools available in the market. Whenever there is a change in the Git repository, Jenkins fetches the updated code, and it prepares a build of that code which is an executable file in the form of a war or a jar. This build is then forwarded to the test server or the production server.
Continuous Deployment
In this stage, deployments will happen in respective phases. After validating and testing the build artefact, the environment auto starts the deployment on the respective platforms using a continuous delivery process. But for deploying in a production environment, authentication is mandatory. The above-stated process is entirely automated.
Continuous Monitoring
After the deployment on the production environment, we must operate the whole system and monitor the application. We monitor the performance of the software and even check the system errors like low memory, server down, server load etc.
We are not only monitoring the performance but also the functionality of the software. During this phase, network issues get resolved. Operations team looks for user activities and improper behaviour of the application. Nagios is a popular monitoring tool used in DevOps for continuous monitoring.
All the phases mentioned above are carried in a continuous loop until the desired quality is achieved.
Previously, OTT platforms and eCommerce giants mainly used DevOps because of their continuous deployments. But now most of the companies are using DevOps for quality and flexibility reasons.
All the above stages give us an overview of how DevOps methodology has revamped the software development life cycle (SDLC).
At H-Town Technologies, we help you identify the technologies that ensure continuous integration, continuous delivery and continuous deployment. Along with that, we also offer numerous solutions to get beyond standard DevOps capabilities to deliver prompt IT solutions in a way you wish. To ensure efficiency, we do continuous auditing for the app/website even after it is launched.
