A strong understanding of DevOps can help you improve the quality and efficiency of your mobile application development, but the way this promising methodology works is fluid. We can expect to see some pretty radical changes in the coming years, and understanding which way the wind is blowing can help you stay ahead of the competition while also improving the efficacy of your own internal operations.
What is DevOps?
DevOps is essentially a fusion of software development and information technology operations. By incorporating DevOps into the way your business runs, you get more oversight over the entire pipeline, and that allows your teams to work better with less redundancies. New numbers show that 60% of companies have either incorporated DevOps into their business models or plan to do so in 2018. This is especially crucial since apps are becoming an increasingly more prominent force in how businesses run, and mobile application development relies so critically on your team’s ability to adapt quickly to the needs of your customers and make changes to your application that are both sensible and expedient. The future of DevOps is increasingly synonymous with the future of business; and while we can’t predict with full confidence how the methodology will grow in the coming years, there are some trends we can expect to see in terms of DevOps development.
A Synthesis of Agile and DevOps
While many tend to see agile and DevOps methodologies as non-compatible and even hostile to one another, the simple fact is that these two systems can often fill in the weaknesses of one another and create a more holistic work environment. The future of DevOps is likely to complement rather than supplant agile in many workplaces, at least in the short term. While Agile can break down a project into compartmentalized and modular components, the ambiguity of the larger organizational structure can often lead to missed deadlines and a lack of communications between teams. DevOps development will likely see much of the internal structure of agile teams kept in place but for the addition of an operations person who can facilitate better communications between teams and minimize the jarring transition from development to deployment that vanilla agile methodologies often suffer from.
Scaling to Accommodate Multi-Cloud Environments
Cloud computing is becoming one of the major new standards in development, and the increasingly complex tools and complications that separate development and deployment means that having a DevOps pipeline in place is more critical than ever before. As liaisons between the two arms of your development cycle, DevOps is only likely to gain more prominence. But more and more software is going to be forced to rely on multiple clouds, and that will only make the jobs of DevOps professionals more difficult. DevOps will increasingly become more about responding to the changing technologies that power these cloud platforms and adapting to make sure that their own software is making the most of them. It will also require an understanding of native features available in these cloud platforms and communicating them to dev teams so that they can cut back on labor and minimize the work that needs to be done during deployment.
Smartly Implemented Automation
The continuous update structure of DevOps means that developers can continue to deliver the content they need to their users regardless of changes in their needs, but it also means that DevOps work is never done. That’s one of the main reasons why we can expect to see more automation taking hold within the discipline. A misunderstanding of what DevOps is and an over-reliance on waterfall structures has led many organizations to automate DevOps too much, and the result are inefficient oversight and a core failure in communications between teams. As the industry grows, we’re bound to continue to see a boom in the marketing of more DevOps automation tools, but developers will better learn how to find the fine balance between features that can be automated and features that need the personal touch of an engineer who knows what they’re doing. Unfortunately, it will take time for the industry to figure it out, and individual businesses will have to turn a careful eye towards the demands of their business and avoid jumping on the newest shiny thing.
