What is DevOps automation?

During the planning phase, DevOps teams need to understand the business/application goals and requirements of the product or feature. The product will come with a slew of requirements and be operating within a release plan, so it’s important to know the metrics you will be using to measure performance and success. This should all be influenced by feedback from stakeholders, customers, and other key players as you solidify your development strategy.

Automation in this stage allows you to more easily keep track of KPIs and metrics, as well as gather vital feedback without having to devote substantial amounts of resources to the process.

Developers and engineers will take a project from the planning phase and implement it, at least in terms of coding and/or configuration artifacts. This is done using a source code repository where code can be checked in, reviewed, and changed; that repository also stores different versions of code.

DevOps automation can not only automatically compile code, store it in version control, deploy it into testing environments, and eventually release it to end users, it can also be deployed to assist in code generation itself.

In this next phase, the code is taken from the source code repository and compiled into artifacts that can now be fully carried out. Automated tests are conducted to ensure that the executed code is satisfactory and can be deployed. Metrics are also used to gauge the quality of the code, its performance, the build performance, and more before a team approves the product for release.

Given the large amounts of measuring, regression testing, and continuous integration that can all be automated and standardized, automation is especially useful during the building stage.

There is also an entire process dedicated to testing the software product or feature, often referred to as software verification. Software verification helps ensure the quality of the software features for production, deployment, etc.

Software testing and validation exercises use unit tests, acceptance and regression testing, security and vulnerability analysis, configuration testing, and performance measurement, which are often all automated with tools and applications. In fact, automated self-testing is standard practice for every build so that developers know the code is functioning properly and quickly correct issues when they are found.

Once all of the building and testing has been completed, the DevOps team can release the new feature or product. This happens through a process known as staging, where the team can package the release with package configuration practices. To get released, it is also likely that the release needs to be approved by higher-ups, ensuring that any feedback from executives or managers is integrated. This process is automated using tools such as package management software.

Because DevOps relies on iterative software deployment, updates must be released into user environments quickly and regularly. This requires coordinating all relevant releases and confirming that backups are available in the case of a system failure. The easiest way to ensure updates are deployed safely and effectively is to automate schedules or timed releases.

Governance processes help with audit compliance, change management, and information security, allowing DevOps teams to keep pace with production despite near-constant changes. To avoid non-compliance, damaging shortcuts, and bottlenecks, automated governance processes help DevOps maintain CI/CD without risking the quality of work.

Finally, because DevOps is an iterative methodology, each of these automations must be capable of operating concurrently as different features or builds are moving through the process.

Sometimes it seems DevOps is engaged in a tug of war between adapting to change and standardizing practices to increase efficiency and function at scale. DevOps streamlines the development process, but you don’t want to miss out on the ability to creatively address new circumstances. Thankfully, the two ideals are not mutually exclusive; Automation can help you focus on standardization while still prioritizing adaptability for a ‘best of both worlds’ approach to DevOps.

Standardization is most important when:

• Multiple teams or departments need to collaborate despite different processes, vocabulary, or metrics.
• Regulatory compliance issues demand increased control over how various processes function.
• Budgetary demands necessitate closer management of resources across all involved groups.

However, too much standardization can make your systems and processes too inflexible, to the point where your team suffers from issues like:

• A lack of innovation or a prescriptive solution to every problem—even when the solution does not effectively serve the outcome.
• Slower solutions or processes that can be quickly handled by a team instead of waiting on a standardized system to implement a solution.

Automation provides the answer. Customizing your automation to the right processes is key so that your team isn’t caught up in sluggish manual tasks that could be automated. Selectively automating also prevents teams from becoming mentally complacent or reliant on their automation software for tasks that are better suited to human innovation.

For example, many DevOps teams speed up governance tasks by using a ‘standard change,’ an accepted change that is low risk and common enough to be standardized. By their nature, code changes can’t really be ‘standard’ since almost any change can create problems in production, ranging from minor usability issues to major outages. Not every step can be automated, but a ‘standard change' can be set with specific automation applications and rules with governance (change management) processes; this should result in code being accurately changed while the update release is not unnecessarily slowed.

Through It all, the ‘automate where possible’ mandate still applies—just with the understanding that those processes that demand more human ingenuity fall into the ‘not possible’ category.

Every enterprise should try to manage their DevOps processes with the best automation software, but not every platform offers the same tools, resources, or functions. DevOps automation should have the following features to be competitive and useful:

• Data validation
  Inaccurate data and code changes can damage your entire strategy. Automated data validation catches these mistakes before changes are deployed.
• Audit, history, and comparisons
  The right DevOps automation platform will track, audit, and store all changes in the configuration data lifecycle.
• Access control
  Not every person should have access to the same settings or data, so a platform should also be secure with access control while still allowing data to be shared with authorized team members to keep projects moving. Automation helps provide secure access to sensitive data without slowing down any processes.

No matter your industry or operations, DevOps is simplified and streamlined with ServiceNow’s automation platforms. More and more businesses and industries are focusing on going digital, which means software and the user experience are some of the top priorities for companies. This makes DevOps and cloud technologies a core function of business infrastructure, and automation is how DevOps can be successfully implemented at scale across any enterprise.

ServiceNow’s ITSM Pro uses the power of the Now Platform^® to speed up administrative tasks, provide more insight and connectivity for your team, and minimize risk during both the development and deployment phases. This is all done through automation in change management processes – whether the changes are in code or in configuration parameters – and by providing managers and operators with reliable data for insights and auditing that is automatically populated and connected.

Consistent compliance, team alignment, greater insights and analytics across the entire value stream, and faster release readiness are all a part of the ITSM Pro ServiceNow experience. Scale your enterprise with DevOps from ServiceNow. Click here to get started!