To ensure that businesses get the most out of their DevOps initiatives, here are 13 DevOps best practices designed to make agility a core element in the software development process:
1. Implement CI/CD
A continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline automates the entire software delivery process, from code integration and testing to deployment in production. This automation ensures that code changes are quickly and consistently validated (reducing the risk of human error and the time required for manual processes). By enabling the "shift to the left" concept, where code safety and quality are assessed early in the development process, organizations can easily identify and rectify issues at earlier stages. The result is faster, more reliable software delivery, enhancing agility and responsiveness to changing demands while also saving valuable time and resources.
2. Build a culture of collaboration
DevOps best practices encourage a culture of shared responsibility and continuous improvement, promoting close cooperation between development, operations, and other stakeholders within the organization. Collaboration ensures open communication channels, enabling teams to work together seamlessly to identify and resolve issues promptly. This not only leads to more efficient problem-solving but also enhances the quality and reliability of products and services. Additionally, a collaborative culture creates a positive and productive work environment, contributing to overall employee satisfaction and organizational success.
3. Automate wherever possible
Automation is a core DevOps principle that extends across nearly all aspects of the software development and deployment lifecycle. By automating routine and essential tasks—code builds, testing, deployment, infrastructure provisioning, and more—organizations can achieve several advantages. Automation reduces the potential for human errors, enhances consistency, and accelerates the software delivery pipeline. Furthermore, it frees up crucial human resources from repetitive responsibilities, enabling teams to focus more of their time on strategic and value-added activities. Simply put, automation boosts efficiency, reliability, and scalability while lowering operational costs, and should be used whenever it is available.
4. Monitor continuously
Continuous monitoring in DevOps allows organizations to maintain real-time visibility into the performance and stability of their systems. This involves the constant collection and analysis of data from various sources, including application logs, system metrics, and traces. Advantages include early issue detection and resolution; by locating anomalies and addressing issues proactively, organizations can prevent minor problems from evolving into significant incidents capable of disrupting operations. Continuous monitoring ensures that systems operate efficiently, reliably, and at their optimal performance levels, improving user satisfaction and minimizing downtime in the process.
5. Prioritize observability
Observability allows organizations to gain deep insights into system behavior and performance in real-time. Employing observability solutions to track goal-relevant metrics provides a clear understanding of the system's health and can help organizations make informed decisions about improvements and optimizations. This promotes transparency and facilitates efficient issue resolution, leading to higher-quality software delivery.
6. Resist the urge to establish a separate DevOps team
Although some might reject this particular tip, the truth is that separate DevOps teams can easily lead to additional silos that stand in the way of seamless collaboration and shared cross-team ownership. DevOps should be focused on uniting the various software development and operations teams along a common purpose for more effective and efficient software delivery. For that to happen, businesses need to be sure that everyone is involved (and no one is considered outside of the team).
7. Incorporate security at every level with DevSecOps
Beyond DevOps there is DevSecOps, which emphasizes identifying and addressing security vulnerabilities at each stage of development and deployment. By incorporating security early, organizations can proactively mitigate risks and reduce the potential for security breaches. DevSecOps ensures that security is not treated as an afterthought but as an integral part of the software delivery process, helping build secure software, maintain user trust, and reduce the cost and effort associated with addressing security issues post-deployment.
8. Use Agile project management methodologies
Agile project management methodologies, such as Scrum and Kanban, align well with the iterative and fast-paced nature of DevOps. These methodologies encourage breaking down projects into smaller, manageable increments, allowing organizations to deliver value to users more rapidly. Agile also promotes frequent communication and collaboration among team members, facilitating the identification and resolution of issues that could otherwise expand into problems. Agile practices enhance adaptability, responsiveness, and the ability to pivot in response to changing requirements or priorities.
9. Focus on concepts first, and then find the right tools
Without a solid grasp of DevOps concepts, organizations risk choosing tools that may not fully support their objectives. By first comprehending the underlying principles, businesses can then make informed tooling decisions, optimize their DevOps practices, and avoid potential inefficiencies. That said, once the concepts are firmly established, decision makers will need to select digital solutions that can handle their DevOps implementation. When choosing tools, consider the tasks at hand, the established goals, and the current systems these tools will have to integrate with—a reliable centralized platform providing a single source of truth can be invaluable.
10. Keep up with documentation and information sharing
DevOps thrives on transparency, which means that effective documentation and information sharing are vital for collaborative DevOps practices. Ensuring that all relevant knowledge is captured, shared, and accessible to team members facilitates efficient onboarding, troubleshooting, and decision-making processes. By maintaining up-to-date documentation, organizations can reduce the risk of data silos and ensure that critical information is available when and where it is needed.
11. Solicit continuous feedback
Integration, delivery, deployment, and testing aren’t the only continuous processes in DevOps; soliciting insider perspectives and user feedback should also be an ongoing activity. Seeking continuous feedback from customers, stakeholders, and team members promotes improvement across the board—uncovering issues, identifying opportunities for enhancement, and ensuring that the delivered software aligns with user expectations. This also plays a major role in establishing a culture of collaboration and learning within the organization. By continuously gathering and acting upon feedback, organizations can refine their products and services, enhance user satisfaction, and maintain their competitive edge.
12. Employ IaC
Infrastructure as code (IaC) is a practice that ensures infrastructure consistency across different environments while minimizing the risk of configuration drift. This practice also allows for quick infrastructure provisioning in case of disasters. Moreover, it makes it possible for DevOps teams to test their applications early in the development cycle using production-like environments. IaC likewise supports peer review, enabling infrastructure code to be audited and improved collaboratively. By adopting IaC, organizations can quickly and easily track and audit code changes and resolve possible problems immediately as they occur.