DevOps
What is DevOps?
Imagine you are playing with your toy blocks. You have an idea of the beautiful castle you want to build. But building this castle alone is difficult and takes a lot of time.
So, you invite your best friend to help you. You decide to do the building, and your friend helps by handing over the blocks quickly and fixing any blocks that fall out of place. You both work together to create the castle faster and better. This is very similar to what DevOps is.
People are creating computer software instead of toy blocks in the real world. “Dev” stands for developers like you building the castle, and “Ops” stands for operations like your friend helping with the blocks and fixing issues. DevOps is a way of working where these two teams work closely together to make better software and make it faster.
Benefits and Downsides of DevOps
Benefits
- Faster Delivery: Like you and your friend built the castle quickly, software gets built and delivered faster because the developers and operations team work together.
- Better Quality: The chances of blocks falling out of your castle are less when your friend is helping. Similarly, software often has fewer problems with DevOps because the two teams can catch and fix issues early.
- Improved Communication: DevOps improves communication between the developer and operations teams as you and your friend need to talk and plan together to build the castle.
Downsides
- Requires Culture Change: Sometimes, your friend might want to build the castle differently, and you both may argue. The same happens in companies. Getting developers and operations to work together can be difficult and requires changing how they are used to working.
- Training: Just like you had to teach your friend how to hand over the blocks and fix them, teams need the training to work in the DevOps way. This can take time and effort.
Further Readings
If you want to know more about DevOps, these are some excellent books to read when you’re older:
- “The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win” by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford
- “The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations” by Gene Kim, Jez Humble, Patrick Debois, and John Willis
- “Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations” by Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim