IntroductionAccording to a survey, the DevOps market share will exceed $20 billion by 2026 at a CAGR of 24.7% from 2019 to 2026. DevOps is also a continuously evolving software development approach to suit the corporate environment. Robert Stroud (a late DevOps authority) said that DevOps is all about ‘fueling business goal transformation’. What is DevOps?From the beginning, software development comprises two different departments: the development team (which develops the plan, designs, and builds the systems from scratch) and the operations team (which tests and implements whatever is developed).The operations team used to give feedback to the development team on any bug fixing or rework required. So, the development team has to sit idle and wait for feedback from the operations team. It ultimately results in unnecessary delays in the SLDC (software development lifecycle). Sometimes, even the development team moves on to a new project while the operations team is still hanging on to providing feedback for the previous project.This meant waiting weeks or even months for the projects to be closed and the final code to be developed. What if the two most crucial departments, software development, and operations, came together?This is called the DevOps approach. It allows a single team to work together to accelerate the software/application delivery process through automation, fast feedback, collaboration, and iterative improvement.It resembles an infinity sign, suggesting that it is a continuous process of improving efficiency and constant activity. Yet, companies have to adapt faster to development changes and major updates. So, the teams can now deliver quickly, and the deployments are more consistent and smooth, though there may be communication challenges. Understanding DevOps Lifecycle and its Working DevOps consists of various stages such as continuous development, continuous testing, continuous integration, continuous deployment, and continuous monitoring. Let’s discuss each of these stages below in detail without any further ado!Continuous DevelopmentIt is the first phase or stage of the DevOps lifecycle. It involves planning and coding the software application functionality. There aren’t any tools for planning and such but there are several tools for maintaining the code. The project’s vision is determined during the planning phase. The next step is to start coding the application. You can write code in any language using the version control tools (aka DevOps tools).Continuous IntegrationHere comes the next stage of the DevOps lifecycle! As the name says, this step requires the integration of new code with existing code. Since the software is continuously developed, the updated code needs to be integrated continuously and smoothly with the systems to reflect the changes to the end users.The changed code should also ensure that there aren’t any errors during the run time. You can also test these modifications and check the reactions. So, there’s one very popular use in this phase as also mentioned earlier. The tool is known as Jenkins. You can produce a build after pulling the latest code revision from the Git repository. Then, deploy it to the test/production servers.Continuous TestingHere, the continuous testing of software for bugs is done. Automation testing tools such as Selenium, Test NJ, JUnit, etc. are used for continuous testing. These tools help test the functionality of multiple code bases deeply. You can use Docker containers in this phase for simulating the test environment. Selenium does the automation testing and the reports are generated by Test NJ, but to automate this entire testing phase, you need a trigger. And, that trigger is provided by continuous integration tools such as Jenkins. Automation testing saves a lot of time and effort in every aspect. The reports generation is a big plus besides this. The task of evaluating which test cases failed in the test suit gets simpler. You can schedule these tests at predefined times for execution purposes.Once the testing is done, the continuous integration of the existing code with the new code is followed. So, that’s all about continuous testing!Continuous DeploymentThis stage allows the deployment of code correctly to the production environment and on all the servers. It’s also the time to understand now why DevOps will be incomplete without configuration management tools and containerization tools.Both sets of tools help us in continuous deployment. Some popular tools used in this stage are Chef, Puppet, Ansible, and SaltStack, etc. Containerization tools can also be used in the deployment stage. Docker and Vagrant are the popular tools that help produce consistency across the development, test, staging, and production environments. Apart from this, the tools also help in scaling up and scaling down instances easily. It eliminates any chance of errors or failures in the production environment by packaging and replicating the same dependencies and packages used in the development, testing, and staging environment. Continuous MonitoringIt is the final phase of the DevOps lifecycle. It continuously monitors the software performance and thoroughly looks for any bugs or improper system behavior. It can also be achieved by using dedicated monitoring tools which will continuously monitor the application performance and highlight the issues. Some popular tools used are Splunk, Nagios, New Relic, and so on. These tools help you monitor the application and the server closely to check the health of the system proactively. They also improve productivity and increase the system’s reliability while reducing IT support costs.Any major issues found could be reported to the development team so that they can be fixed in the continuous development phase.These DevOps stages are carried out on a loop continuously until the desired product quality is achieved. ConclusionSo, that’s how a DevOps approach works! Yet, it isn’t devoid of challenges as a successful DevOps approach wants organizations to adopt learnings and constant changes. Certain future trends to watch out for in the DevOps approach are automation, AIOps, and cloud optimization. By reading this blog on understanding the DevOps lifecycle, you’ve already taken your first step in beginning a transformational journey.Read Morehttps://devopsden.io/article/what-is-observability-in-devopsFollow us onhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/devopsden/
