Today, Digital Transformation is happening all around us. With more and more companies choosing to adapt to this digital world, it is no wonder that people are finding ways to make this transformation as efficient and effective for their company as possible. DevOps is the combination of the “Development” and “Operations” teams within corporate application development and creating a culture that allows for “rapid agile development and scalable, reliable operations.” In an Actifio exclusive interview with Ashish Nanotkar of Yash Solutions said this about DevOps.
“You need to make sure that you have the right collections of tools and people have started to understand that so how can we use technology to change or transform the way we behave culturally inside the organization…that people are more aware about their culture now, they are trying to move towards the startup like economies where they can lower down the costs, make sure that each and every person on their team is accountable and takes ownership of the stuff”
In order for DevOps to assist aiding a more efficient digital transformation, it is imperative that people are all on the same page about adopting new technology and actively changing their behavior for the common goal of transforming the company.
Around 50% of corporations are implementing some sort of DevOps strategy, so it is important to take time to understand why it can be beneficial for your company’s digital transformation initiative. A key concept to consider is the idea of accountability and ownership. Allowing developers to get closer to the customer gives them a better understanding of what value they provide to the product. Altering the experience to be more fulfilling for the developer leads to a better product once they feel like their work has a meaningful place in a project.
Another important aspect is agile development. Agile development is a form of software development that focuses on continuous, frequent updates through collaboration between different departments and end users. Software development and updates used to be a much longer process since it had to go through each department and possibly repeat if something was not satisfactory. Agile development’s collaborative nature allows the process to be broken up into short, iterative tasks, allowing these issues to be caught and resolved much faster than before. Because of this, application releases and updates can happen at a much faster rate in order to meet growing demand.
A DevOps success story that implements both of these ideas is that of Facebook. Facebook was an early adopter of the DevOps concept and as the social platform with the widest reach, their mobile app needs to run as smoothly as possible. The old method of slowly releasing new updates was not sustainable to meet the increasing demand. Facebook now updates their mobile app every two weeks. Whether they only want to fix minor bugs or add a new feature, this system allows them to meet this demand. They also have an ownership model that gives their developers accountability for each piece of code they write, including the testing and delivery stages. These policy changes allowed Facebook to successfully shift their culture to a DevOps philosophy.
Another company that has successfully transitioned to DevOps business culture is Adobe. They have transitioned away from their original model of semi-annual software releases to now being a cloud based system with smaller updates occuring when needed. This new software suite system combines the dozens of software that Adobe has to offer into one cloud based subscription. Adobe has been able to meet 60% more app development demand, meaning that users can now enjoy more frequent improvements on the software instead of waiting for annual releases.
These two companies are just a small selection of the many companies that are accelerating their digital transformation using DevOps. This shift towards collaboration and accountability leads to not only a more engaged workforce, but a more engaged consumer base. Small increments of constant improvements will eventually lead to a successful digital transformation.
In what ways do you think DevOps can help Digital Transformation?