6 Core DevOps Principles

DevOps continues to be a major focus for many IT organizations and is projected to grow in the coming years. The key driver behind this popular initiative is rooted in strengthening the communication between development and operations with the goal of enhanced, expedited and exceptional work.

If your company plans to meet current demand and also grow its customer base, DevOps can scale to meet expectations with a unified outlook and helpful tools that better align people to business objectives. The cross-functionality of DevOps increases output and reliability, which, by definition requires upkeep to continuously meet customer and organizational expectations. DevOps strategies not only improve product and service quality, but they also improve collaboration in the workplace to address previous roadblocks and disconnects between development and operations.

The three components associated with DevOps address the people, processes, and tools and must begin with a strong foundation. Although many organizations embrace this, they can trip up if they intend a DevOps strategy to be a quick fix. The initial investment requires keen focus and outlining as a means to an end. The stronger the structure is to build from, the greater the ROI, which provides an organization with effective inter-division communication and heightened output.

Meanwhile, principles need to be instated to guide the initiative from implementation and ensure key pillars resist crumbling upon meeting any potential obstacles. Established principles should even go further to allow DevOps teams to benchmark themselves and save valuable time back-tracking to pinpoint a particular constraint in the system.

While it’s impossible to encompass all viewpoints of a DevOps strategy, certain principles should serve as core focus areas. By following these principles, development and operations teams can achieve the collaboration required to deliver value to the business.

You can hear more about DevOps from Josh Atwell at Interop ITX, where he will present, "How To Evolve Ops Skills to a DevOps World." Register now for Interop ITX, May 15-19.

(Image courtesy of NetApp)