DevOps is founded on the concept of continuous change. Organizations today are adopting a DevOps structure in order to evolve themselves into a more creative and efficient team. But advancement most often requires you to go outside of your comfort zone. The fear of doing so is often the root of many challenges DevOps structured companies face.
Battling Against Change
Devops can feel intimidating to almost every party involved. It’s a mindset where everything is shared. That can mean anything from responsibilities to feedback (both positive and negative). This requires your users to shift from the mentality that something may be outside of their jurisdiction. So naturally, this is not going to be an overnight transformation. It takes time to seamlessly transition from a traditional structure into something revolutionary.
The solution to the problem of users who are going to be strongly resistant to change, unfortunately is just patience. Eventually every member of the team will grow accustomed to the perpetual motion that DevOps feeds off of. Once they see and experience the benefits of such a structure, they’ll begin to embrace the current that’s pulling them.
Increasing Collaboration
A DevOps structure is founded on collaboration. For contributers that are used to having two departments, two deadlines, and two endgoals, this can be a rather difficult adjustment. But to understand the importance of this tightly knit collaboration, let’s first understand how this concept arose.
Around 2008, members of the IT and software communities started voicing their opinions as to the frustrations of their industry. It was realized that the root of many of the problems they brought to the surface was a miscommunication between departments. Each team saw one of two goals: Development worked to create innovative systems and release them to the world at a rapid rate, while Operations worked to ensure this process was highly secure. To mitigate these frustrations, they came to the conclusion that the wall between those who write code and those who deploy it, must be broken down. Thus came about the DevOps structure. Keeping your main objective in the forefront of your team members’ minds can be essential to them accepting this tight integration of departments.
New Technology and Methods
Utilizing new technology can create an incredibly strong competitive edge for your organization. But it can also make managing processes initially much more difficult. Choosing the right tools and technologies can also be a difficult decision. DevOps must ensure that all tools and services work together seamlessly.
To truly adopt a DevOps mindset, make sure you maintain your focus on your team, not on your tools. It’s important that your employees understand this prioritization. When your tools serve to complement your operations, they won’t end up distracting from the main goals of your organization. Demonstrate what matters most to you by encouraging your users to suggest new tools and methods they would like to implement.
Keeping The Pace
DevOps can run into a serious road block by not adding speed to their data tier. Speed and efficiency are the motivating factors behind a DevOps structure. So your team being at a stand-still because they’re waiting for data overall defeats the purpose.
The first step to finding a solution is to understand the problem. Almost all speed-related issues stem from transferring data between teams. The fact of the matter is DevOps’ data needs far exceed that of traditional development methods. But you can’t allow that to become a bottleneck for your organization. Organizations can mediate this problem by having full access to scalable copies of production data at all times. Without this, your team may end up cutting corners by starting development before a robust data testing environment is put in place. This could lead to code and testing that do not meet your standards.
Though the challenges of a DevOps structure can appear overwhelming, the benefits far outweigh the obstacles you’ll have to overcome. These include faster software delivery, exponentially increased collaboration, and quicker solutions. DevOps is a structural movement we urge you to become a part of.