DevOps By DevTechToday September 13, 2024

Mastering DevOps Automation Best Practices In 2024

Due to the continuous advancements of software in the technology segment, IT professionals strive to justify the growing customer expectations for applications. The common expectations involve:

  • Inserting new features(AI, ML,Computer vision, etc)
  • Maintaining high uptime
  • Performance enhancement

The traditional software development process has also progressed with the enhanced adoption of cloud-focused applications to entertain emerging clients’ needs. Instead of only building software considering customer-outlined requirements, the present approach for software building is counted as a continuous service. The best example of this is DevOps methodology- a culture of continuous collaboration for software development. If one is even a tiny bit keen on IT, they might have listened hundreds of times. DevOps has brought significant changes and enabled improved time to market, better quality, efficiency, scalability, and cost-saving in the software development lifecycle. 

But which factor empowers DevOps to offer such benefits to any organization? Yes, it’s DevOps Automation. 

DevOps Automation= DevOps + Automation 

In this article, we will talk about what DevOps Automation is and what DevOps automation best practices are. 

Short Glimms Of What DevOps Is 

In 2009, a DevOps specialist, Patrick Debois, first used the word ‘DevOps’. It is a software development approach that harmonizes software development and operations teams. As per Gartner, “DevOps represents a change in IT culture, focusing on rapid IT service delivery through adopting agile, lean practices in the context of a system-oriented approach. DevOps emphasizes people (and culture), and it seeks to improve collaboration between operations and development teams. DevOps implementations utilize technology — especially automation tools that can leverage an increasingly programmable and dynamic infrastructure from a life cycle perspective.” 

‘You build it, You own it.’
– Said Werner Vogels, Amazon CTO for DevOps 

Understanding DevOps Automation

DevOps automation is a set of practices and tools for automating repeatable and routine tasks that otherwise developers might perform manually. Task automation throughout the software development lifecycle enhances development and operations team collaboration and consistently improves software design. 

How DevOps Automation can help you-

  • Effortlessly achieve flexibility 
  • Effortlessly achieve cost optimization
  • Effortlessly achieve increased productivity 

DevOps Automation Best Practices

Having a guideline list is great for directing you toward the correct path. Now, I will bring you those general guidelines: 

Outlining The Scope Of Automation 

What must be automated— an age-old question. Technically speaking, anything and everything can be automated, but it should not. It is pivotal to determine the scope of automation before initiating it. Identify the areas of the development lifecycle that can benefit from automation. Discover bottlenecks, pain points, and components prone to errors that automation can help resolve. 

Don’t Repeat Yourself(DRY) Methodology 

This approach minimizes repetition and redundancy throughout the development lifecycle by separating codes into modules, thus ensuring each object has an unambiguous, individual representation. This reduces the amount of code developers are supposed to write, resulting in time-saving. Organizations can ensure their developers engage in complex and productive tasks rather than engaging themselves in laborious work of repetition. 

Selecting Right Tools 

The right set of tools acts as a DevOps automation backbone. As there is no one-size-fits-all tool for automating every crucial software development process, you must consider a specialized tool for automating specific tasks. 

List Of Tools Used For DevOps Automation By Experts 

  1. Ansible
  2. Docker
  3. Kubernetes
  4. Jenkins
  5. Chef
  6. Puppet
  7. Terraform

Embracing Infrastructure as Code(IaC)

This is another noteworthy DevOps automation best practice. Infrastructure as Code(IaC) is the practice of utilizing automated scripts to manage IT infrastructure, eliminating manual setup. It automates configuration and deployment, thus ensuring continuous delivery. Along with quickly setting up software or hardware environments, it also ensures consistency and reduces costs. 

Continuous Feedback and Improvement

You can set up a feedback thread to identify and solve hurdles throughout numerous DevOps pipeline stages. By keeping the concerned person informed, issues can be resolved firsthand. This can justify the true meaning of DevOps—feedback implementation and adaptability.

Do You Know?
As stated in DevOps Statistics, “There would be a 35% boost in 2024 in the yearly investment by organizations in DevSecOps automation.”

Implement Quality Checks ASAP 

Test automation must be executed on a prior basis. Though there are a few more precise tips, which we suggested below-

  • Transpilation
  • Compilation
  • Running unit tests
  • Running integrated tests 
  • Having documentation for each additional feature
  • Ensure program code uniformity 

Now, you have many tips for effectively carrying out DevOps Automation. These DevOps automation best practices will guide you throughout the development process. 

Future Of DevOps Automation

We are already breathing in the future we envisioned and watched in sci-fi movies only a few years ago. Today, automation can be witnessed in tasks ranging from designing tasks to performing them. Let’s have a look at the future trends of DevOps automation: 

  • The DevOps automation tools market is predicted to reach USD 42.98 billion by 2030.
  • CI/CD tools might account for the largest share for the predicted period. 
  • The rise in the role of AI and ML in DevOps: AI-backed automation 
  • Serverless computing and DevOps 

Essential Takeaways 

If enterprises desire to succeed in today’s cut-throat competition, adherence to customer requirements is necessary! The two keys to open this lock are- agility and speed. That’s why DevOps Automation is crucial! DevOps Automation Services can be your winning formula for accurately implementing DevOps automation best practices. It’s time to start with DevOps automation with a professional DevOps automation expert. 

You can also read about the Challenges of implementing DevOps