Project managers and their development teams are aware of the fact that the more changes you make to existing code, the higher the chance it will break. Bugs are a common occurrence, and software houses that are well-equipped to find and expertly remove them are the most successful ones. It is becoming evident that master dev teams who have a penchant for fierce problem-solving happen to work better in organizations that embrace and provide great DevOps training and practices.
As more and more firms realize that DevOps implementation improves workflow and their overall productivity, we are seeing a sizable shift towards it. While this new technology has its merits, implementing DevOps into your company is a challenging undertaking despite its immense popularity.
When it comes to developing new application environment, research data reveals a severe lack of automation and central governance. If an organization wants to be counted amongst the cutting-edge, and stay ahead of the curve, it would require modernizing of existing systems and software, as well as new and improved innovations.
In order for the development team to mature in this new application environment, they need to learn about the process improvements, automation and the inherent cultural shifts of DevOps implementation. And, build a strong foundation of modern software development through DevOps training courses.
Here we will discuss the top 8 barriers of DevOps implementation and how you and your team can overcome them with DevOps training.
Cultural Barrier
The overall success of DevOps implementation depends in part on the cultural shift, in addition to the technical skills of your dev team. If a team is used to developing apps the old-fashioned way, it is to be expected that they will be resistant to new DevOps implementation. For instance, a DevOps initiative was disregarded by CIO due to the technical transition issues impacting the business in the areas of continuous delivery process and integration.
Solution: Organizations need to focus on creating shared goals with a collaborative culture to support it. This involves training staff to be inclined towards recent technology to ultimately champion the DevOps implementation in the firm.
Test Automation Barrier
As mentioned earlier, the issues with continuous delivery process and integration are in part due to the lack of testing in the development environment before deployment. It is fair to point out the leadership flaws as well as improperly executed tests. In conclusion, due to these flaws, all the executives focused on was the sound bite that the system issues were caused by "DevOps" process, and their inability to set up proper testing environments.
Solution: Most organizations seem to neglect test automation and focus of CD/CI deployments. In order to succeed in DevOps, continuous testing is key, while security must be implemented from the beginning.
Legacy systems Barrier
Legacy application and services, and any new app used by an organization should be reviewed. It is critical to review a codebase and identify areas that need to be documented and simplified for the staff. A section of said documentation needs to be dedicated to discovering key files that require refactoring, in order to function properly on the new DevOps platform processes. Additionally, another key factor of success is to minimize refactoring risk to perform tests.
Solution: Include documentation that specifies legacy infrastructure modeling with the overall DevOps plans, as installing new software or hardware so they coexist alongside older systems is always a monumental task.
App complexity Barrier
The complexity of each app or service in use will vary and depending on how it comes together with the new DevOps codebase, frequent releases of the app won't be possible. DevOps is designed to provide an agile dev environment to teams.
Solution: Early on in the development process, consider the architecture of the app and adapt based on cloud, containers, and on-premises processes.
No DevOps security plan
Another important factor of succeeding in DevOps implementation is to make sure your staff is adequately trained regarding the security protocols of your organization. Doing so initially will save significant time later because the solutions will have already been architected for security compliance from the beginning. Once the security tools are set, extend it to the DevOps team and mapped with a plan to use them.
Solution: Just as with any dev team, create a plan that covers project owners, specific milestones, and defined deliverables.
Managing Environments Barrier
Every development or testing environment across the DevOps process needs to managed consistently for all dev teams. Minute environmental differences can cause catastrophic results when deploying. Environment inconsistency can be overcome through the use of orchestration tools in the framework of DevOps platform. This can also enable firm to create their very own library of run books(repeatable) to automate.
Solution: Your organization will have to take measure to automate and standardize complex DevOps environment with sandboxes, cloud, and other tools.
Skillset Barrier
Metrics are not only good for system services, but they are extremely useful for defining underlying systems as well as the team members active throughout the processes. For instances, if you understand the issues of scrum team, it can assist you in identifying critical gaps and bottlenecks that impact DevOps agility and quality.
Solution: Your teams require adequate training in working on a DevOps environment. Organizations should establish standardized operational protocols and processes.
Executive support Barrier
CIOs that have already deployed DevOps and its strategy are aware of the fact how difficult it is to get all the teams on the same page. Through building a team that's cross-functional with common motivations and interests for key roles is very important, and organizations that do this right can see tangible benefits for their executives
Solution: Hold a meeting with all the executives at the company and present them with merits of DevOps. This way if you can convince, you'll have required resources and budget to support DevOps implementation.
Just as code, no DevOps implementation is without error or bugs. But, by committing to training your employees, constantly diagnose issues, patching them, and continuously troubleshooting problems will keep your company ahead of the curve in DevOps.