DevOps as a Service: The Ultimate Guide for 2024

As digital transformation picks pace and companies shift to software and mobile applications to meet the rapidly changing market dynamics, DevOps as a software development approach is gaining currency. In this article, we’ll discuss DevOps consulting services, its benefits, and its key principles and practices. We will then discuss DevOps as a service and its benefits.

Let’s start!

What is DevOps?

DevOps is a set of practices that aims to improve collaboration and communication between software development (Dev) and information technology operations (Ops) teams.

The primary goal of DevOps is to shorten the software development life cycle, enhance the delivery frequency, and ensure high-quality software releases. It promotes a culture of collaboration, automation, and continuous improvement.

Key principles and practices of DevOps include:

• Collaboration: DevOps is all about breaking down silos between development and operations teams. The goal is to foster better communication and collaboration to improve efficiency and reduce development time.
• Automation: Automation is a critical DevOps component. It aims to streamline and automate the software development and deployment processes to increase efficiency and reduce manual errors.
• Continuous Integration (CI): CI refers to merging code changes from multiple contributors into a shared repository frequently. This enables early detection of integration issues.
• Continuous Delivery (CD): CD automates the process of deploying code changes to production or other environments. It ensures a reliable and repeatable release process, allowing software development services companies to reduce time to market.
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC): IaC refers to the practice of managing and provisioning infrastructure using code. It allows for consistency and automation in infrastructure setups.
• Monitoring and Logging: Monitoring and logging are essential DevOps practices. They involve the implementation of tools and practices to continuously monitor applications and infrastructure. It enables quick identification and resolution of issues.
• Feedback Loops: Feedback loops enable better collaboration by establishing mechanisms for obtaining feedback on the software development and deployment processes to facilitate continuous improvement.

Benefits of DevOps Methodology

Companies accrue so many benefits from employing a DevOps approach to software development. Here are some of the leading benefits of DevOps:

1. Improved Product Quality – As a result of feedback loops and better collaboration, companies can release better products. That is because activities like automated testing help you find bugs and errors much more quickly without impacting pipeline velocity.
2. Lower Costs – DevOps has the power to transform your entire development setup in a way that reduces your overall costs. When you start removing inefficient processes and elements and streamlining existing ones, you will see a marked cost reduction.
3. Better Productivity – A key benefit of DevOps is that it offers you a flexible and agile development pipeline. Your development and operations teams can make adjustments as the need arises, allowing the overall productivity to move up. It also gives you a competitive edge over companies still using the traditional development approach like agile and waterfall, etc.
4. Quicker Problem Resolution – DevOps is more of a culture. When you foster it in your company, you’re not only able to find problems much more quickly but also resolve them. It also has a positive side effect – your teams become much more motivated in an efficient culture like DevOps.
5. Efficient Resource Utilization – Automation frees up your resources to do other tasks. And since automation is an essential DevOps practice, you can expect to leverage your resources much more efficiently by employing DevOps. All this means better productivity, lower costs, and better profits!

What is DevOps as a Service?

Not every company has the resources to implement a DevOps approach for their software development needs. This is where DevOps-as-a-Service (DaaS) comes into play. It refers to delivering top DevOps tools, practices, and expertise as a managed service using a cloud-based model.

DevOps service providers offer their expertise to other companies looking to benefit from this approach but cannot implement it themselves due to a lack of requisite skills or resources. Using a collaborative software development approach, DaaS enables companies to develop high-quality software in a shorter period.

Since DevOps is a culture driven by a set of practices, tools, and development approaches, it naturally encompasses the entire organization. When you choose DevOps as a managed service, you can still reap the same benefits of flexibility, agility, and efficiency as you would if you were to implement DevOps in-house.

DaaS offers the same cultural mindset of continuous delivery as an in-house DevOps approach would. This is what makes it an excellent option for companies lacking internal resources, as they don’t have to pay for ownership costs or training.

Moreover, using a cloud consulting services model allows DaaS providers to offer their expertise with agility and flexibility. They manage the entire development pipeline for you, and your teams can easily access it. This simplifies all DevOps-related activities, including tool selection, management, and maintenance.

What is the DaaS Pipeline?

A DaaS pipeline generally has several stages, each of which is determined by the tools and practices used. The process begins with version control, where developers commit code changes. Then, a version control system, such as Git, tracks and manages code repositories.

This is followed by CI/CD, where CI (continuous integration) automates the build and testing of code changes to ensure integration compatibility and code quality. CD (continuous delivery) then automates code change deployment to staging or testing environments. This automated testing makes sure that your application is ready to be sent for production.

Some pipelines also include continuous deployment, where successful CI/CD results in automatic deployment to the production environment.

Next comes infrastructure as code (IaC). This stage of the pipeline enables you to define and manage infrastructure using code, helping you maintain consistency and reproducibility.

Monitoring and logging stages involve the implementation of tools to collect and analyze data, enabling the tracking of application and infrastructure performance. This is also where DaaS experts integrate communication tools that facilitate efficient interaction between development and operations teams, promoting seamless information sharing.

Most importantly, DaaS providers weave security practices throughout the development pipeline. They incorporate security scans during CI/CD and address vulnerabilities by providing regular updates for dependencies. Moreover, they utilize security testing tools to find and resolve potential vulnerabilities and issues.

All these stages combine to form a comprehensive and cohesive automated pipeline that raises software delivery efficiency and quality.

Reasons Why You Need DevOps as a Service

Outsourcing DevOps to a third-party service provider has many advantages. These advantages are also the reasons why companies often go for DevOps-as-a-service.

1. Access to Talent

One of the most important reasons why companies go for managed DevOps services is that it provides them with access to highly skilled resources who are experts in implementing DevOps. These are certified DevOps engineers, and having access to them can be a game-changer for your organization. You have to spend very little or no money to train them – you just need to bear onboarding costs. This is also why companies offering staff augmentation services have high-quality DevOps resources that others can hire temporarily.

2. Faster Delivery Speed

Choosing cloud DevOps services entails having a managed service provider (MSP) handle critical development tasks for your organization. Whether it’s managing DevOps infrastructure for continuous testing or developing team strategy to bolster cross-functional collaboration, your cloud-managed services provider will inject value directly into your software development lifecycle (SDLC).

3. Limit HR Risks

If recruitment and human resource management are tasks you don’t want to involve yourself in, go for DevOps-as-a-service. Your DaaS provider will look after all your human resource management needs insofar as they relate to DevOps managed services.

From training to development monitoring and office space, a managed service provider is responsible for ensuring your DevOps is done the right way. All you need to do is select the right resources from the MSP’s talent pool – choose resources that are likely to gel in with your teams and company culture.

4. Lower Costs

Are you looking to employ a more cost-effective method to develop software applications? DevOps as a service is the way to go. You don’t have to build an in-house team for it; you can just hire a DevOps services provider. For example, many companies out there offer AWS DevOps services. The price of DevOps in the IT industry is much lower than creating a team of AWS-certified resources.

5. Improve Collaboration

Another reason why companies choose to purchase DevOps services is that managed DevOps service providers help you improve collaboration by removing silos and fostering a culture of teamwork. Moreover, DevOps as a service providers have a team of specialists that cover all the skills you need – these specialists share their expertise with your team members and help increase their knowledge.

Conclusion

Whether you’re a budding startup or a well-established IT firm, DevOps can benefit you in many ways. However, if you find yourself lacking in DevOps skills and expertise, choose a DaaS provider. DevOps as a service has the power to bring radical improvements in your software development approach and organizational culture.

Xavor is a leading tech firm based in Irvine, California, with a presence in China and Shanghai. We have AWS and Azure-certified experts who can fulfill all your DevOps needs. Our managed cloud services deliver end-to-end cloud solutions that help you achieve your business goals more efficiently in an age of digital transformation.

Contact us at [email protected] to learn more about Xavor’s DevOps & Cloud solutions!