The DevOps as a Service model is quickly gaining popularity among software companies that strive for operational excellence and a competitive edge. In this article, we will explore what this model involves, its unique characteristics, and how it differs from the traditional approach to DevOps. Join us as we delve into the details of this evolving service model.

 

What is DevOps?

DevOps is a cultural and technical approach that combines strategies, practices, and tools to accelerate application and service development. It emerged with the rise of cloud platforms and the shift away from on-premises hosting. By bridging the gap between development and operations, DevOps fosters strong collaboration among development, QA, and operations teams, often extending to include security (DevSecOps). 

 

The main pillar of DevOps is automation that goes through all of its practices. By introducing automation across all stages of the software lifecycle, from development to deployment and maintenance, DevOps minimizes human effort, reduces the likelihood of errors in the application code, and speeds up the delivery process. This approach helps companies meet business requirements more efficiently and stay competitive in the market. 

 

What is DevOps as a Service?

DevOps as a Service is an outsourcing model that allows you to reap all the benefits of comprehensive DevOps without hiring an in-house team. We’ve covered this topic in detail in previous posts. In short, this means having access to specialized DevOps skills and consulting without expanding your technical staff or bearing additional costs for workspace and employee taxes.

 

Compared to the traditional in-house approach, DevOps as a Service often results in better motivation among the hired team, as they aim to deliver excellent results to secure future contracts and favorable recommendations.

 

The great advantage of this model is also its full-service aspect: the provider manages all infrastructure and software-related processes, from Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery to automated testing and infrastructure management. Let’s take a closer look at these elements. 

 

Core Components of Devops as a Service

  • Continuous Integration (CI): CI is a set of coding practices designed to ensure a consistent and automated process for building, packaging, and testing applications. CI involves continuously delivering code to a central repository each time it successfully passes build and automated tests. The important aspect of CI is delivering code in small batches, which makes it easier to catch and fix bugs early on.

 

  • Continuous Delivery (CD): CD extends CI by automating the deployment of validated code to non-production environments like development and staging. At this stage, deployment to critical environments requires manual approval. However, this process can be fully automated as part of Continuous Deployment, also known as CD. In this setup, application changes pass through the CI/CD pipeline and are directly deployed to production environments after successfully passing all tests.

 

  • Automated Testing: Testing is a crucial part of the software lifecycle, and automating it helps identify errors early in development, freeing up engineering resources. DevOps as a Service supports automated testing by providing the necessary infrastructure, including implementing continuous testing as part of the CI/CD pipeline, setting up environments for integration testing, and creating production-like conditions for performance testing.

 

  • Infrastructure Management: DevOps as a Service enhances infrastructure and configuration management by using Infrastructure as Code (IaC), a practice that provisions and manages IT environments through code-defined resources. As a core DevOps practice, IaC automates the creation of environments, ensuring consistent configurations, replicability, scalability, and traceability of changes.

 

Integration with existing teams

DevOps as a Service integrates seamlessly into existing IT and development teams through close coordination and well-organized workflow. Highly result-oriented, DevOps as a Service teams prioritize customer needs and aim for efficient and transparent communication. By utilizing shared communication channels like task management systems and messaging platforms, they keep customers consistently informed about work progress.

 

Key benefits of DevOps as a Service

Access to Top Talent: Finding skilled professionals locally can be both challenging and costly. By outsourcing, you overcome geographical limitations and gain access to a global talent pool. This allows you to select candidates with the most favorable skill sets and rates, ensuring a cost-effective solution.

 

Rapid Project Initiation: Training in-house specialists can be a longtime process, delaying your projects. Outsourcing provides you with fully-trained professionals who have the necessary skills and knowledge to start working on your projects immediately.

 

Pay-for-Performance Model: One of the key benefits of outsourcing is that you only pay for the work outlined in your agreement and completed within the specified terms. This approach eliminates the need for expenses related to staff and workplace maintenance, inevitable with in-house DevOps model.

 

Broad Expertise: An outsourced DevOps provider’s team typically includes seasoned experts with experience in a variety of projects. The collective knowledge and skills of the team enhance the company’s expertise. If a particular engineer lacks the required skills, they can be replaced with a more qualified team member.

 

Challenges of DevOps as a Service

Integration with existing processes: For outsourced employees to deliver their best results, they should be seamlessly integrated into the team. This integration goes beyond technical skills, such as working with the technology stack chosen by the in-house team; it also includes interpersonal skills. The inability to fit into well-knit customer teams and develop efficient working relationships could be a serious blocker to successful adoption of DevOps as a Service.

 

Security and Compliance: For certain industries that handle sensitive customer information, such as fintech and healthcare, adhering to stringent security rules and industry standards is crucial. Their main priority is ensuring data security both in transit and at rest. To achieve this, DevOps as a Service teams must prioritize compliance by implementing encryption, access controls, and audit trails throughout their processes. Automated testing should also incorporate compliance checks to ensure that the software meets industry-specific regulations and standards, such as those in healthcare.

 

Conclusion

DevOps as a Service is the ideal solution for companies that want to achieve highest results without hiring in-house teams. With a dedicated team of professionals, a flexible development approach, and effective communication, this approach helps bring products to market more quickly and efficiently, providing a clear competitive advantage. 

 

If you’re considering integrating DevOps as a Service, look no further than SHALB. Our team thrives on new challenges and stays ahead of the ever-evolving DevOps landscape to deliver the best solutions. Contact us today to elevate your DevOps journey!