How to implement DevOps automation in your business?

If you’ve ever thought, “We need to deploy features and updates faster”, DevOps automation might be your answer. If your goal is to deploy updates in hours instead of days, proactively fix user pain points, and minimize human error in deployment, you’re in the right place. This guide will walk you through what DevOps automation is, how it works, and what tools and steps you need to implement it successfully.

Top level definition: DevOps expands agile working principles outwards from your product/development teams to include your IT operations team. When implemented well, the productivity benefits of Agile – like short sprints and continuous delivery – become even more pronounced. With DevOps, you can deploy several times a day instead of just a couple of times a week.

How does it work? Through Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD), which allows phases to run concurrently, speeding up processes and bypassing potential blockers.

You've been running Agile a while. It works fine. Why risk disrupting everything now? It's a valid question – every major change carries risk, and you should absolutely weigh the benefits against potential disruptions. But here's our take: DevOps is the only methodology you can implement that will actually keep you ahead of the competition, rather than just keeping up with it.

While traditional approaches might get you weekly deployments, DevOps enables multiple deployments per day. Think about that scale of improvement in your delivery speed and user experience.

Today's SaaS landscape is unforgiving. With subscription-based models dominating the market, users can jump ship at any moment. When switching providers is as easy as a click, your deployment speed and responsiveness to user needs can make or break customer retention.

DevOps automation isn't really about any one process or tool in particular. There's no such thing as a single DevOps automation platform you can implement that will take care of everything. Instead, DevOps automation is achieved through implementing a host of different tools, each with a specific purpose. These include:

Docker and Kubernetes create portable environments that eliminate deployment inconsistencies. These containers ensure your code runs smoothly across all platforms, reducing environment-related issues.

Tools like Jenkins streamline testing and debugging processes, significantly reducing deployment time. Automated testing pipelines ensure consistent quality while accelerating development cycles.

###Continuous monitoring

Solutions like AppDynamics and RayGun provide real-time insight into application performance. These tools help teams quickly identify and resolve issues before they impact users.

###Infrastructure automation

Puppet and Chef automate infrastructure management tasks, minimizing manual errors. This automation frees your IT team to focus on strategic initiatives rather than routine maintenance.

Automation is powerful — but every system needs safeguards. See how to prepare your team in Risk mitigation in software development.

Implementing an entirely new methodology held up by numerous different types of software can sound intimidating. Spend time nailing down your requirements, break large phases down into smaller tasks, and commit to measuring your success. You'll get there.

This will vary from business to business, but a rough structure for your DevOps implementation might look something like:

Day to day, DevOps is mainly going to affect your product, design, development and IT operations teams – but it has an impact far wider than that. DevOps offers deployment speeds that have never been possible before, and that's going to have a ripple effect across many other parts of your business. If you're releasing new products or features at the rate of knots, you might need to check in with customer service, marketing and more to help them up the pace.

There are DevOps engineers and DevOps engineers. Whilst it can be tempting to hire one or two very good generalists and hope that will see you through, a specialist can be worth their weight in gold when the technical aspects of implementation roll around.

Spend some time looking at your requirements and who you need to fulfill them. You might need some or all of the following specialist DevOps engineers.

Our top tip: overestimate, overestimate, overestimate.

Obviously, don't be cynical. Adding huge swathes of time to your project might make higher-ups question its viability (not to mention the extra budget a longer budget would require).

Equally, DevOps is a complex implementation with several tricky technical components. Those extra couple of days or weeks could be the difference between a confident team delivering on time and a stressed team desperately trying to claw back overruns.

Rather than obsessing over every metric, focus on a balanced mix:

Ask for feedback before, during and after each implementation stage, and build in time to tweak anything that isn't quite right. Creating a stakeholder panel is a great way to build a balanced source of feedback that represents the business as a whole.

We'd love to say, as developers, that tech behaves as you expect it to 100% of the time, but we all know that would be optimistic at best and extremely disingenuous at worst. Often it's not an open and shut case of whether it works or not – it's whether it works for you. Having time set aside to check in with your IT teams can help you identify customizations that result in major efficiency gains in the long term.

DevOps implementation requires active organizational involvement, but external expertise can significantly enhance your transformation journey. Organizations typically engage with two main types of external support: third-party DevOps consultancies that provide independent guidance and implementation oversight, and freelance DevOps engineers who bring specialized technical expertise to specific aspects of your project.

Partnering with external DevOps specialists offers several strategic advantages:

At Kellton Europe, we've consulted on a wide range of DevOps projects for major Fortune 500 companies and hotly-tipped startups alike. Our DevOps automation services get you where you need to be to reap the benefits of CI/CD – with ongoing support and maintenance where needed.

Got a project going? Get in touch to see how our team could help.