Six possible challenges when practicing Devops

DevOps Is to bring people and departments together , Focus on creating a unified system , Combine the tasks and objectives of development and operation . As more and more companies adopt DevOps technological process , Various problems encountered in the process of practice have gradually surfaced . therefore , Any company should practice DevOps The company , We should pay attention to these six areas , So as to reduce the impact of various adverse factors on the software development and deployment cycle .

1. There is no correct cultural concept

DevOps Culture is about the common understanding between developers and operators , And shared responsibility for the software they build . therefore , DevOps To make a difference , Having the right culture is the key . It means , Can improve development 、IT / Operations and “ Business ” Transparency between 、 Communication and collaboration efficiency .

DevOps Institute The company's CEO Jayne Groll Once said , Although the deployment and optimization of infrastructure will slow down the development and operation , But if the team does not have the correct cultural concept , May cause the project to crash .

Continuous delivery service providers CloudBees Of DevOps Disseminator Brian Dawson Also think , A company with the right culture , Can overcome any infrastructure and skills problems .

2. Emphasizing technology and ignoring soft skills

The success of DevOps Engineers are not only excellent problem solvers , He is also an excellent communicator and leader . With DevOps Gradually ruled by artificial intelligence , Soft skills will become more critical . therefore , Many companies are recruiting DevOps Talent time , Will give priority to soft skills —— For example, the ability to collaborate 、 Problem solving and interpersonal skills .

For the company , Does the employee have collaboration 、 The willingness to learn and solve any problem is very important , But beyond that , You should also have automation skills , Such as infrastructure knowledge 、 Software development for processes 、 Source code control and analysis . Of course , It is not easy to find people who fully meet the requirements . therefore , If you want to be a person with strong culture and interpersonal skills , Make a choice with someone who has some expertise , The benefits of choosing the former tend to be higher .

3. Too many automation tools become a burden

DevOps The key is automation . because DevOps stride across Dev、Ops、IT、 Safety and product team , And the different stages of software development , So there are a lot of tools to choose from . such as , version control & Collaborative development tools GitHub、GitLab、BitBucket , Automated build and test tools Apache Ant、Maven 、Selenium, Continuous integration & Delivery tools Jenkins、Capistrano、BuildBot, And deployment tools 、 Maintenance tools 、 monitor , Warning & Analysis tools and so on , There are more than a hundred kinds .

But for traditional enterprises that urgently need digital transformation , Not a good thing . Too many tools themselves lead to new management problems , For example, confirm whether the tool version meets the project requirements , There are even tools for managing these tools . therefore , Looking for Automation , When selecting an automation tool or platform , We should measure whether the platform is suitable from many aspects , Whether it can really achieve cost reduction and efficiency increase .

4. Slow progress in change decisions

DevOps Institute Of Groll Express , The process and infrastructure of software change have also become the main factors affecting the efficiency of the company .“ We are talking about continuous deployment and continuous delivery , But most organizations want to make a change announcement two weeks in advance . therefore , What we say 、 There is a disconnect between what we want and reality .”

Usually , The company classifies updates into three categories ： Standard changes 、 Normal changes and emergency repairs . Normal change is a typical process of software update , Standard changes are those that do not require prior approval or can at least be expedited . However ,Atlassian Of Buchanan Express , With the help of DevOps Automation in , It should be possible to make more changes faster .

“ Standards are the new normal . As all this automation goes on , Standards can be changed —— Pre approval 、 Easy to understand 、 Low risk 、 Make it clear —— Because we know how these processes work .”

—— Ian Buchanan

5. Wrong direction

For most practices DevOps The company of , From a low level of Automation , When expanding to more difficult infrastructure projects , Often get lost . such as , Some companies will create a dedicated functional team to support DevOps Implementation , However, there are more potential risks . in fact , What the company should do is not to expand the functional team , Instead, they should choose the infrastructure that allows them to rapidly expand their business .

Large state-owned enterprise PetroChina , To develop a large e-commerce platform , Hired an external team to develop , At the same time, an open source e-commerce software is selected for secondary development . But after the mall went online , Problems mount . after , PetroChina chooses to use SoFlu The software robot reconstructs the system of the mall ,SoFlu It is a human-computer collaboration , Automatically complete software back-end development 、 The front-end development 、 test 、 Operation and maintenance , Help developers achieve “ One person one project , Ten is worth a hundred ” Software robots . stay 5 individual SoFlu With the help of software robot , PetroChina information technology team only invests 9 R & D personnel are 45 The system reconfiguration of the mall was completed within days . and , The test process shows that , The stability of the platform passes the test , And the e-commerce platform can meet the needs of enterprises , Deploy independently to any platform . All data enterprises can store by themselves , At the same time, the security specifications of the platform itself , Ensure the security of data .

You can see , Choose a high-quality infrastructure platform to improve the level of automation , It is more effective than setting up special functional departments .

6、 Technology debt is building up

Technical debt is a topic that must be paid attention to . according to DevOps Tools and service providers  Atlassian  A published study shows that , Nearly three-quarters of the development teams spend a lot of time updating and upgrading software , Some even waste their weekly working hours 50% .

meanwhile , Technology debt also brings many disadvantages to the company .OutSystems  Of A report indicate ,“ majority (69%) Of IT The leader said , Technology debt has fundamentally limited their ability to innovate ,61% Percent said it was a drag on the company's performance ,64% Of people agree that it will continue to have an impact on the future .” 

If the enterprise has the appropriate DevOps Process and automation capabilities , It will at least reduce the accumulation of technical debt to some extent .CI/CD Automation embodied in the process , For example, automated testing and automated construction , Helps identify technical debt early , This in turn helps to sustain debt repayment . meanwhile , Automated quality standards also help reduce technical debt .