How to Achieve Enterprise DevOps Transformation in 5 Steps

Author: Steven Gary

DevOps has become the buzzword for many organizations across domains to streamline their value chains, drive excellence, achieve superior customer experience, and enhance productivity, efficiency, and revenue. It is a culture encompassing areas of software development such as testing, delivery, maintenance, and security. DevOps enables the stability of all programs, processes, and systems that are part of the digital infrastructure of any business enterprise. With digital transformation being embraced by businesses to achieve a host of outcomes, a DevOps transformation roadmap should be followed to make businesses competitive. According to Nutanix, 83 percent of business enterprises are embracing DevOps and incorporating it into their value chain. The key metrics in DevOps implementation by enterprises include deployment frequency, change failure rate, lead time for changes, and mean time to restore.

However, implementing DevOps in large enterprises can be challenging due to the prevalence of issues such as dependence on legacy systems, manual workflows, and monolithic systems, among others. This is because the scale and timelines for such organizations are difficult to meet. Besides, in non-DevOps environments, the development, testing, and production teams generally work in silos with no coherence and synergy in their actions. This can make the task of upholding the compliance and security requirements of the software application quite daunting. So how can enterprise DevOps transformation be achieved by overcoming the above-mentioned challenges? Let us find out.

A 5-step approach to enterprise DevOps implementation

Some of the best practices to consider while implementing a DevOps transformation strategy are given below:

  1. Leverage existing architecture: The DevOps approach does not aim to replace an enterprise's existing legacy digital architecture, but rather to build capabilities on top of it. This calls for opening toolchains to support hybrid IT environments while transitioning from, say, mainframe to cloud-based services. So, building something new from existing assets is likely to outperform the DevOps transformation plan that entails building everything from scratch while discarding any existing legacy systems.
  2. Make DevOps automation part of the SDLC: To deliver quality, the QA testers should check the built code frequently and early in the SDLC. This helps in the quick identification and mitigation of errors as opposed to the waterfall model. By implementing DevOps automation, businesses can test any database or network changes, middleware configuration, or source code. Automation can be set in motion by identifying test case scenarios, using the right tools, setting up the right test environment, and analyzing test outcomes.
  3. Not overburden the operational process: Customers have high expectations from enterprises when it comes to the quality and delivery of products or services. This means the delivery process should be aligned to the business needs, which include automation, removing constraints, and an increase in process visibility for stakeholders, among others. Further, for large enterprises, stakeholders should understand how the system architecture was conceived to perform and how it is performing currently. This is essential to building a resilient business enterprise where real-time visibility is created and value systems are optimized to enable real-time decision-making.
  4. Apply configuration and change management: These are fundamental features of any enterprise operation comprising automation, monitoring, and maintenance of system configurations. These drive the software development, testing, and delivery environment through storage, networks, applications, and servers. Configuration and change management enable teams to get a larger picture and allow the utilization of DevOps QA offerings rather than investing time and effort in creating new offerings from scratch.

#5. Improve business confidence: To improve the performance, quality, security, and compliance of systems and applications, DevOps implementation should be embraced by business enterprises. This does not mean quality needs to suffer at the altar of change and speed. To be competitive, businesses should aim at achieving speed and quality while making the transition to an all-encompassing DevOps culture. An environment should be created where businesses can have the confidence to act without minding the consequences of their risks. Also, in their digital transformation journey, they should make security and quality the key components of their software architecture.

Conclusion

The above-mentioned methods are very effective in achieving enterprise DevOps transformation. In fact, there can be other methods, such as making the transformation all-inclusive, improving the process of innovation, making a long-term commitment, receiving quick feedback, implementing automation, and delivering desirable results, among others. For any DevOps transformation roadmap to succeed, the process has to be all-encompassing, gradual, transparent, and communicative.