10 Mistakes to Avoid While Implementing DevOps

DevOps is not merely a designation, practice, concept or philosophy, rather, it is a combination of all that emphasizes on the collaboration of both software developers and IT professionals. It is basically a culture wherein the DevOps acts as a bridge between the developers and administrators.

It acts as a catalyst in automating the process of continuous delivery and continuous integration. This is why organizations are rapidly moving to adopt DevOps. Though there are a lot of good reasons to embrace DevOps, but not every company is ready to jump onto it. It is important to understand what are the possible causes that lead to the failure when it comes to DevOps.

The companies should start DevOps cautiously keeping in mind the best practices that should be adopted while implementing it. DevOps is about bringing the teams together, understanding the application flow and providing the best continuous deployment approach. However, it is possible to make mistakes in DevOps implementation leading to some serious problems later. Let’s understand these common mistakes that organizations usually make:

1. Astonishing DevOps Title

The corporates are often confused with the astonishing DevOps title. It starts hiring the DevOps Engineers with the aim of fixing all DevOps related issues without understanding the job requirement completely. DevOps which is a combination of Development and Operations is always a complex profession. Some people characterize it as refashioned agile development practices; others describe it as new supporting tools that automate the process of assembling, deploying and operating applications. These professionals are always lean towards either development or operations. The basic requirement must be clear so as to hire a right professional. For example, hiring a Professional with Chef expertise is better for working on configuration management scripts rather than hiring a professional with less configuration management and more containerisation experience. These professionals are ready to adopt new technologies but those having some kind of experience in a particular technology are good to go.

2. Moving to DevOps without Adequate Preparation

It has been observed that the organizations are rapidly moving to DevOps and the DevOps professionals are assigned projects without evaluating their expertise in the same. Moreover, there are organizations that are ready to work on any DevOps projects with a small team of less skilled DevOps professionals to stand out against competition. But this leads to poor quality of work being delivered. Moving to DevOps is good but only with adequate preparation and experience. The skill set must be maintained to a threshold level. DevOps binds QA, Developers, DBAs together, hence inadequate management of DevOps Professionals is not affordable. The professionals must be certified in different technologies and organizations should refrain from rapid movement to DevOps without proper management.

3. Thinking Agile Development to be enough

Some people think that implementing Agile will implement DevOps and help in delivering the application more rapidly. But this hypothesis is not correct. Though Agile Development has brought a big transition from Waterfall model, yet it is not sufficient to implement DevOps. In Agile we work on incremental, iterative work cadences and evolving feedback and work closely with the client to ensure customer satisfaction. However, many times, the organizations that are seen spending a large amount of time in delivering the product using the concept of Agile, lacking in delivering a quality product due to poor infrastructure availability.

4. Choosing Speed Over Quality

Many organizations are seen getting too focused on delivering the product (speed) rather than the quality of the product. The DevOps tasks must be completed keeping in mind the best practices and standards. Since DevOps is a complex culture, the speed matters. But the speed cannot be compromised with the quality. The vice-versa is also not possible and the quality can also not compromise with the speed. In an agile methodology, the organizations cannot afford to deliver the best quality product but with the timelines that never meet. Many organizations are even rushing to own and complete DevOps projects as much as possible in a shorter period of time so as to maintain a position in a competitive market. This leads to the poor quality of solutions and products. The speed and quality must go altogether. For example, continuous integration methods and strategies must be implemented keeping in mind the best practices and standards. The tests must be written by the development team itself with their own tools for quick feedback for every build and deployment possible.

5. Moving to New Technologies Soon

It has been observed in many organizations that DevOps professionals start adopting new technologies without properly researching the old technologies which are in use. The professionals are also seen using the technologies which are in beta mode just because the other competitors are using. Proper research and comparison should be done before starting to use these technologies. The technology is rapidly improvising day by day. In an open source culture, a large number of plugins are introduced on a daily basis improvising the functionality of the old ones. The best DevOps tools should be used based on the scenario and the use cases. The pros and cons of every use case making use of the old tools should be properly researched. The adequate information about the new tool must also be collected and then the decision should be taken.

6. Not getting early approval from all parties

Getting teams together is one of the key goals while implementing DevOps. DevOps act as a bridge between the teams andiIt is important to keep everyone in sync. In some cases, we have seen DevOps teams are ready to promote the build from staging to sandbox/UAT environments, but they stuck due to the dependency on testing modules or development of some important features by developers. The coordination should be good and the management should be active to take all teams together, creating timelines according to it.

7. Running Tests Asynchronously

Most DevOps professionals think that running tests asynchronously will lead to better execution of tests and better results. This is not true. The test cases must be written smartly such that the smart test cases can be executed synchronously. The professionals don’t have to wait for all the test cases to execute asynchronously. This will save time and help in achieving the timelines. Also, the test cases execution should be an automatic process using the concept of Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment.

8. Ignoring Database

The database is one of the important key areas which is missed while implementing DevOps. While DevOps expands rapidly, the database lags behind because of complete automation of database. The professionals lay full emphasis on code management, continuous integration etc. but fail to automate the databases. Database handling must be properly done and is very important for data-centric applications. The database plays a major role in such applications and it needs to be automated and rapidly expand along with DevOps.

9. Setting Unrealistic Goals

Setting unrealistic Goals often leads to failure in DevOps. The goals must be set keeping in mind the timelines and the assumption criteria. It is observed that too may unrealistic goals are set for DevOps and later the timelines are not achieved due to some dependencies in other areas. The goals must be specific, written and doable. With DevOps expanding rapidly, new problems occur every day solving out a particular scenario. The new philosophies must be adapted, the production system must be constantly improved, the barriers between the departments must be broken and proper care must be taken while setting goals.
To set realistic goals, use SMART Goal Setting strategies. Before setting up goals make sure that the goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

10. Forgetting security

DevOps and Security should move together. It is observed that the security practices are not followed in advance which causes problems in future. The security policies must be followed with best practices and should not be ignored. DevOps keeps on expanding the architecture and later realize that the security is not up to the mark. In the current scenario where organizations are moving towards micro-services architecture, the security matters where different applications communicate with each other. The professionals ease their access compromising the security. But this breaks the rules. The security practices must be strictly followed and must not compromise with the ease of access.

The organizations are hastily running to towards DevOps to stand with competition and making mistakes that are big. These mistakes can be avoided by implementing the best methods and doing proper planning to create a better DevOps practice.