Tag: agile software development methodology
DevOps is a fusion of development and operations that come together to form a technology that spreads rapidly throughout the technical community. The main objective of DevOps is to decrease the amount of time the company takes to deploy a program.
Before DevOps, most companies leveraged Agile methodology. However, it did not take care of the operations aspects and so gave rise to DevOps. In combination with Agile methodology, DevOps gave importance to communication between the development and operations team during all stages of the development cycle while developing software. This blog will take you briefly through why you need to consider DevOps and what are the upcoming trends in this technology.
Objectives of DevOps
The main goal of DevOps is to improve the collaboration between teams to;
- Improve the frequency of deployment
- Reduce time to market (TTM)
- Minimize the failure rate of new releases or productions
- Reduce the lead time between fixes
- Improve mean time to recovery
Read more: Test Automation In DevOps For Expediting Software Development
Statistics and Market Changes That Prove the Effectiveness of DevOps
DevOps includes different cross-functional teams such as business analysts, developers, QA practitioners, operations personnel, security specialists, suppliers, and partners. It not only helps seize the market opportunities quickly but also reduces time to include customer feedback. It also helps change and advances the relationship by improving the communication and collaboration between different business units. Here’s a look at a few statistics on how enterprises are driving efficiency using DevOps.
- 2x as likely as lower performers to achieve the goals across financial and non-financial measures.
- 46x more software deployments than their competitors
- 96x quicker recovery from failures
- 440x faster lead time for changes
- 96x faster recovery from failures
- Better customer satisfaction and operational efficiency
- DevOps teams spend about 21% less time resolving issues compared to traditional IT ops teams
- DevOps teams spend 33% more time improving infrastructure than traditional teams
- DevOps teams require 60% fewer teams per week to manage support cases than traditional teams
From shopping to banking to entertainment, every organization and industry is shifting towards accurate, practical software deployment and involves low maintenance costs. Additionally, emerging trends of AI and MI are steadily gaining momentum. Both technologies can process a large amount of data and perform menial tasks, help the IT staff do more targeted work, and help learn patterns, anticipate problems, and develop solutions.
Further, the adoption of agile frameworks and cloud technologies and the digitization of enterprises are some of the factors driving the market’s growth across the globe.
That said, with the penetration of IoT, DevOps is more in demand owing to the co-dependence of the hardware and the embedded software that runs on it. Moreover, Global Market Insights reports the DevOps Market size exceeded $4 billion in 2019 and expects to grow at over 20% CAGR between 2020 and 2026. So, if you don’t upgrade to DevOps, you are more likely to lose out on several opportunities that can help drive business growth.
Read more: DevOps: Building A New Culture Of Software Development And Delivery
DevOps Market Trends
1. Automation
The Puppet 2021 State of DevOps report revealed that highly evolved firms are more likely to have implemented extensive automation. The report also stated that 90% of respondents with highly developed DevOps practices reported that their teams had automated most repetitive tasks.
These initiatives will only continue to have more urgency in their adoption for enterprises that are yet to evolve fully. To make these initiatives work, teams will have to integrate Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning alongside automation of the entire process. Incorporating machine learning into the delivery lifecycle helps enterprises to understand problems such as blockages or capacity issues. This information can be used to mitigate problems whenever they arise. In addition, the AI-based predictive analysis enables the DevOps pipeline to anticipate problems and provide potential solutions.
2. Application Performance Monitoring (APM) Software
APM software is essential as it helps provide rapid feedback to developers during deployments. It includes:
- Front-end monitoring- This helps observe the behavior and performance of user interactions.
- Application discovery, tracing, and diagnostics(ADTD) – This analyses the relation between the web and application servers, infrastructure, and microservices.
- AIOps-enabled analytics- This helps detect patterns, anomalies, and causality across the lifecycle.
APM plays a key role in minimizing the Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) and improving the user experience. APM capabilities help DevOps teams to understand the business processes better, provide insights into business operations, help with problem isolation and prioritization.
3. DevOps Security
Security is one of the most overlooked aspects of any organization. According to Gene Kim, DevOps researcher, for every 100 developers, there is only one security engineer.
However, with the pandemic changing many things and people working from home, more services are being run in the cloud, leading to more attacks. So, the way a developer writes the software and deploys it to its destination must be secure.
To get serious about prioritizing security for DevOps, you need to;
- Understand security goals
- Have proper cloud vulnerability scanners
- Secure the code with standard tests
4. Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) and DevOps
As per reports from Google Cloud’s 2021 Accelerate State of DevOps, SRE and DevOps will complement each other in years to come. SRE techniques such as service-level indicators will enhance the objectives of the DevOps team.
The report also indicates that teams who excel at modern practices are 1.4 times more likely to experience greater software delivery and operational performance than those who are less mature with operational practices. Such teams are also 1.8 times more likely to have better business outcomes.
5. The Rise of DevSecOps
As organizations embrace Kubernetes, serverless, and other cloud-based technologies, cloud-native security will become more critical. As a result, teams will need new tools and processes to protect assets making DevSecOps indispensable.
DevSecOps is a fusion of security and compliance testing into the development pipeline. It should:
- Integrate into the life cycle seamlessly
- Provide transparent results to the stakeholders
- Improve the agility of developers
- Help the teams to stay within their development environment
- Offer security protection at runtime
Read more: A Complete Guide On Software Product Development Stages And Life Cycle
Why Choose Fingent as Your DevOps Service Provider?
With robust DevOps services, Fingent top custom software development company, ensures rapid on-boarding of applications by automating the end-to-end delivery pipeline and facilitating continuous development and integration across leading cloud platforms. It provides faster time to market, increased efficiency, and reduced costs. Our DevOps solutions will help align your organization’s goals rapidly and reliably to ensure high-quality software-based products and services.
So, if you’re looking forward to deploying DevOps to improve your organization’s speed, agility, and gain a competitive advantage, then connect with our experts today!
The pandemic has derailed the global economy, impacting businesses across the world. If organizations wish to keep up with the lightning pace of app and platform improvements while staying cyber secure, they must rely on DevOps. DevOps is crucial to business success more than ever.
But before you start your journey with DevOps let’s take a look at what DevOps is. What are the advantages of DevOps? How can you maximize its potential for your business? Read on to find out.
What Is DevOps?
DevOps is a term derived from combining “development” and “operations.” According to Gartner, “DevOps represents a change in IT culture, focusing on rapid IT service delivery through the adoption of agile, lean practices in the context of a system-oriented approach.”
In simple terms, it is a coordination of best practices that automate and integrate the processes between software development and the IT teams. This cross-disciplinary practice enables enterprises to create and improve products faster than traditional software development methods.
Implementing DevOps allows enterprises to have a competitive edge in value and value management. It allows teams to adapt to the changing market and address their customers’ needs effectively.
Read more: DevOps: The Catalyst to Efficient Project Development and Delivery
Tangible Benefits of DevOps
1. Maximizes efficiency
DevOps ensures the quality of application updates. Armed with the logging and monitoring mechanism of DevOps, developers can now oversee the real-time performance of the products.
This will help them make any necessary changes or improvements ensuring the efficiency of the software. Continuous testing enhances the software quality. Plus, it will be more reliable to function consistently and seamlessly.
2. Better communication and cooperation
A DevOps software development culture contributes to happier and more productive teams as its primary focus is on performance. This team spirit helps in building trust that leads to unitedly working to innovate more effectively.
When teams work together with DevOps, they do not wait for a different team to solve problems. Instead, they work toward a common goal focusing on bringing the product to market or production.
3. Faster Innovation
The success of an enterprise depends on its ability to innovate faster than its competitors. Since DevOps collaborates both development and operation efforts, the development cycle is shorter and the applications are ready faster.
4. Reduced implementation failure
Implementation failure can occur due to programming defects. Since DevOps promotes frequent code versions it is easy to detect defects early. This reduces the number of implementation failures. Additionally, recovery is much faster as the teams share ideas and together tackle the challenges of both teams.
5. Cost-effective
Automated testing and CI/CD aid in efficient bug-free codes. Hence, it eliminates the need to combat network downtime and avoid spending additional costs on other related issues.
DevOps automation accelerates the software release pipeline and cuts down on manual interventions. Thus, it minimizes software release costs. Moreover, early detection of defects saves consequent financial damages. Subsequently, DevOps increases profitability while reducing both direct and indirect costs.
Read more: Test Automation In DevOps For Expediting Software Development
6. Customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction is crucial for businesses to thrive and profit. The constant flow of feedback mechanism of DevOps allows customers to rate the product and its updates. Their feedback will help developers to improve the product.
Besides, customers can keep tabs on the progress of the application with the help of loop feedback. This contributes to customer satisfaction as they now can see the agility in the software development process. As a result, your business can and will gain a competitive advantage in your sector.
Key Features Of DevOps
- Code: Everything in DevOps is version-controlled as code along with data.
- Continuous: Emphasis is on continuity of integration, deployment, and testing.
- Collaboration: Strong collaboration between the operations, development, and security teams is at the heart of DevOps.
- Fail fast: Robust automation, tooling, and processes in DevOps help in identifying problems faster preventing delays in the rollout of new features.
- Automated environment provisioning: This enables consistency across deployment ensuring reliable release.
- Security: This involves all security measures ranging from static security code analysis to vulnerability management.
DevOps Lifecycle
DevOps consists of multiple phases that collectively become the DevOps lifecycle. These phases ensure DevOps optimizes all development processes. Here is a phase-wise break-down of the DevOps lifecycle:
1. Continuous development
This is the first phase where planning and software coding takes place. The planning involves understanding the project and developers begin developing the code for the application. Though planning does not require any tools, maintaining code requires a number of tools.
2. Continuous integration
In the phase of continuous integration, new codes are built and integrated into the existing code. The source code is modified several times on a weekly or daily basis. The continuous integration of new code helps reflect the changes that the customers experience with the updated code.
3. Continuous testing
At this stage, the developed software is continuously tested for bugs with the help of automated tools. This phase can be repositioned around the continuous integration phase as well.
Testing helps developers save effort and time that is usually lost in manual testing. Plus, reports generated help them improve the test evaluation process. This ensures flawless functionality and inter-networking of the application.
4. Continuous feedback
Continuous feedback allows for further analysis of the improvements. The feedback from customers is assessed promptly enabling the developer to release new versions of the software application.
5. Continuous monitoring
This phase is of key importance for application developers as it sustains the availability of services in the application. Continuous monitoring helps determine the root causes of recurring system errors and helps resolve security issues and other problems.
6. Continuous deployment
Although continuous deployment takes place before continuous monitoring, developers ensure that this phase remains active throughout the DevOps lifecycle. Containerization tools are used to achieve continuous deployment. This nullifies all sorts of production failures and system errors.
7. Continuous operations
This is the shortest of all phases. The continuous operation allows developers to automate the process and accelerate the time-to-market for the application.
Use of DevOps in Different Industries
Manufacturing industries: The use of DevOps in car manufacturing can help manufacturers identify errors early on in the production process.
Online financial trading companies: DevOps reduces the overall process time and increases the customer base. DevOps contributes to a drastic reduction in regression testing time which in turn reduced the funding period.
Read more: Prepare for the Future of Digital Innovation with these 10 Services From Fingent
Get Faster, Bigger, and Better with DevOps
It is clear that the DevOps strategy benefits enterprise software development in many ways. DevOps take the legwork out of the software development process and has emerged to be a crucial component for the growth of a business. DevOps provides a wide range of benefits that are measurable and real in implementation.
DevOps can create an astounding long-term impact for internet-based businesses. All businesses need DevOps for faster testing and implementations.
If you are not adopting DevOps practices in your technology projects, then you are increasing the risk of delay on your technology projects and increasing technical debt. The longer you wait, the more effort is required to implement DevOps into your workflow. So, if you are considering implementing DevOps, act quickly! Call us today.
Find Business Success with Agile Software Development Methodologies
Agile software development methodologies have proven their mettle in recent years and “agile” is becoming a buzz word in software development and project management. It makes sense, therefore, to understand what drives the success of these methodologies and consider if your business could benefit from implementing it.
What is the Agile Software Development Methodology?
Agile Development works on the principles of iteration and incremental development. It does not rely on a linear method approach but focuses on rapid delivery of fully functional application components. The focus is not on tasks, but on time phases called “sprints.” These sprints are of specific duration and begin with a detailed plan of what is to be delivered at the end of a sprint. Continuous testing, feedback, and improvement are vital aspects of the agile methodology.
At the heart of the agile methodology is its focus on individuals and interactions rather than processes and tools. Rather than focusing on comprehensive documentation to prove a project’s worth, the primary measure of progress in agile methodology is delivering working, tested software. This serves as a basis for collaboration between teams and customers, gaining feedback and swiftly responding to change. Value-driven development is given prime importance with the focus on delivering visible results and business value continuously. This way, stakeholders and projects have complete visibility on where the project stands and the business value they can expect at any given point of the project.
Scrum is an important aspect of the agile methodology and deserves a mention in the context of discussing agile methodologies. Using the principles of agile methodology, Scrum advocates a self-organizing and cross-functional team. The Scrum method is supported by two specific roles – the Scrum Master (who acts as the coach to direct teams towards agility and high performance) and the Product Owner (who helps the team build the right product and represents the company and end users).
Why Agile Methodology Trumps Traditional Development Methods
There are many reasons why Agile Methodology is being favored over traditional methods worldwide. We have listed out a few:
Faster and Better Workflow:
Agile Methodology is completely different from traditional Waterfall Methodologies, where projects follow a linear approach and progress from one step to another only after the previous step is completed. The traditional time-consuming method of relying on comprehensive documentation and analysis before the design and commencement of the project is eliminated.
Implementation and development begin almost immediately in agile development and the processes and development is refined in increments based on continuous feedback from customers and project teams. This also cuts out the verification and maintenance stage in the Waterfall Method, where the end product is tested, bugs are fixed, and the code is maintained. In the agile method, this testing and bug fixing is already being done continuously throughout the project, ensuring that the final product is refined and ready to be deployed.
Multilevel and continuous planning:
The absence of detailed analysis before implementation in agile methodology does not mean that the project is initiated without any substantial planning. On the contrary, multi-level and continuous planning is a vital feature of the agile development methodology. The planning follows a just-in-time approach, which aligns the information available with what details are necessary at the time.
The planning usually happens on at least two levels – the release level and the iteration level. At the release level, planning involves identifying and prioritizing the necessary features required in the software. This gives a basis to decide which features must be worked on first. Planning at the iteration level involves which features must be implemented next and the optimal size of batches which can be practically delivered in a single iteration.
Customer Focus:
The most important feature of agile methodologies is that it places the customer at the center of the development process. Teams are directed to think of product design through user stories and use cases, which ensures that customers are always kept at the heart of the process. User stories specify the needs of the end users and the various scenarios that they will use to fulfill that need.
Use cases show how the product developed will help end users achieve the outcome they want in the user story. In this way, the whole development process becomes focussed on what the customer needs. This is the foundation of Customer Experience (CX), which is fast becoming the defining success factor for companies today.
Related Reading: Read on to know how customer experiences reshape a company’s brand identity.
Business Success with Agile Software Development Methodologies
Businesses the world over are embracing and implementing agile methodologies in their efforts to improve their project management capabilities and improve performance. The 9th Global Project Management Survey, which surveyed 3,234 project management professionals from all over the world attests to this fact.
According to the survey, 71% of organizations use Agile approaches in their business. “We believe that agility could also be used in multiple ways— in everything we do,” says Phillippe Husser, a survey respondent and Senior Partner of Progress Direction Michelin. “In fact, the world is changing very quickly around us, so much so that we cannot afford anymore to have projects taking two to five years to deliver, because, during this time, the initial requirements have changed.”
Case in Point: Ericsson
Ericsson is a leading provider of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to service providers and covers 40% of the world’s mobile phone traffic. The company with around 100,000 employees is a classic case in point to show the successful implementation of agile methodologies even in large-sized companies.
The company used to use a plan-driven software process but switched to agile in 2012. One of their main areas of focus was to develop a XaaS platform and services that the customers would use as a service. The results have been phenomenal.
Steve Dennings, an expert on agile methodology and author of The Age of Agile, summarizes the success points of Ericsson’s adoption of agile methodologies this way: “Now with Agile management, Ericsson has over 100 small teams working with its customers’ needs in three-week cycles. The result is faster development that is more relevant to the specific needs of the customers. The client gets value sooner. Ericsson has less work in progress. And Ericsson is deploying one to two years earlier than it otherwise would so that its revenue comes in one to two years earlier.”
Find Success with Agile Software Development
Agile development and methodology is an integral part of Fingent top software development company and creating agile software products for different industry sectors such as healthcare, finance, education, entertainment and media, real estate and retail amongst others. Get in touch with us so we can discuss how you can get effective in your agile journey and find success.
Related Reading: Check out these custom software development trends that every business should know.
So, You– one of the key decision makers of your company, have a cool idea, a plan or a requirement for a software application, a mobile application for your business, a website, or need to automate an ineffective business process. You might have an overview of what you need, but can’t do it yourself, or you don’t know any good connections doing the job.
What would you do?
How will you choose that perfect custom software development company which can provide the best solutions among the millions of other custom software development firms out there? I am sure that you know there is a lot of difference between finding a software firm and finding the best software development company for your requirements.
The majority of the established firms out there are masters of their art providing excellent solutions and service. They are all well-experienced in creating software or applications from scratch to enterprise levels. Most of these have spent a considerable period in the industry, know the trends and are constantly striving in a market that is highly competitive and advancing day by day. So, how do you select that one provider from these many experts out there in the market? It’s indeed a very tricky job and should be done with caution. However, you will find great use of the points given below to select your right software outsourcing partner.
Identify your Needs
How can you choose the best when you don’t know what you want? Identify your business needs properly, talk to your employees, evaluate the problems and analyze the solution. Form an outline of the solution you want to meet the objectives. Depending on the nature of your project, the requirements and reputation choose offshore or onshore providers.
Check the Company’s Technical Skills and Expertise
Gather information about the company – the skill , knowledge of the team members and their portfolio working in the latest technologies in similar domain as yours, company’s experience handling projects in the particular niche/ domain, company’s skill in decoding your requirements into apt solution, the communication effectiveness, adherence to deadlines, and the like. Look for teams providing direct access to developers who can communicate well with you. Software houses with teams experienced in agile or hybrid agile methodologies are always better choices. Have casual getting to know each other kind of chats, but gather solid information in the course of your interaction, that clearly showcases their efficiency in previous works.
Check their Reputation with Others
Of course, you want to partner with the best custom software development company, but would you go for a company that is not polite and nice to work with? How scalable are their solutions? Know the company’s flexibility to get on with different atmospheres by looking at their client base and client relationship history. Check the clients’ and customers’ testimonials/reviews on platforms like Clutch, GoodFirms, etc. or connect with one of their clients through social media channels to know their opinion about the company, talk to real people via online forums, discussions and other social media to know their opinion, direct or indirect experience with this company. Doing these will sometimes leave you confused with overwhelming responses from different people, nevertheless, take an average of pros and cons and decide what cons can you overlook for better pros of the company that aligns with your requirements.
The Budget
Cost is always as important as the company’s expertise. Determine whether the cost of the project falls in your budget. Unless confident on the guaranteed ROIs, you don’t want to go bankrupt buying an over expensive software that automates parts of your business. That said, you don’t have to compromise on the quality of the software for low costs either. Certain companies price their solutions for the sheer fact of overcharging to seem like a bigger and better company. Do not forget to look for hidden or additional costs in the contract, like additional fees for documents management, annual setup/ maintenance in addition to monthly support charges, in-person training, etc.
Support your Core Business Functions with Efficient KPO Solutions.
Size of your Software Project
Is your project small, medium, large or huge? Not all companies undertake any size of custom software development projects. Certain software development companies commit only to big fishes, providing them giant, multi-year, million dollar projects. These are usually famous brands and industry experts. Whereas many smart small to medium size companies take multi-year projects. Such companies’ growth curve over a small period of time shall showcase their competency and potential. Has the company been growing fast or diminishing in size or stagnant over this period?
How Passionate are they to Develop the Solution
The company to which you outsource must understand your requirement in a way you understand and aspire to. Are they as passionate as you about this project? Are they completely dedicated to making a quality product or are they just doing a duty for money they take? These are evident from the way they suggest added features which can be included, future scopes for the product, or deny with an idea that is not quite useful. However, make sure they back their opinion with proper facts and reasons that convince you about their dedication and is not just to ‘make the task easy’ for them.
What happens in the Case of Divorce?
Jon Lincoln, business development specialist at Etfile says that, “Some vendors try shady tactics by holding your data hostage (as if they own it!) or charge an exorbitant amount to sway you from leaving”. Get proper agreement on safety and security issues and how you get your data back in case you leave the vendor. Expect some charges especially if the data was encrypted, but it shouldn’t make you bankrupt in any case.
Quality of After- Sale Support and Services:
Even the most perfect solutions guarantee only 99.9999% up-time. Unfortunately, there are no 100% perfect solutions. Even though too small, there is always a fraction of the chance that things might go wrong after delivery, especially in the case of software. So make sure your vendor company provides direct access to the technical team and offer good support, maintenance, cloud-based updates and upgrades and troubleshooting services for a fair period of time after sales.
Evaluate your Software Package Now!
Take a Test Drive
Most companies these days provide a free trial to ensure the quality of the features, benefits, and usability. Ensure that the software meets your requirements, have necessary features and functionality. During the trial, feel free to ask your vendor all the questions and doubts you may have.
Your first stepping stone to establishing your goal is choosing the right custom software development company. A fault here might lead to devastating results. So, take no chance, do thorough research and study based on the factors mentioned above. Based on our experience developing and deploying custom software for a wide range of industries and organizations of varying sizes, we believe that the Best Company is that which deliver a solution blending with your business process to the highest degree, within the stipulated cost and time and without a compromise on quality!