Key #3 to Remote Application Development: DevOps

In my previous two posts, I discussed the first two keys of successful application development in a remote workplace. This final post discusses the last key that will really round out your team and close the gaps you may be experiencing since the “great work from home migration.” Key #3 is a concept you are already familiar with: DevOps.

 
Donovan Brown, a principal DevOps manager at Microsoft, defines the DevOps methodology as “the union of people, process, and products to enable continuous delivery of value to users.”

Common DevOps practices include:

• Continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD), in which developers make small, incremental changes to the code base that are immediately ready to be released into production.
• Automation from start to finish, from code generation and testing to deployment and monitoring.
• Version control that records all modifications to the code base over time, dramatically simplifying the task of change management.
• Agile planning and lean project management to help DevOps teams collaborate and organize work into shorter, focused “sprints.”

 
Studies have shown that when done right, DevOps can bring tremendous improvements to tech-oriented businesses. In one study, organizations that have “fully embraced” DevOps increased revenues and profits by 60 percent, and were 2.4 times more likely to be enjoying rapid business growth than their competitors.

Many companies have already recognized the immense value that DevOps can bring to their organization but are struggling to implement it in practice. According to a 2019 survey of Harvard Business Review subscribers, 48 percent of respondents said that they “always” use DevOps practices to build software, while another 21 percent said that they “selectively” use DevOps. However, just 10 percent of respondents agree that they can quickly build and deploy software—suggesting that when it comes to DevOps, there’s a significant gap between ideals and reality.

In order to implement DevOps at Datavail, we use Microsoft’s Azure DevOps suite of technology solutions. Azure DevOps includes all the software and solutions you need to successfully bring DevOps to your own organization:

• CI/CD pipelines
• Kanban boards, team dashboards, and backlogs
• Software package and artifact management
• Custom reporting and analytics
• Private git repos hosted in the cloud

 
For example, with Azure DevOps, our remote AppDev team members can easily understand the work on their plate simply by looking at their task boards. By updating these boards as they complete their work, users can keep others in the loop in real time. This allows our team leads to quickly course-correct if team members’ progress falls short of expectations.

For many businesses, the transition to remote work has been jarring and abrupt, disrupting their standard application development workflows. But with these three keys – collaboration, communication, and DevOps – your team can begin to thrive again.

To learn more about the three keys and their implementation strategies, download my white paper, “The 3 Keys to Successful Remote Application Development.”