8 DevOps Trends for 2020
According to a study by Grand View Research, the DevOps market size will reach $12.85 billion by 2025. The rise in adoption is driven by the numerous advantages this methodology brings. Experts predict that DevOps will reach its peak by 2020. So, what does the future holds for DevOps?
Introduction to DevOps
DevOps is a methodology that aims to improve development processes by increasing the collaboration between development and operations departments. DevOps enables organizations to create and improve products faster. Companies adopt DevOps due to a number of reasons, as reviewed below.
Shorter development cycles
Traditional development models worked in siloed teams. This approach usually extends the operations time since the application first runs by development, then by operations and testing. In DevOps, developers commit the code to a central repository from where it is fetched by operations and testing. This shortens the development cycles, which results in faster time to markets.
Reduced rollbacks
Sometimes there are deployment failures due to programming defects. The improved collaboration that comes from DevOps makes it easier to detect code defects. Teams can easily manage rollbacks because when necessary only some modules are affected.
Improved collaboration
DevOps improves collaboration by implementing cross-functional teams, typically through the use of project management software or various task management tools. The old “turning over” applications to operations is a thing of the past. The DevOps loop treats each code iteration refining it before releasing it into production. The development process becomes increasingly streamlined.
Reduced mistakes
An integral part of the DevOps process is Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD). These processes rely on automation tools to streamline the development cycle. Continuous integration also automates the process of testing code, which reduces the required manual work. Some of the benefits of CI/CD include:
- Quicker compilation — acceleration tools such as CI/CD can be used to compile code quicker.
- Parallel workflows — you can set up parallel workflows in the CD chain to prevent having one team waiting for the other to complete work.
- Single environment — DevOps teams typically use a single environment. Traditional development models use one environment for development, one for testing and another for deployment. This type of workflow encourages collaboration between teams.
8 Trends to Watch for in 2020
1. Serverless Computing
DevOps teams make use of serverless computing to simplify operations. Serverless computing provides scalability for application development without the cost of physical hardware. The pay-as-you-go pricing makes this model cost-effective.
2. Automation
Automation is an integral part of DevOps. One trend that is getting stronger in DevOps is zero-touch automation. Zero-touch automation leverages machine learning to fully automate the backup without the need for human intervention. AI can process massive amounts of data, helping with processes that would be time-consuming for a human.
3. Shift to DevOps Assembly Lines
The goal of DevOps is the improved collaboration between development and automating the delivery procedure. We may see a shift from CI pipelines to a focus on DevOps assembly lines.
Continuous integration pipelines automate build and unit tests for each code change. Typically they follow a build-test-push line, with build and test instruction included in a blob. There are also CI pipelines that work in stages and others that run the stages in parallel.
DevOps assembly lines are focused on automating the connection between the activities performed by different teams. Assembly lines implement a pipeline for each activity, including CI. In this scenario, CI becomes one of the activities in the Assembly line, which also includes testing, release and deploy.
DevOps teams often make use of ad-hoc scripts to connect one activity to another. Assembly lines help DevOps teams to better connect the different activities required to achieve continuous delivery.
4. Data Science Adopts DevOps
The rise in Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven apps is encouraging data scientists to adopt DevOps methodologies. DevOps can address data science challenges such as the lack of cross-functional collaboration. DevOps can also help data scientists achieve continuous testing, and improve their algorithms. DevOps improves efficiency in the management of AI and ML-driven apps.
5. Kubernetes and DevOps
Kubernetes is helping DevOps teams with the deployment and management of containerized applications. The adoption of Kubernetes provides benefits such as self-healing, fast container management, better redundancy, and uptime. It is possible we may see more DevOps teams adopting Kubernetes, following the spike in k8s adoption.
6. Shift to DevSecOps
DevOps teams are increasingly shifting security left, to mitigate potential security risks early in the development life cycle. A DevSecOps model offers just that, applying security practices throughout the entire lifecycle.
7. More Open Source
Developers often use open-source software to improve customization and collaboration, since peer production is one of the key principles of open-source software. There is also a lot of support for open-source projects from big tech giants such as Google, through the Cloud Native Foundation.
8. Business value will substitute velocity as a metric.
Typically the success of DevOps is measured in terms of the velocity in which the team releases software applications. Forrester predicts that during 2020, companies will place more value on the quality, rather than the velocity of deployments.
Final Thoughts
DevOps is steadily growing into a working standard for software development. The model is impacting and improving the work with technologies such as containerization. The list of trends presented in this article is by no means exhaustive. We may see DevOps and DevSecOps, in particular, driving further innovation with faster, more secure, software releases.
