DevOps contains working methods and best practices for the software development process having an ultimate goal to optimize the development process and support practices like continuous delivery, continuous integration, and continuous deployment (CI/CD). In today’s dynamic world, DevOps teams and site reliability developers must be able to deliver high-quality features and updates with a high-frequency rate, deliver short turn-around times, and maintain the stability of the production atmosphere. In this article, we’ll learn about DevOps Automation and some of the best tools and practices to integrate the automation process.
What is DevOps Automation?Â
DevOps automation uses tools and technologies to ease routine, repeatable tasks that are done by developers manually. Automating tasks with SDLC helps DevOps teams to collaborate while continuously improving how they design, test, build, deploy, launch, and monitor software applications. The DevOps Automation majorly has two objectives:
- To increase cross-team collaboration
- Â To automate repetitive manual tasks.
DevOps automation tools speed up the delivery process by reducing manual error that results in shorter feedback loops. This improves efficiency.
This incremental continuous deployment and software development approach evolves and is further enhanced with Kubernetes, containers, and microservices.
There are a variety of automation processes in software development which include IT automation, AI automation, robotic process automation (RPA), machine learning, and deep learning.
Automation eases the DevOps processes and makes them faster and more efficient, allowing developers and operations teams to build, test, deploy, and analyze code without making any mistakes and taking less time than manual practices would. Automation helps organizations build continuous deployment (CI/CD), continuous integration (CI), and continuous delivery (CD) pipelines.
Benefits of DevOps Automation
1. Scalability
Scalability is the main part of Automation. For example, if an organization deals with one application and one production environment, they can manually deploy new versions. However, it becomes very challenging to reliably and quickly release new code when their team handles several apps and deploys to diverse settings.
2. Consistency
Processes that are automated heavily are also consistent and reliable. The software automation tool will constantly do the same thing until it is set to be changed.
3. Speed:
DevOps Automation speeds up processes like code integration and application deployment. First, the procedure may begin without waiting for any human to be prepared. When the organization depends on humans to carry out the procedure, it might be complex to deploy a new release manually. Automation tools eliminate delays.
4. Better developer experience:Â
With greater automation, developers do not need to maintain and update toolchains. Automating processes means more time spent on innovation and better cross-team collaboration.
DevOps Automation Tools
1. TerraformÂ
Terraform is one of the infrastructure as code (IaC) tools that enable you to define and automate infrastructure resources on the cloud with the use of a high-level configuration language known as Terraform Language.
It supports a variety of resource types which includes low-level components such as storage, compute instances, and networking; and high-level components such as SaaS features and DNS entries. It can be used to provision Kubernetes resources, Spacelift, and Helm Charts as well.
2. Pulumi
Pulumi is an also open-source infrastructure as code (IaC) tool that is not like other IAC tools that enable users to define and manage infrastructure resources by using different programming languages like JavaScript, Python, Go, etc. This allows you to utilize the power of programming languages to define and manage the infrastructure by using familiar tools to automate complex tasks.
3. AnsibleÂ
Ansible is one of the open-source software platforms for configuring and managing computers. It is tailored to help automate infrastructure management tasks like application deployment, configuration management, and provisioning.
It is often used with other tools, like Terraform and Packer. Due to its simplicity and flexibility, it is also a popular choice for configuration management.
4. ChefÂ
Chef is an automation platform that allows to manage and scale infrastructure. It provides a variety of tools and a domain-specific language (DSL) as per the Ruby programming language.
Chef consists of 3 main components:
1. The Workstation: The workstation is the system that enables you to tailor recipes and administer your infrastructure.
2. The Server: The server stores the cookbooks means multiple recipes in one collection.
3. The Nodes: The nodes are the systems used for configuring.
5. Kubernetes
Kubernetes that is also known as K8s is an open-source container orchestration system used to automate the deployment, scale, and manage the containerized applications. It was first designed by Google but is now managed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.
Kubernetes provides a platform-agnostic way to manage and deploy containers, making it easier for you to build and maintain reliable, scalable, and portable applications.
Best Practices for Implementing DevOps Automation
1. Focus on CI/CD
CI/CD is the essential part for most DevOps teams, that requires to be automated the most in a business. Automation manages various key elements of CI/CD including builds, deploying, etc.
2. Constant Updation
Constant updates and deploying some new features have become important factors for any successful DevOps strategy. They can be the most difficult elements to work with. That is why dynamic management is the key feature of DevOps automation. Version control, configuration management, and change control all optimize your code and manage deployments with control.
3. Collaboration with developers
Even though DevOps tries to automate wherever possible, Developers play a pivotal role in automating a process that demands and additional efforts and review that should not be understated.
4. Monitor constantly
Automation simplifies software monitoring and updating, making troubleshooting, debugging and patching, feature improvements, and other possible security measures much more effective and efficient.
Conclusion
In conclusion, DevOps automation is becoming an important aspect of today’s modern software development which helps your teams in increasing efficiency, reducing errors, and accelerating time-to-market. DevOps Automation streamlines the processes and automates repetitive tasks. By leveraging the power of Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD), companies can optimize collaboration and can achieve their objectives more effectively. As software development is accelerating day by day, the adoption of DevOps automation has become a necessity for success in this digital era.
Organizations can drive automation, vulnerability, and observability, across the SDLC in several ways, which include monitoring-as-code approaches and self-service observability across the DevOps lifecycle. These types of methods allow software development and IT operations teams to build feedback loops into your applications in just a few clicks.
Perimattic approach to DevOps can help your organization to start your DevOps automation journey with ease. The team of Perimattic find the cause and eliminate silos and optimize collaboration to help you in streamlining and scaling your DevOps efforts. We are here to help you to scale your business. Worry no more and contact us now!
