What is DevOps Life Cycle?
As the name suggests, DevOps is a combination of software development and IT operations. It is a set of continuous practices that automates the processes and establishes an agile relationship between development and operations team. In most cases, DevOps is not just a set of practices. Instead, it's a cultural change that aids in shortening the development cycle and delivering high-quality products. Let's look at how the DevOps lifecycle came into existence.
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The
Origin of DevOps:-
Before DevOps, software applications used the waterfall model or the AGILE model. In theory, the waterfall model breaks down a project's activities into several linear sequential phases in which each stage is reliant on the deliverables of the previous step. It means a period in the development cycle can begin after the preceding stage's completion. In the AGILE software development model, the requirements and solutions evolve throughout the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) with collaborative efforts of several self-organising and cross-functional teams.
The DevOps cycle is a continuous process, aiming for excellence. From development to deployment, a software application gets tested and perfected. Let's look at the seven phases that constitute the DevOps lifecycle.
Continuous
Development:-
In the first phase of the lifecycle, the software application is thoroughly
discussed to understand the essence and vision of it. Once the concept of the
application is clear, the development of the source code starts.
To develop the source code for the application, programming languages, including C, C++, JavaScript, Python or Ruby, is used. Tools such as GIT, GitLab, TFS, and Mercurial help organise and maintain the source code. The process of managing the code is known as Source Code Management (SCM).
Out of the SCM tools discussed, GIT is suitable for even complex projects with a large number of contributors. Using GIT, several versions of an application gets developed and tested, until a stable version exists. Developers may also package the source code into .exe format using tools such as Maven or Garden.
Continuous
Integration
The source
code has frequent changes, either due to the addition of features or changes in
functionality. As a result, in the continuous integration phase, the changes
made are reflected and updated in the existing code.
To facilitate changes in code and make sure it's bug-free, developers perform code review, unit testing, integration testing, compilation and packaging. The continuous integration of updated code ensures that the end-users would experience the changes as well.
Continuous Testing
Following the updates in an application's code, the continuous testing phase can be repositioned around the DevOps lifecycle. In this phase, the software application gets continually tested for bugs. This step needs tools like TestNG, JUnit or Selenium.
As testing is automated, developers save a considerable amount of time and effort. Using the report generated from automated testing, analysis of failed test-cases is more straightforward than that of manual testing. After automated testing, the code undergoes User Acceptance Testing (UAT), which further leads to Quality Assessors (QAs) for parallel testing. Once the code is bug-free, it gets sent to the continuous integration phase for updating changes in the source code.
Continuous Feedback
The improvements made in the testing and integration phase is
analysed in the continuous feedback phase. The developers who analysed the
upgrades and the customers who tested the application can input their valuable
feedback in this phase. The key points from the feedback collected are gathered
and reflected in the app as updates in code.
Continuous
Monitoring
Continuous
monitoring helps in determining and solving recurring errors in an application.
In this phase, the developers continuously record data on the use and
functionality of an app as a proactive step to resolve the mistakes that may
arise.
Continuous monitoring ensures the sustenance of the services offered by an application. Along with that, the security issues concerning an app are automatically detected and resolved.
In this phase, the IT operations team are more involved than the development team. Tools such as Sensu, NewRelic, Splunk and ELK Stack are used in this phase to monitor the performance of a system, its production server and ultimately the application. If the IT operation team detects significant issues with the functionality, the application is re-run through all the previous phases of DevOps lifecycle. This process makes the identification and rectification of errors faster.
Continuous Deployment
Generally,
continuous deployment takes place before the phase of constant monitoring.
However, this phase is active throughout the DevOps lifecycle, especially if
the application is live and is receiving high volumes of traffic.
As the
name implies, in this phase, the code of the application is deployed into the
production servers. One of the crucial processes of this phase is the
configuration management which implements the application's code on all
servers. Tools such as Puppet, Ansible and Chef are used for this purpose.
These tools ensure the code is released to all servers and schedule updates to
take place smoothly.
Along with configuration management tools, containerisation tools like Vagrant are also used to ensure the deployment remains a continuous process. To eradicate production failures tools like Docker is used. These tools ensure the application runs smoothly on different types of computers or intended devices by replicating the respective software couplings from development, testing and staging phases.
Continuous Operations
The final
phase of the DevOps life cycle, although crucial, is least complicated and
consumes the shortest amount of time. This phase, known as the continuous
operation, is mainly aimed at automating the systematic release of an
application, followed by its updates. As this phase is crisp and less
complicated, developers can reduce the delay in an application's release and
significantly cut down its time-to-market.
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