Top DevOps Tools and Technologies- Your Need to Know Now

The realm of software development is buzzing and evolving technology plays a vital role in it. These days, it is imperative to pick the right tools to get support or the power of automation to accomplish software development projects efficiently. As technology advances, we keep on getting such tools that can reduce the risk of human errors and time to market for software. DevOps tools and technologies serve this purpose effectively. Let’s dig deep into the list of DevOps tools. But before moving ahead, let’s understand the concept of DevOps, its importance and challenges.

What is DevOps?

Looking at the word, we find a combination of two terms- Dev and Ops, that are short names for development and operations respectively. The word DevOps represents a collaborative approach of both development and IT operations teams to perform the task. As a concept, DevOps promotes effective communication and collaboration between these two teams and other departments in a software development company.

The DevOps concept originated in the year 2008 during the discussion on agile infrastructure. It started to gain traction from 2009 onwards as a practice to make software infrastructure management more efficient. Today, DevOps methodology has evolved as a culture that supports active collaboration between development, operations, and other business teams. Tools and technologies make this culture while increasing the organization’s capability to deliver various high-quality products quickly and continuously.

Here, we consider the DevOps market as the sales of DevOps solutions and services in the form of tools useful for integrating processes of development (Dev) and operations (Ops). These DevOps tools operate on a software engineering approach that combines the activities of both development and operation teams. DevOps tools not only support cooperation between these teams but also contribute to ensuring faster delivery of software. Culture and Lean Products are two foundation pillars of DevOps.

Talking about the main components of DevOps, we can mention solutions and services. Various industry sectors including IT, banking, financial services, retail, manufacturing, and healthcare utilise these solutions or services for improving their processes and enhancing collaboration across different departments. We can certainly expect that the market of DevOps solutions will gradually increase in line with the above prediction with more companies will use these solutions across the world.

Let’s dig deep into the advantages of DevOps in the software development process.

Benefits and Advantages of DevOps

The fundamental aim of DevOps is to automate as many processes as possible for reducing the SDLC (Systems Development Life Cycle) and enhancing the development pace. As many as 68% of organizations have experienced an improvement in the quality of software after implementing the DevOps concept. Here are the top benefits of DevOps..

• Reduced silos and improved interdepartmental communication
• Faster time to market with quality assurance and consistency
• Quick improvement based on feedback with less downtime
• More automation and reduced chances of manual errors
• Streamlined processes with increased accountability and code ownership
• Broader yet well-defined roles across different teams

Though DevOps offers many benefits to the organization, we need to overcome some of the challenges related to this concept.

Challenges of DevOps

DevOps brings a cultural change in the organization, and therefore, implementing DevOps practices is challenging. Here are some of its noteworthy challenges-

• Changes at the level of IT departments with the inclusion of new job roles and skillsets
• Advent of new tools and platforms that require extensive training and support
• Unnecessary or unsafe automation and IT tool proliferation
• Compliance-related issues especially when role separation is necessary
• More risks in deployment due to the mentality of fail-fast
• Cultural issues due to automation and changes in job roles

Advanced DevOps tools and technologies are here to enable companies to make the most of this revolutionary concept while addressing its challenges. However, it is essential to pick the right tool to get the DevOps advantage.

How to Choose the Right DevOps Tools

DevOps tools and technologies include many different servers, applications, and platforms. The right DevOps tool can increase and enhance communication, automate repetitive processes, and eliminate context switching effectively.

Here is a five-point strategy to select the right tools for leveraging the benefits of DevOps.

1. Integration Ability

It is one of the fundamental requirements while selecting DevOps tools. The tool you select should be capable of integrating smoothly with a specific technology stack as compared to other tools.

2. Scalability

The tool you select should be scalable to meet the requirements of your enterprise. Many companies opt for SaaS-based tools for this reason.

3. Technical Expertise

It is always beneficial that people with the necessary technical know-how select the DevOps tool. Most tools need some sort of customization and technically sound employees can make it possible for your company.

4. Reliability

It is necessary to check the DevOps tools for reliability even during usage at a large scale and under complex development conditions.

5. Security

Enterprise versions of various tools can address security-related issues with ease. Therefore, enterprise versions of DevOps tools are preferred to open-source counterparts.

It is fair to mention that there is no one-size-fits-all solution available for DevOps tools. You can use these five factors to get the right tool for your enterprise.

Top DevOps Tools and Technologies

These days, we have many DevOps tools available thanks to advancing technology. These tools can make collaboration more effective and easier for your company. Here we give the top ten DevOps tools that will assist you to make a productive DevOps strategy.

StrongDM

It offers easy and secure access to all the resources including servers, databases, clusters, internal web apps, etc. It contributes to increasing productivity by giving frictionless and approval-based access to DevOps teams. Its centralized log collection simplifies security incident investigations and audit responses. As a result, your DevOps team can get more security and standard postures.

Kubernetes

Also known as K8s, Kubernetes is an open-source, container orchestration platform. Developed and supported by Google, this tool is useful for scaling, handling containerized applications, and automating deployment. It provides professionals with a way to manage applications in a semi-automated way in a replicated environment. Kubernetes is highly flexible with robust storage orchestration capability.

Docker

It is a popular containerization tool. It enables DevOps professionals to pack, deploy, and run applications securely irrespective of their running environments. The Docker engine facilitates the team to access the containers which is necessary to execute applications in a remote environment. It also contributes to reducing infrastructure costs for software development companies.

Terraform

It is a reliable and famous IAC (Infrastructure-as-code) tool that can manage tens of hundreds of cloud-based services. It has a consistent CLI workflow and an extended set of features. Teams can drive efficiency in the maintenance, management, and reusability of their applications using this tool. Terraform can accelerate the pace of creating, versioning, and updating the AWS environment.

GitHub

It is one of the most popular DevOps tools and a preferred choice of developers since its launch in the year 2000. It facilitates developers to make iterations to the code quickly and sends the notification of this change instantly to other team members. It offers a branched history of changes within the tool, therefore, it is easy to roll back to the previous version within seconds in case of any errors.

Jira

Jira has gained fame as a robust software development platform for tracking various issues and managing multiple projects at once. It is available as a SaaS solution and an on-premise solution for simplifying the software development process. Users can report issues based on real-time data to improve their teams’ overall performance and increase agility. Most development companies use Jira for planning and managing several projects simultaneously.

Jenkins

As an open-source continuous integration server, Jenkins can automate the entire software project cycle. Its Pipeline feature is useful in committing code into the repository, running test cases, and fetching reports after testing in an automated way. Jenkins is a highly customizable DevOps tool that provides users with instant feedback. What’s more, it can automate most of the tasks and tools of SDLC.

Ansible

It is one of the most simple yet highly effective IT configuration tools. Compared to Puppet and Chef, Ansible has a softer interface and less dependence on the device’s resources. It is useful for pushing new changes in the current system and configuring recently deployed machines. Ansible has high scalability and reduced cost that make it a popular choice in IT companies worldwide.

Bitbucket

It is similar to GitHub and helps teams manage project code throughout the SDC (Software Development Cycle). Though GitHub is still considered the top repository, many professionals shift to BitBucket to leverage the benefits of reduced costs and additional features of the private repository. Easy integration with Jira and Trello, built-in CI/CD functionality, and other features give this tool an edge over other DevOps tools.

Phantom

When it comes to security, any DevOps team can count on Phantom. It assists the team to build a robust and defensive infrastructure from scratch. This tool enables the team to collaborate in a centralized environment while remaining aware of the increasing threats. It also gives the option to mitigate risks associated with the security of the development cycle instantaneously using different techniques.

Silver Touch - Your Reliable Partner for DevOps

Silver Touch Technologies is your one-stop destination for getting the benefits of DevOps practices. We offer our global clientele all the services including multi-tenant SaaS development, asynchronous messaging, MEAN stack development, etc. under one roof. Our in-house team of experienced DevOps professionals and cutting-edge tools make us a reliable partner for any software and DevOps-related requirements of your company.

Conclusion

Hope this concise yet detailed guide to DevOps tools and technologies will help you find the right tool for your next software development project. It is always beneficial to consult a reputed DevOps development company to get more information on DevOps tools and trends. DevOps tools hold a key to success for the development project, and therefore, you need to choose the right tool based on the cultural and other dimensions of your company.

FAQs DevOps Tools and Technologies