Over the past decade, DevOps has transformed from a buzzword into a vital methodology for software development. This approach involves merging development and operations into a single process, creating a more flexible technological infrastructure, and eliminating silos in the software development lifecycle.
By adopting modern DeVops tools and practices, organizations can increase internal speed and efficiency when planning, building, testing, and deploying complex websites and applications. Thus, many of the world’s tech giants—including Amazon, Facebook, Walmart, and Netflix—have adopted this approach.
According to a 2021 survey, 83% of businesses implemented DevOps practices to streamline remote collaboration amid the COVID-19 lockdowns. And this number is continuing to rise in the highly competitive, post-pandemic business landscape. Today, it’s not enough to simply accept the DevOps philosophy. To maximize internal productivity and the customer experience, your organization must reimagine its entire technological architecture, and integrate faster, more intelligent solutions.
So if you and your team are new to DevOps, or if you’re looking to modernize a DevOps system that’s already a few years old, it’s important to understand the relevant trends and technologies that successful companies are currently embracing.
Let’s take a look at the key DeVops trends as of 2022.
Migrating to a microservices architecture
Traditional business applications are built with a monolithic architecture, which means that any changes to one segment of the application—no matter how big or small—can require an entire overhaul of the system. In other words, if you make an update to the front-end user interface, you may also need to update back-end functionality, like payment processing, inventory management, shipping, and so on.
For growing businesses that manage multiple websites and applications, the monolithic approach has become too costly, time-consuming, and error-prone. This is why so many DevOps engineers now prefer to work with microservices.
With a microservices architecture, different segments of a business application are isolated from one another, but are still able to communicate data and trigger tasks via APIs. This allows front-end developers to work on improving the user experience, without creating additional work for back-end developers—and vice versa. By building, testing, monitoring, and deploying application segments independently, DevOps teams can work smarter, not harder.
Adopting low-code applications
Low-code applications offer visually-focused development environments—with pre-built connectors, drag-and-drop functionality, and other smart services that help eliminate the need to write new code. These programs enable developers to build, edit, and deploy applications quickly and intuitively, making them a valuable tool for DevOps teams.
For simple websites and apps, businesses can leverage low-code applications like Squarespace, Wordpress, and Wix. However, while these kinds of services are growing more advanced each year, complex digital solutions—like internal business tools, online sales portals, and so on—still require custom code from developers.
Going serverless
With the increase in remote work across industries, a rapidly growing number of organizations rely on cloud-native infrastructure—as opposed to on-premise servers—for storing core data and powering critical applications.
DevOps teams prefer cloud-based working environments because they’re accessible from basically any location or device. And from a stakeholder perspective, migrating to the cloud means lower operational costs, since all server installation, maintenance, and updates are handled by a third party. The most popular cloud providers today are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.
Utilizing edge computing
With edge computing, DevOps teams can more effectively push and test their code, resulting in faster deployment times for new digital products and updates. This distributed computing model involves sending specific data to be processed at nearby servers—as opposed to a single, distant data center. In addition to faster response times, edge computing also offers lower connectivity costs and higher bandwidth.
Automating DevOps with artificial intelligence (AI)
Certain tasks in the software development pipeline can be automated, resulting in lower payroll costs, fewer human errors, and faster market deployment times. For example, DevOps teams often run automated testing to detect bugs or vulnerabilities in the system—while also eliminating human bias and saving time. As AI grows more sophisticated, these automation tools will be able to take on and accelerate more areas of the software development lifecycle.
Improving DevOps security with Kubernetes
As more businesses embrace the post-pandemic remote-working trend, the demand for high-quality cybersecurity applications increases. Many businesses—particularly those in the healthcare industry—experienced data breaches in 2020, as customers, employees, and third-party vendors accessed and shared sensitive data via unsecure servers. Now, businesses are looking for ways to keep their data safe, and software systems like Kubernetes are offering solutions, such as infrastructure as code (IaC) scanning.
Getting started with modern DevOps for your business
Once your organization is ready to fully embrace the DevOps philosophy, where do you start? What are the best internal technologies and processes, given your unique goals and requirements? And how do you ensure the highest ROI possible for your business? With an expert digital transformation team, you’ll have the tools and resources necessary to build a modern, cutting-edge DevOps system.
Here at Codal, we’ve helped set up DevOps tools and procedures for organizations across all industries. Our award-winning team has years of experience migrating business solutions from on-premise servers to the cloud, automating repetitive development workflows, building highly customized internal applications, and so on—all with the purpose of driving efficiency, lowering costs, and enhancing the customer experience for our clients.
Interested in learning more about new DevOps trends and technologies? Get in touch with a member of our team today!
