Here are DevOps Challenges and How to Solve Them

The term DevOps is a combination of two words— development and operations. To put it simply, it is the philosophy that boasts better communication between the development and the operations team so that they can perform better.

DevOps isn’t any kind of technology but an environment that implements certain processes and methodologies so as to improve the overall software development lifecycle. While DevOps has great potential, there are some challenges that can either make the process difficult, or lead to results that are far from ideal.

In this article, we’ll discuss the common challenges with DevOps and how to resolve them. But before diving in, let’s understand DevOps in more detail, how it works, and finally it’s challenges in detail.

What is DevOps?

DevOps is a set of practices, tools, and cultural philosophies that is used to automate and integrate the processes between the application development and IT/delivery teams. It focuses on team empowerment, cross-team communication, collaboration, and automation.

The term was coined around 2007 as a solution to the collaboration problem between the development team, which is responsible for developing applications, and the operations team, which is responsible for deployment and support for the application.

How Does DevOps Work?

In a DevOps model, the developers and IT departments work together throughout the software development lifecycle to boost the speed of development and improve the quality of the end product. It’s a modern approach where the development and operations teams are no longer isolated or “siloed.” They sometimes even combine to form a single team in which the engineers work across the complete development lifecycle – from development to deployment.

DevOps approach sometimes even involves the security teams - leading to security becoming an integral part of the development process. This is known as DevSecOps - something we will cover in later posts.

The DevOps Lifecycle

DevOps is a continuous process and so the practitioners use an infinity loop to reflect how the DevOps lifecycle phases relate to each other.

Let’s take a look at how the DevOps lifecycle functions at each step-Plan: This is the first stage in the lifecycle in which the teams determine the business requirement and gather end-user feedback. They design a project roadmap to optimize business impact and deliver the desired results.

Code: In this stage, the actual code development takes place. Here the developers use a suite of tools (version control like Git, IDEs like VSCode) to streamline the coding process. This is also where developers try to follow best practices to prevent quality and security issues.

Build: After the developers are done with coding, they Continuos Integration leverage tools like Jenkins and Bamboo to integrate and build the code contributed by the development team.

Test: Once the software is built, it is deployed in a test or staging environment. Here several testing methodologies are applied, like user acceptance testing, security testing, performance testing, and more. Many tools are involved in the process, like JUnit, Selenium, etc., to test the product's quality.

Release: After passing the tests, the product is ready to be deployed in the operational environment. Once the product passes all the tests, the operations team schedules the release or deploys multiple versions of the product as per the needs of the organization.

Deploy: In this phase, Infrastructure-as-Code helps to build the production environment and then release the product by using multiple tools.

Operate: The product is now live and can be used by users. At this stage, the operations team manages the server configuration and positioning using tools like Chef.

Monitor: In this phase, the DevOps pipeline is observed based on the data collected from user behavior, application efficiency, and other sources. This, in turn, allows the teams to identify bottlenecks affecting the production and operations teams’ performance.

In a nutshell, application lifecycle management DevOps provides a platform for software development as well as ongoing software administration.

But what are the challenges with DevOps that can hamper the process? Let’s check!

Challenges to DevOps and How to Resolve Them

Here are some of the challenges associated with different processes in the DevOps environment. We’ll also discuss how to resolve those challenges.

Challenges Associated with DevOps Adoption

Adoption of DevOps will help you build a better work process and improve the results. However, there are a few challenges associated with its adoption. Let’s explore them along with their solutions.

Transitioning

Transitioning seems daunting at first, so no teams like the idea of transitioning to DevOps. Further, you can’t just ask your team to change the process— you need to present the adoption as a natural evolution of development practices.

How to Resolve?

Create a proper process of transitioning. Making the transition overnight isn’t the best idea; you need to start with a small portion and then scale. As the teams begin to realize the advantages of adopting DevOps, more and more teammates will join the bandwagon. Plan the transition to align with your sprints, with dedicated tickets and time allotment for a successful transition.

Building Cross-Functional Teams

Traditionally, various teams with specific focuses managed the software development process. For example, the development process was solely the responsibility of the development team, and the production process was the responsibility of the operations team. With the adoption of DevOps culture, the idea of working in silos shifted towards cross-functional teams. This idea of building a team by integrating multiple teams can be challenging at first.

How to Resolve?

DevOps InstituteAmazon Web SNTU-Scantist

Integrating Different Tools of Various Domains

Continuous integration is one of the major pillars of DevOps. This is why while adopting DevOps, you need to integrate all the tools in the right way to make testing, deployment, and building all work together in a proper way. This is a major challenge if the team isn’t experienced enough in DevOps.

How to Resolve?

At first, you can hire some experts who can train the team and guide them about integrating all the tools and then using them in the software development lifecycle. This will help the team to explore and understand the process and then continue to follow it. Using a well-supported CI tool like Jenkins, or integrated solutions like Github Actions or Gitlab CI can be a good start.

Adopting New Tools

The traditional development and operations teams have their own set of tools that they have been using for years. However, the DevOps toolset comes with some new tools that can be extremely helpful for both teams.

How to Resolve?

While any organization can get these tools, they must train the teams to use them effectively. Most popular DevOps tool have free learning resources as well as documentation available online. Commercial tools often also offer training and onboarding services. Further, the teams should also be able to check if the tools are meeting the requirements and understand how to integrate these tools into their work process.

Challenges Associated with DevOps Implementation

Once the adoption takes place the next step is to implement DevOps. Here are a few challenges that you may need to face while implementing DevOps in your organization. We’ll also discuss their solutions.

Team Ownership for Deployment and Releases

When organizations start implementing DevOps practices, they still do not have complete ownership of the deployment and release cycles of their software. This is mostly because of a lack of understanding of the differences between deploying and releasing.

Deploying: Deploying means the software is being installed in any environment, like development, test, or production.

Releasing: Releasing is the next step after deployment. It makes the software available to the end customer. This is crucial so that the full cross-functional team concept of “you build, you run” can be achieved.

How to Resolve?

The best way to resolve this is to let the Dev team start working along with a designated Ops team member and take responsibility in a shared manner. They can try deploying and releasing to test environments first, followed by staging and then finally production. The more they start using this approach, the easier it becomes to implement the DevOps approach.

Implementation Budget

Some organizations believe that DevOps means lower costs. However, that’s not a property of DevOps. DevOps improves results as well as the bottom line by helping the organization deliver more value to the customers.

Despite the long-term cost benefits of DevOps, it does need an initial investment budget to get started. This might seem like a challenge for many organizations.

How to Resolve?

Ask your DevOps teams to create a budget for making the transition, and use RoI reports available online to justify the budget. Get this done before you start implementing DevOps so that there’s no issue during the transition because of the budget.

Unclear Vision

Without a plan in place and crucial metrics to track, you can’t understand whether you’re on the right track and whether results are improving or not. If this is the case, it will be impossible to identify deadline estimates, milestones, or deliverables.

How to Resolve?

The best solution here again is to get advice from experienced people. You can either hire experienced managers or outsource experts who can guide your team in the right direction. Alternatively, if your organization is agile and prefers a DIY approach, you can iterate your way towards your end-goal by making small, continuous improvements.

Lack of Expertise

DevOps approach is not new. But even 15 years after it was first introduced, most organizations are still using traditional methods to carry out the process. This means that not a lot of people have experience in it, which makes implementation challenging and even intimidating.

How to Resolve?

Apart from the resources, certifications and commercial training, the best way to gaining expertise is via exploration. Once you start exploring, you’ll learn more about it and improve your skills.

Wrong Meaning of DevOps

There are still many organizations that do not understand the real meaning of DevOps. Even worse, they treat it as an alternative to other software development methodologies like Agile.

But DevOps isn’t an alternative to Agile rather, the two can be used together to help get better results.

How to Resolve?

A proper understanding of DevOps should be there. People need to be trained before implementing DevOps.

Challenges Associated with Scaling DevOps

Adopting and implementing aren’t the last steps. With time you’ll need to scale your efforts. Here are a few challenges with scaling your efforts along with how to solve them.

Getting All Teams Onboard

DevOps is not just about making the Development and Operations team work together— it’s about bringing all the stakeholders together. However, most organizations find no point in involving teams other than the Dev and Ops, which can lead to collaboration issues and also affect results.

How to Resolve?

Foster a culture where all the teams collaborate to help each other and the customers. Assign quantifiable tasks and outcomes so that there is a sense of ownership and achievement for all involved.

Continuous Learning

Continuous learning should always be there whether you implement DevOps or not. But when you implement it, continuous learning becomes even more crucial. One of the most critical enablers for the team to start adopting a DevOps environment is the curiosity to learn more, adapt, and improve the overall work process.

How to Resolve?

Organizations need to offer resources to their employees so that the employees can help the organization grow. The more the organization supports the employees, the better the employees' performance will be. Simple steps like encouraging employees to attend virtual and offline DevOps events/meet-ups (like DevOpsDay or DevSecCon) in your vicinity are a great way to learn more from the larger community.

The Pace of Change

With a DevOps approach, organizations can shorten the release cycle. But this also means that there will be less time for building, testing, and releasing. This is why they can rely on manual processes, as manual processes can result in delays.

How to Resolve?

Use automation as much as reasonably possible. Automating processes may need you to change the current workflow and investment, but once done, you won’t need to worry about delays or errors.

Next Steps With Scantist

Software Composition Analysis

SCA solutions allow organizations to integrate open-source management throughout the DevOps environment. This is crucial because it allows organizations to tailor their DevOps environment to manage their needs rather than a rigid vendor-centric framework. So if an organization adds an SCA tool to its DevOps environment, it will help them automate the process of determining, communicating, and acting upon open-source vulnerabilities and license risks as part of the development and deployment work process.

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