The majority of organizations these days irrespective of the size have started adopting DevOps, while many organizations have also started moving towards it. They do this with the objective of better workflow and productivity. The good thing about DevOps is that it motivates communication and collaboration between the operation and development teams in different stages of the Software Development Life Cycle shortly called SDLC. When both these teams associate, it will result in well-defined integration. Even, it will help them work toward a common objective of creating a reliable and efficient delivery system at a faster pace.

The goal of DevOps is to generate integration and automation. Nevertheless, implementing it in the real world is a bit challenging endeavor. Now, if you plan to implement DevOps in your organization,  it is better to be aware of the DevOps adoption challenges and the ways to resolve them. But, before getting into the challenges, it is better to find the answer to the question of how to achieve the DevOps Pinnacle.

Tips to reach the DevOps Pinnacle:

It will not be an overstatement to say that DevOps is a pinnacle that every organization wishes to achieve. Particularly organizations that intend to move from the traditional waterfall approach to iterative Scaled Agile and finally DevOps have this desire of reaching the pinnacle. The excellent thing about DevOps is that it moves the attention from development to delivery. This might be a subtle variation yet it is crucial. It will not be an overstatement to say that the DevOps movement has matured a lot. You can understand this from the fact that many books released on DevOps share ideas on a practical approach to DevOps as against theory alone.

DevOps Challenges and Ways to Overcome:

Many challenges in DevOps implementation can come up when you try to adopt this approach in your organization. However, when you are aware of the common challenges and the ways to overcome them, you need not have to fear these challenges.

1. Environmental Challenges:

In a software development organization, the developers first create the code base. Thereafter, this codebase moves from one team to another at different phases like the production, deployment, testing and even the development phase. Without any doubt, this causes a certain amount of waste as different atmospheres used in the process are differently configured. The varied methods followed in these atmospheres make it hard for the software to function in the same way on different platforms. As an outcome, teams spend days or at least hours fixing bugs without recognizing that the error is not within the code. Rather, the issue is with the atmosphere. The first and foremost killer of agility is inconsistency in the atmosphere.

How to Overcome?

To overcome issues with the environment, it is better to generate infrastructure blueprints and implement ongoing delivery to make sure that all atmospheres are similar. The teams engaged in the procedure should sit together and should shape a standard blueprint for the DevOps execution process. They should also introduce ongoing delivery into the procedure to move forward at a similar pace. Nowadays, you can find tools that will help you with the management and expansion of your atmosphere within just a few steps.

2. Not Having the Right Mindset:

Again and again, experts in DevOps give importance to having the right culture. They suggest that this culture uniformity is important for DevOps to work. Of course, optimizing and deploying the infrastructure can slow down operations and development. But, when the teams in an organization do not have the right mindset, the entire project can crash. 

How to Overcome?

The idea here is to develop a common mindset among teams. You should have a culture of disruption and innovation and most importantly, a culture of ongoing learning. 

From the records of companies that succeeded with DevOps, it is found that they succeeded not due to a great pipeline but it happened due to people-focus. They succeeded as they kept humanity in DevOps. A company with the right culture can effectively overcome all and any skill and infrastructure issues. So, to ensure DevOps implementation success, the first thing to focus on is the development of the right mindset. It should be collaborative and cross-functional and your team should be ready to experiment, fail and then try again until they succeed.

3. Moving Away from Expert Team to Cross-Functional Teams:

Traditionally, software development teams had a particular focus on databases, servers and interfaces. But, when they are moving to a DevOps culture, they will have to move away from expert teams toward cross-functional teams. Experts work in silos, while cross-functional teams are responsible for products/features they develop for their entire lifetime. The challenge here arises when teams try to integrate product, infrastructure, QA, backend and frontend teams.

How to Overcome?

To overcome this issue, the best thing you can do is to foster the right company culture and make sure the collaboration does not backfire. Also, you will have to invest in your team and aid them with broadening their skills.

4. Getting Development and Operations at the Same Pace:

Humans are creatures of habit. It can turn highly hard to take a couple of different cultures and combine them into one. Operations work one way, while development works the other way. When both of them are asked to give up the way of their work, it can turn out to be an issue and can contribute to a lot of enmity or at least unfriendliness among teams.

How to Overcome?

To handle this issue of disagreement between the development and operations team, you will have to get both teams to buy into a common set of goals. It should be explained clearly that when everyone works towards the achievement of the set goal, it will be easier to achieve it. Above all, the goals can be achieved at a faster pace as well. Opening and frequent communication is another idea. Every team member should be made aware that they will have to move in the way that leads to getting things done.

Further, it would be a good idea to have a member of the development team work in the operations team. In the same way, a member of the operations team can be made to work in the development team. When this is done, the members of both teams will get the chance to see the perspective of the other team in real-time when the development happens. Even, this will lead to a greater understanding, high-quality product and improved communication.

5. Scattered Priorities and Miscommunication:

One of the most common DevOps challenges is created by people. For instance, stereotypes, misconceptions and grudges between teams can contribute to miscommunication. Conversations that showcase negativity can derail DevOps. For instance, against asking how the security team can strengthen the software development, it would be better to ask how to prevent security from hindering the process of developers.

DevOps is the way to associate the goals of IT teams that work separately. Just in case the security team is able to weigh in on the infrastructure or software design, it is an indication that the product is stronger. The reason is that those security measures are not late-stage complications. The software product performs better and needs less mediation and troubleshooting as work was done in advance to counter potential issues.

How to Overcome?

Yes, you have judged it right! Ensuring the right communication practices is the best way to prevent miscommunication. Even, it will prevent scattered priorities.

6. Governance of DevOps:

When talking about DevOps challenges and solutions, you should know that the very governance of DevOps can turn out to be problematic. Initially, you might feel that DevOps is about letting all processes move on and putting live atmospheres at the risk to the processes that are yet to begin. But, this is not the reality.

DevOps follows strict governance policies that mandate how much each team gets access to the production resources. The Service Level Agreements clearly explain the change control processes and setup for all the systems. It can turn out to be a challenge for companies that instigate DevOps.

How to Overcome?

To prevent DevOps governance from coming in the way, it is better to get instigated only after a thorough understanding of the policies that govern DevOps. With this knowledge, you can confidently move on with the deployment of DevOps.

7. Operability with DevOps:

Moving to a DevOps model generally needs the adoption of a varied approach to operations. When you take the case of the operations department in most business organizations, they are used to working with outdated software programs. But, if an organization wishes to move on with the latest market trends, it is important for the operations teams to support the usage of the software that is being used when it is being worked on.

It needs a different mindset for supporting software that is delivered as a service that is always on and deployed regularly. With DevOps, operations are not only what the operations team does. Now, developers should have tools that permit them to effectively support applications. 

Most organizations these days pay attention only to infrastructure monitoring. In the process of DevOps adoption and usage, developers should have access to tools that encompass advanced notification and alerting solutions, application performance monitoring tools, mobile and web analytics, and logging solutions provided by the analytics, data, and operations teams.

How to Overcome?

Organizations should have access to operational tools and processes and modernize the structure they use for delivering software to increase transparency and agility. Moreover, processes like access management, incident management, request management, problem management, change management, and others often required to be improvised and revised together with the changing atmosphere to make sure of more transparency and agility.  

Simpliaxis is one of the leading professional certification training providers in the world offering multiple courses related to DevOps. We offer numerous DevOps related courses such as  DevOps Foundation® Certification Training, Docker and Kubernetes Certification Training, Continuous Testing Foundation (CTF)SM Course Description, Continuous Delivery Ecosystem Foundation (CDEF)SM Course Description, DevSecOps Foundation DSOF℠ Course Description   and much more. Simpliaxis delivers training to both individuals and corporate groups through instructor-led classroom and online virtual sessions.