A comprehensive DevOps process provides organizations with both agility and flexibility. This can be incredibly beneficial when scaling a business, and it can have a big impact on day-to-day operations. What’s more, efficient DevOps practices can boost engagement for your team members and increase collaboration across departments.
Yet, despite the crucial role that DevOps play in streamlining workflows, many companies fail to optimize their pipeline and are left with a slew of inefficiencies as a result. So, how do you know if your DevOps environment can keep up with your company’s needs? A few key signs could help you avoid a problem. Below, we break down what they are—and how to address them.
You Don’t Have an Automated Deployment Model
Automation is increasingly important in all areas of business, and this is especially true when it comes to DevOps. An efficient pipeline should include automated features at every phase from building to deployment to testing.
In addition to helping you identify issues as they crop up, automation makes it easy to push code to production where it immediately moves through quality assurance. This allows for continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD), simplifying the development of new features. It also allows for testing in real-time which can enable you to evaluate the impact of new features on your existing infrastructure.
If your current workflow requires significant manual intervention, that’s a clear sign that it could use an upgrade. Introducing automation into the process will reduce the time spent on building and testing, as well as increase productivity for your entire team.
The Right Tools Aren’t Readily Available
Another way to know whether your business could be struggling with an inefficient DevOps pipeline is to take a look at the tools you’re using to deploy new features. Some of the key things to look for are the ease of pushing code to production and the complexity of your QA process.
A few questions you should ask yourself as you assess your existing workflow:
- Are you able to easily build and deploy new applications?
- Can you scale operations both up and out depending on your needs?
- Is it possible to test new features quickly and efficiently?
If the answer to these questions is no, you likely don’t have the right tools in your toolkit. Implementing an application such as Microsoft Azure Pipelines can help you streamline your practices and ensure that you’re able to build, test, and deploy all in one place. And since Azure Pipelines integrates easily into almost any type of existing infrastructure, it provides fast and simple automation without requiring a lot of extra work.
Pushing New Features Creates Significant Issues
A fragile ecosystem that cannot easily incorporate new features is another sign that your existing DevOps environment isn’t up to the task. This is usually apparent when rolling out software updates and it can have a far-reaching impact across your organization.
For example, if your existing infrastructure includes applications that don’t integrate seamlessly, changing a feature in one area of your business can have unintended consequences in another area, leading to productivity problems and even lost revenue.
If you find that your systems are frequently impacted by new deployments, or that you’re not able to easily roll back a deployment if something goes wrong, your DevOps process almost certainly requires an overhaul.
Failure Isn’t Considered a Learning Opportunity
One of the golden rules of DevOps is that failure provides you with valuable lessons. In turn, these lessons can be used to improve your testing and help you iterate more quickly. This is especially true when scaling a business, since you can quickly pivot away from practices that aren’t working and into a workflow that’s better suited to your long-term goals.
If you’re not actively embracing mistakes and learning from them, chances are you could be doing more harm than good and impacting company culture to boot. In an environment where team members are afraid to make mistakes, creativity and innovation can suffer, bringing your bottom line along with them.
You Have Roadblocks in Your Pipeline
Agility is a key feature of an effective DevOps workflow, and releasing new code on a regular basis is a sign that you’re doing it right. On the other hand, if you find that your production cycles are slow or infrequent, you most likely aren’t pushing the changes you need to fix existing bugs or make continuous improvements.
Some of the roadblocks to watch for include not having the right testing process, not fully embracing DevOps as part of your company’s core operations, and not optimizing your resources. Without these factors in place, building out a successful DevOps roadmap can be difficult, if not nearly impossible.
Shifting toward a more agile ecosystem, setting realistic goals, and increasing automation are the best ways to address these challenges and significantly improve your workflow.
There’s No Consistent Feedback Loop
Feedback is one of the cornerstones of DevOps, and a continuous feedback process is the only way to ensure that you can spot and fix problems when they arise. Part of this feedback can be automated and contained within the testing environment, but a large part should come from your team. If you find that you’re not getting constructive feedback, it’s time to look at ways to optimize DevOps within your organization.
An efficient DevOps pipeline can make a big difference to your company’s overall operations. Through automation, robust testing, and consistent deployment you can grow your business, while also keeping up with your customers’ needs. If you’re considering moving in a new direction, the right DevOps environment can also help you pivot your business and implement the features you need to be successful.
If your current workflow requires manual debugging, lacks the right tools, or leads to operational challenges, you could be due for an upgrade. With the right resources and processes in place, you’ll be able to increase productivity and eliminate many of the issues you face every day.
For more insights into how Simpat Tech can transform your DevOps pipeline, connect with us for a personalized consultation.