The DevOps approach to software development and IT operations is examined in a new study produced by Unisphere Research and sponsored by Dell Software.
At its core, the study points out, DevOp is more than a development process or a set of tools, and reflects innovative thinking and collaboration, and holds the potential for better deployment outcomes.
Among the study’s key findings are that DevOps is still an emerging methodology for application development and deployment. The study found that 70% of the respondents have been using it for less than a year or not at all, but the use of cloud technology is potentially a major driver for the adoption of the DevOps methodology.
Currently, respondents who are already engaged with the DevOps framework do not use it exclusively. In fact, around one-third of the current users employ the DevOps framework on less that 20% of their projects and only around 10% use it on more than 75% of their projects. Over the next 2
years, however, those numbers will shift. More than 25% of the respondents believe they will be using DevOps for more than 75% of their projects, reflecting both a very healthy momentum for the approach as well as a good dose of optimism.
The salient factors to successfully implementing DevOps are the creation of cross-functional teams and support from the executive leadership team, while the top measures of success for DevOps projects are faster time to production and fewer defects in production. Source control and issue tracking are the two most common tools to be integrated into a DevOps environment, and deployment tools and monitoring tools are considered the most significant for a DevOps environment.
The 26-page study, “The Current State and Adoption of DevOps,” is available for download here.