Did you know that DevOps started in 2007 when software developers and IT professionals raised concerns about the traditional software development process? This old method kept writing code separate from deployment. Since then, DevOps has steadily become mainstream in the IT industry. It has transformed organisational workflows by increasing collaboration and automation between developers, testers, and IT operations.
Today, DevOps is more important than ever. Its market is expected to keep growing. The global DevOps market is predicted to grow at an annual rate of 18.95%, reaching $12,215.54 million by 2026. Businesses at different stages of their DevOps journey need to understand the DevOps maturity model. This helps measure progress and identify areas for improvement.
Before diving into the DevOps maturity model, it is helpful to gain some basic knowledge about DevOps culture.
What is the DevOps Culture?
DevOps is a set of cultural philosophies, practices, and tools used in software development. It promotes collaboration and communication between development (Dev) and operations (Ops) teams, along with technology automation. DevOps helps teams work together to build, deploy, monitor, and support software applications quickly and efficiently. The main goal is to streamline and automate workflows, ensuring better business outcomes.
Key DevOps Practices
- Continuous Development: This involves a cycle of code writing, automated testing, and deployment. It helps organisations build software faster with fewer errors.
- Continuous Integration (CI): CI allows developers to regularly integrate new code into existing applications. This process helps detect, debug, and fix errors early in the development cycle.
- Continuous Delivery: This automates the process of getting changes into production, enabling teams to release code changes to users quickly.
- Continuous Deployment (CD): CD automates the deployment pipeline. It uses tools to define and automate the steps required to move software from development to production.
- Continuous Testing: Automated testing checks software for errors and defects in real-time before release. This ensures the code functions correctly and meets user expectations.
- Configuration Management: This practice tracks and manages changes to software configuration. It helps teams manage code dependencies, build infrastructure quickly, and reduce errors.
- Monitoring & Logging: Monitoring and logging tools track application performance and identify code issues. They help teams respond quickly to problems.
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): IaC automates the configuration, management, and deployment of infrastructure. It allows teams to automate their infrastructure management processes.
What is the DevOps Maturity Model?
The DevOps maturity model is a benchmark that shows where an organisation is in its DevOps journey. It measures the maturity level of an organisation’s DevOps capabilities. This helps identify areas for improvement and goals to achieve.
Some people misunderstand the goal of DevOps maturity. It’s not a destination but a continuous journey. Adopting DevOps culture is a long-term process that needs ongoing management and maintenance.
Stages of DevOps Implementation
The DevOps maturity model has several stages:
Stage 1: Initial
Organisations at this stage are unaware of DevOps challenges and benefits. They use traditional methods, keeping Dev and Ops teams separate. Software testing is manual, and changes take a long time to deploy.
Stage 2: Manage
This stage marks the beginning of the DevOps journey. Organisations learn about DevOps principles and values. They focus on agility in development and start initial automation in operations. Small teams begin using DevOps practices before expanding to larger teams and projects.
Stage 3: Define
At this stage, teams become familiar with DevOps processes and tools. Organisations establish defined workflows and secure automation of the CI/CD pipeline, following Agile practices.
Stage 4: Measure
Here, organisations and teams understand the DevOps strategy deeply. Automation replaces most manual processes. Metrics are defined and integrated into the workflow to measure DevOps performance and drive continuous improvement.
Stage 5: Optimise
At this final stage, the organisation’s DevOps practices are well-established. Collaboration among teams is seamless, and automation is fully embedded in the workflow. Testing happens in production, and the focus is on maintaining and optimising DevOps practices.
How to Assess the Maturity of an Organisational DevOps Journey
You can measure DevOps maturity by looking at these components:
Culture & Organisation
DevOps requires cultural changes. Most IT decision-makers say cultural and organisational issues are the biggest hurdles in adopting DevOps. DevOps practices impact an organisation’s working culture by encouraging team collaboration towards common goals. This shift needs openness, and organisations must adapt to create a culture where DevOps can grow.
Incorporation of CI/CD Pipelines
CI/CD pipelines are key automation components in DevOps. They ensure continuous integration and delivery of software applications. This automation requires extensive testing in an integrated environment, with feedback to improve the pipeline over time.
Processes & Tools
Agile practices and DevOps tools are integral to the DevOps journey. Agile provides guiding principles for efficiency, while DevOps tools offer automation capabilities to streamline processes and incorporate continuous feedback.
Automation & Infrastructure
Infrastructure automation is crucial for speed in DevOps practices. It reduces manual processes, allowing organisations to focus on improving service quality while delivering faster releases.
Collaboration & Communication
Effective collaboration and communication are essential for DevOps maturity. Teams and individuals, both internal and external, need to work together to streamline processes, manage costs, increase efficiency, and meet deadlines. Assessing this can show how mature the DevOps journey is.
Testing & Integration
Integration and testing are key indicators of DevOps maturity. This includes both manual and automated tests to evaluate code quality, identify issues, and ensure all components are correctly integrated before release.
DevOps Maturity Model Connected to Security
DevOps maturity is directly linked to security. Security is a crucial part of the maturity assessment process, ensuring both software and infrastructure are safe and reliable. Organisations need to integrate security into their DevOps processes and tools, creating DevSecOps. This approach protects against threats and vulnerabilities. DevOps and security teams must work together to ensure security practices are in place at all stages of the software development lifecycle.
