DevOps: An Improvement to Traditional SDLC
To understand how DevOps improves the traditional Software development life cycle(SDLC), lets understand how the traditional SDLC works.
Traditional Software Development Life Cycle
Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is an important part of every complete software project management. SDLC is a set of steps and processes followed in creating software applications. It outlines each task required to put together a complete and working software application.
The phases of the SDLC include:
- Planning
- Requirements Definition
- Design
- Software Development
- Testing
- Deployment
- Operations and Maintenance
Traditional SDLC methodologies follow these phases in a clearly defined sequential process. Each succeeding stage highly depends on the successful completion of the preceding stage.
Advantages of this model is that each stage or phase can be properly evaluated for achievability before moving on, end goals are determined early, and a clear structure is followed.
There are however some drawbacks when using this model; making changes is difficult, testing can only begin when the development process is completed.
How do you deal with these drawbacks?
Enter in…..DevOps
DevOps increases organization’s capability to deliver high-quality solutions at a swift space by automating the software development process from building to deployment of an application or product.
DevOps is a set of practices that combines software development and IT operations. It aims to shorten the systems development life cycle and provide continuous delivery with high software quality
The DevOps life cycle is an infinity loop that the software travels, from continuous planning to collaborative development to continuous testing to continuous release and deploy to continuous monitoring.
Benefits of DevOps over Traditional Software Development Method
- Faster and frequent delivery of updates and features
- Testing in every phase of the development cycle
- Automation of repetitive tasks in the development process
- Improved collaboration and communication
- Reliability and scaling with minimum risks
- Cost savings on infrastructure maintenance and upgrades
By adopting a DevOps culture along with DevOps practices and tools, teams gain the ability to better respond to customer needs, increase confidence in the applications they build, and achieve business goals faster.
