A recently published research found that there are 1.35 million tech startups in the world, and even increasing rapidly. Along with the rapid growth of the technology landscape, DevOps managed service is also gaining popularity more and more daily.

In the early days, companies faced issues delivering software quickly and more efficiently due to the lack of proper communication, automation, and Collaboration between developers and operational teams. Intending to solve this type of issue, DevOps Managed Service was introduced in 2009 by Patrick Debois.

From that time to now, DevOps managed service’s popularity increasing rapidly. This article will cover everything about DevOps managed service, including its definition, benefits, and how it works. Before diving deep into it, let’s take a look at some statics and expert opinions that market Leaders found in their research:

Devops Managed Services | Statics Found by Market Leader

1. According to a report by MarketsandMarkets, the global DevOps market size is expected to grow from $10.4 billion in 2023 to $25.5 billion by 2028, at a CAGR of 19.7% during the forecast period.

2. A survey by Puppet found that high-performing DevOps organizations deploy code 46 times more frequently than low performers and have a change failure rate of 7 times less.

3. Another DORA (DevOps Research and Assessment) survey found that organizations implementing DevOps practices have 46 times more frequent code deployments. Their lead time for changes is 440 times faster than low performers.

Expert’s Opinions about DevOps Managed Service

1. Gene Kim, author of “The Phoenix Project” and “The DevOps Handbook,” is a leading expert in the DevOps field. He has spoken and written extensively about the benefits and challenges of DevOps and is a strong advocate for its adoption.

2. Jez Humble, co-author of “Continuous Delivery” and “Accelerate,” is another expert in the DevOps space. He has conducted extensive research on the impact of DevOps on organizations and is a proponent of using metrics to measure performance.

3. Nicole Forsgren, co-author of “Accelerate,” has also researched the benefits of DevOps. Her work has shown that organizations with high-performing DevOps teams experience greater productivity, profitability, and customer satisfaction.

Exploring the Definition of DevOps Managed Services and Core Principles

DevOps is a methodology concept to make the software development lifecycle short, secure, and efficient.

The full implementation of DevOps best practices is known as DevOps Managed Services, where automation and communication between developers and the operational team become easy.

To make the team smarter, DevOps has seven core principles that are:

1. Collaboration
2. Data-based decision making
3. Customer-centric decision making
4. Constant improvement
5. Responsibility throughout the lifecycle
6. Automation
7. Failure as a learning opportunity

Benefits of Fully Managed DevOps Services

There are huge benefits to using fully managed DevOps Services. Firstly, look at the market leaders’ research and analysis reports of what organizations achieve after adopting DevOps for their organizations:

The 2020 State of DevOps Report, produced by Puppet and Splunk, surveyed over 2,400 IT professionals and found that high-performing DevOps teams deploy code 208 times more frequently than low performers, with 106 times faster lead times and 7 times lower change failure rates.

The 2021 DevOps Pulse Report, produced by Logz.io, surveyed over 1,000 IT professionals and found that the top benefits of DevOps adoption were improved software quality (cited by 69% of respondents) and faster delivery of features and updates (cited by 62%).

A 2020 survey by IDG found that 74% of organizations had either adopted or were planning to adopt DevOps, with 47% reporting increased collaboration between development and operations teams as a key benefit.

Organizations that adopt DevOps can get lots of unique benefits, such as:

1. Improved communication and Collaboration.
2. Faster development and deployment process
3. Enhanced Quality Assurance and Testing
4. Cost Savings and Operational Efficiency
5. Increased Scalability and Flexibility

1. Improved Communication and Collaboration

Communication and Collaboration are the most critical parts of the software development process.

You can rely on every time (24/7-hour) assistant when you choose a fully managed DevOps Service. Collaborating between different teams with different expertise reduces the time of software development.

2. Faster Development and Deployment Process

Automation, CI/CD, Agile Methodologies, Cloud computing, etc., are the tools that shorten the development and deployment process.

Faster development and deployment processes can lead to faster time-to-market, improved agility, quality, and reduced costs.

3. Enhanced Quality Assurance and Testing

As mentioned earlier, DevOps follow CI/CD (Continous Integration/ Continous Development) methodologies. The entire software development lifecycle, from planning to development and maintenance, follows Continous Integration and testing every time.

DevOps teams can improve quality assurance and testing in software development by utilizing various technologies and techniques, including test automation, continuous testing, shift-left testing, and DevOps tools.

4. Cost Savings and Operational Efficiency

Another key goal of the DevOps approach to software development is cost savings and operational efficiency. DevOps teams can use various tools and practices to achieve these goals, such as automation, continuous improvement, Collaboration, and cloud computing.

In software development, cost savings and operational efficiency can lead to several benefits, including reduced development costs, increased productivity, reduced downtime, improved delivery time, etc.

5. Increased Scalability and Flexibility

DevOps can increase scalability and flexibility by emphasizing automation, cloud computing, continuous delivery, microservices architecture, and infrastructure as code.

By implementing these practices, organizations can scale p or down their resources quickly and more efficiently according to the market demand or customer needs and achieve greater operational flexibility.

Challenges and Risks in DevOps Managed Services

Implementing the DevOps approach is challenging and risky and needs experts to implement it successfully. Being unaware can lead an organization to unplanned expenses. The top challenges are:

• • Integration and Compatibility

• • Security Risks

• • Infrastructure and Resource Constraints

• • Vendor Lock-in

• • Cost

1. Integration and Compatibility

As discussed earlier,  DevOps involves multiple tools and systems, including source code management, continuous integration, testing, and deployment. If you are unsure that these tools and techniques are compatible and integrate properly with your platforms, they might harm you.

Here are some of the critical considerations for integration and compatibility in DevOps Managed Services:

• • Choose the right tools that are easily compatible with each other.

• • Use APIs and plug-ins to integrate different devices and systems.

• • Standardize before integration. Standardization https://devops.com/challenges-devops-standardization/can simplify integration and compatibility.

• • Make sure your systems and tools are configured correctly.

• • Test the tools and systems compatibility before integration.

2. Security Risks

Security risks are another primary concern while implementing the DevOps approach. DevOps practices involve frequent changes and updates, which can increase the risk of security breaches.

Here are some of the critical security risks to consider when implementing DevOps:

DevOps’s continuous integration and deployment process can lead to code vulnerabilities, making it easier for hackers to exploit.

• • Managed configuration because Misconfigured infrastructure can have security vulnerabilities.

• • Unauthorized access may exploit your data and information, so take control of your data access.

• • Monitor and manage user activities and implement processes to detect and prevent insider threats.

• • DevOps teams can sometimes prioritize speed over security, leading to a lack of security controls.

3. Infrastructure and Resource Constraints

Servers, networks, and storage are among the extensive infrastructure and resources needed for DevOps Managed Services. The pace and caliber of software delivery can be affected by slow or ineffective DevOps operations brought on by insufficient infrastructure and resources.

The following are essential factors to take into account when managing infrastructure and resource limitations in DevOps Managed Services:

Use cloud-based infrastructure that can help address Infrastructure and Resource Constraints and pay for only what you used.

• • Apporach automation practice that can help streamline DevOps operations, reducing the need for manual interventions, saving time and resources, and ensuring that infrastructure and resources are optimized for efficient and effective DevOps operations.

• • Look at your needs and plan your resources, what you need, and for how long.

• • To identify infrastructure and resource constraints, proactively monitor the performance regularly.

• • Frequently collaborate and communicate with DevOps and Operations teams to get updated information on your infrastructure.

4. Vendor Lock-in

Vendor lock-in means an organization ultimately depends upon a vendor for their Devops Services. Vendor lock-in can make switching to another vendor or bringing in-house services difficult, limiting an organization’s flexibility, increasing dependency on a single vendor, and affecting service cost, performance, and innovation.

Follow the below best practices to manage your vendor lock-in:

• • Choose the right vendor.

• • Verify that the vendor’s DevOps services correspond to industry standards and are compatible with the organization’s current systems and processes.

• • Negotiate the conditions of the contract to ensure that the vendor’s services can be easily linked with other systems and to permit the organization to swap providers if necessary.

• • Make the organization’s data easily transferable and can be brought in-house or onto a platform from a different provider.

• • Hire some in-house expertise to reduce vendor dependence.

5. Cost

DevOps Managed Services demand extensive infrastructure, staffing, and tool investments. Licensing payments, hardware expenses, payroll expenses, and ongoing maintenance and support expenses are a few examples of these costs. The organization’s size, complexity, and requirements can all influence cost considerations.

Here are some points you should consider to maintain your costs:

• • Analyze the total cost of ownership, which includes the costs of the hardware, software, employees, ongoing maintenance, and support, before you begin.

• • Try to automate as many tasks as possible because it helps to reduce the costs of streamlining operations and reducing the need for manual interventions.

• • Use open-source tools that reduce costs; some are free, and some are low-cost alternatives to proprietary tools.

• • Outsourcing is also a great way to leverage a third-party vendor’s expertise and resources and reduce costs.

Best Practices for Implementing DevOps Managed Services

Successful Implementation requires a lot of  pre-planning, execution ,monitoring etc. We have standard procedures that we follow our every  client step-by-step . Our traditional methods for  implementing Devops Managed Service include: 

1. Build a team with the right skills.
2. Emphasize communication and Collaboration.
3. Establish processes and workflows.
4. Automate as much as possible
5. Implement Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD
6. Monitor and measure progress.
7. Continuously improve

Step 1: Clearly Define Goals and Objectives

First, we sit with our clients personally and determine their goals and business objectives. In this meeting, we mainly listen carefully and try to understand our client’s words.

Once we know the business requirements of our clients, then we move forward to step 2.

Step 2: Build a team with the right skills

We have a vast team of DevOps engineers. Before reaching this step, we already have clear ideas, goals, and business objectives for our clients. In this step, we select a qualified team of engineers to meet our client’s requirements.

Based on the client’s requirements, we ensure the selected team is the right and best suitable. Once we completed building a team of professionals with diverse expertise, we moved forward to step 3.

Step 3: Emphasize Communication and Collaboration

Collaboration and communication are critical components of DevOps. We encourage team members to cooperate, exchange information, and speak honestly. This will ensure everyone is focused on the same objectives and help create a strong team culture.

Communicating with other teams helps determine the challenges they face during the working process and makes it easy to decide on possible solutions faster.

Step 4: Establish Processes and Workflows

Before reaching this step, let’s recall what we have now. We have a clear idea and business objectives of clients, and we have finalized the dedicated team and are collaborating with other groups already.

Now we have established a straightforward process and workflow for DevOps-managed service. This will make it easier to ensure everyone is working toward the same objectives and that everything goes perfectly throughout the process.

Step 5: Automate as much as possible

After everything is set up correctly and goes well, we focus on automating the processes as many as possible such as developing, testing, deploying, and monitoring.

Automating workflows will reduce the risk of human error, speed up the process, and free up team members to focus on higher-level tasks.

Step 6: Implement Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD

Automating testing and deployment of code changes is a critical component of CI/CD, enabling teams to produce code faster and error-free. Here’s how we do it step by step:

• • First, we define the CI/CD pipeline stages: build, test, deploy, and identify the necessary tools and processes.

• • Then we use automation tools such as Jenkins, Travis CI, or Circle CI to automate the pipeline.

• • Then we integrate testing into your pipeline to catch errors early using automated tools like Selenium, JUnit, and pytest.

• • Also, we use tools like Git to manage code changes and collaborate with your team.

• • We use tools like Nagios, New Relic, or AppDynamics to monitor the pipeline and identify any issues.

Step 7: Monitor and measure progress

DevOps Managed Services must be continuously tracked and measured to achieve the required results. Create a system to track metrics, progress and report on outcomes.

To complete this step, we first decide on goals and then determine key performing indicators (KPI), use logging and analytics tools, use dashboards to visualize data and track progress, and conduct regular reviews.

Step 8: Continuously improve

DevOps is a method that always seeks to improve. To get better results, encourage your team to routinely examine and reflect on their procedures, pinpoint areas for improvement, and make the necessary adjustments.

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