DevOps is rapidly becoming a de facto standard. Businesses that have adopted a DevOps model have become industry disruptors—innovating, releasing, and moving faster than their competitors. You only need to look at a company like Etsy, which went from taking hours with each individual deployment to deploying changes up 50 times daily after transitioning to DevOps.

Yet many organizations are still stuck on that fundamental question: is DevOps worth it?

CloudBees recently put together a piece exploring some of the reasons why organizations should care about DevOps. We have summarised their thoughts and added our own insights here for you:

1. DevOps Is for Everybody

Today’s tech-savvy customers are accustomed to having smart, simple, and secure software and tools available where and when they need them. These expectations and demands are the driving forces behind our Application Economy, one in which consumers experience a brand primarily through its software.

This shift isn’t affecting software companies alone. It’s also impacting titans like the Ford Motor Company. When asked about the “secret sauce” that went into creating the incredibly successful EcoBoost engine, one of the lead engineers on the project said it came down to software.

Companies that want to deliver higher quality software more quickly must think about transitioning to a DevOps approach that can support the practice of continuous delivery (CD), enabling them to build, test, and deploy for more frequent and incremental releases.

2. DevOps Is Common Sense

In the past, release cycles were measured in months or even years. Technological limitations meant developers had to focus on moving gradually and cautiously to prevent errors before they could happen.

Today, we are moving faster and counting release cycles in days, hours, and minutes—finding and fixing flaws rapidly when they are found. DevOps and CD practices are what make this speed possible.

3. DevOps Is More Satisfied Employees

Developers often find themselves drawn to software by the prospect of becoming creative innovators and problem solvers. In many environments where traditional development models prevail, however, they end up becoming firefighters, running from one crisis to another to extinguish the emergency.

Companies that make the transition to DevOps and adopt CD practices find themselves facing a different reality, one with happier and more engaged employees who work more efficiently. One financial services institution, for example, saw employee satisfaction increase 15% only weeks after they adopted a CD model to support their transition to DevOps. That increased productivity can in turn lead to both lower costs and superior software.

4. DevOps Is Not a Passing Fad

Some organizations might be looking at DevOps and wondering if it will be here today, gone tomorrow. After all, the tech world has seen its share of short-lived trends. Only a few years ago we were all buzzing about software-oriented architectures (SOAs). Now that excitement has dulled to barely a whisper. Is DevOps due to go the way of SOAs?

In short, no.

One of SOAs main shortcomings was that it was cumbersome. In a fast-moving, constantly evolving world we need solutions that allow us to be lean and agile, and that is exactly what DevOps enables us to do.

Do you want to learn more about the future of DevOps? Check out CloudBees’ article “DevOps—Fad or Here to Stay?”!

5. DevOps Is Doable

Some of the most common reservations companies have surround the feasibility of transitioning their organization and teams to a DevOps model.

The key to a successful transformation is to focus on pragmatic principles instead of dogmatic practices. In other words, be prepared to deal with changes as they come and adjust your approach dynamically.

Keep in mind that no two DevOps journeys will the same. Each business has its own unique needs, and the way you approach DevOps needs to reflect that. Ultimately, whatever your motivation for making the change, adopting a DevOps development model can be your ticket to producing better software in less time and with fewer costs.

Accelerate Your DevOps Transition with Managed, Integrated, and Enterprise-Ready Toolchains

A managed DevOps toolchain is the smarter solution for automating software development and delivery:

• Unified, Collaborative CI/CD Tool Chain: We integrate configure, and manage your favourite tools-as-a-service into one flexible toolchain to simplify and streamline development processes.
• DevOps Consulting Service: Our DevOps experts are here to understand your DevOps and business objectives so we can help make recommendations and implement changes to get you to the end goal quicker. We can also accelerate your team’s onboarding by providing DevOps tool chain and processes best practices.
• Overcome Resource Complexity and Challenges: Spend more time on your core business and rely on experts for your DevOps initiatives We offer a turnkey toolchain-as-a-service as well as DevOps-as-a-service to be an extension of your DevOps team.

We support a broad variety of leading development tools including CloudBees Jenkins Enterprise, GitHub, JFrog, Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket, Hipchat, Trello, and many more.

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Whether you want to start your DevOps journey or accelerate the one you’re already on, iTMethods is your partner. Contact us today to learn more about how an integrated and managed DevOps toolchain can help you transform great ideas into great software.

Read more from iTMethods:

• Aligning Developers with a DevOps Cloud Strategy
• Key Areas to Automate Your Cloud With DevOps
• Some Cloud Best Practices from iTMethods