DevOps Culture: How the use of a modern RAD platform supports the speed, agility & continuous implementation of the DevOps approach

DevOps have become more and more prominent in software development in recent years. The efficient and effective combination of development and IT operations brings numerous advantages for all parties involved: Not only does the quality of software increase, but also the speed with which new solutions are developed and delivered. In 2019, we have seen that automation, artificial intelligence, and AIOps are increasingly being used and researched by the DevOps community. Containers and Functions as a Service continued to grow, allowing developers and operations teams to better control their applications and infrastructure without sacrificing speed. But where is the journey heading now?

More and more companies, regardless of their size, are pursuing a product-oriented approach. Instead of planning projects to make changes to their applications, they are constantly developing their software, similar to an Independent Software Vendor (ISV), i.e. regardless of whether the “customer” is the company’s paying customer or an internal user of the application. Product roadmaps show the progress of newly added functions and their priority, whereby the project management methodology based on Scrum has largely replaced continuous agile development. The focus is on the minimal-realizable product that can be brought into production in less than ten weeks. In this productive environment, it is then continuously improved, which in turn improves cross-functional collaboration in the teams, which in turn increases the capabilities in the company, which constantly helps the company to develop itself and its own processes and applications continuously and in ever shorter cycles. In this product-oriented world, CIOs are challenged every day to deliver new solutions, products, and services to enable either operational improvements or usability improvements, especially for end-users. Therefore a centralized, adaptable and modern rapid app development platform is essential.

The use of a modern Rapid Application Development (RAD) platform (or a low code app development platform as it is also sometimes called) supports the speed, agility, and continuous implementation of the DevOps approach and its DevOps culture. It helps CIOs to simplify their development landscape, reduces the need for long development cycles, and supports the DevOps organization with a tool that supports continuous development, rapid testing, and industrialization. The right platform for innovation is crucial. Through the combined use of microservices based on a cloud-based RAD platform, teams can implement requirements at a new level of speed and quality, providing customers with a seamless digital experience that previously seemed impossible.

Microservices are the preferred way for IT to deliver new complex functionality to its customers. New developments can be implemented even faster. And with it, the demand for API-based options for integrating SaaS solutions and supporting container-based frameworks such as Kubernetes is also growing. Although the productive integration of cloud-based functions is currently only used to a limited extent, these are mandatory requirements when choosing a suitable central development platform.

The choice of a suitable RAD platform, which adapts to the company’s own cloud strategy and offers future-proof API integration, is seen in the market as a desired solution in combination with a growing DevOps culture. RAD platforms must support cost-effective software development and new technologies based on microservices, and combine tools for the continuous distribution and delivery of digital products.

The Continuous Delivery approach is increasingly being adopted in software development at large enterprises so that techniques, processes, and tools that optimize software delivery also help to improve business performance and operations. This is because numerous studies have shown how much IT can effectively improve the performance of companies. True to the saying “put IT in the driver’s seat”, IT is no longer perceived as a pure cost factor.

“Faster is not always better.” DevOps are increasingly data-driven. As more and more applications are delivered via cloud-based software-as-a-service models, companies are collecting more and more data – not only about how the applications are used but also about how they are delivered. This provides valuable insight into delivery and stability, which can be measured by metrics such as deployment frequency and lead times for implementing changes. You can also determine how long it takes to recover services and improve failure rates. This is where artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) comes in. By using machine learning in software delivery, companies can identify where bottlenecks, obstacles, or capacity problems may occur now or in the future. From this information, forward-looking statements can be derived to make future delivery more efficient.

In 2020, digital requirements will drive tomorrow’s innovation, and this requires a diverse set of tools, know-how, and frameworks for developers, coupled with maximum flexibility to successfully manage the current wave of modern applications. At the same time, a central development platform is needed to ensure the necessary speed, quality, security, and reusability in cross-functional teams.

The more teams that use a DevOps approach, the more people begin to understand the basic technologies and skills required. According to Jeff Bezos’ two-pizza rule: “If one team couldn’t be fed with two pizzas, it was too big”, it is recommended that smaller teams be formed from different areas of the company to enable an agile process within the DevOps environment. Trends show that successful teams have not only been equipped with the right process methods but also with the right tools that enable them to keep up with the thinking and development of the company.

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