How DevOps Benefits Large and Medium Software Enterprises?
The era when DevOps was just for startups is over. There's plenty of proof that big companies have figured out how to benefit from this software development method, too. By - Andi Mann
DevOps is a term used to group together various communication concepts in the technology realm. A basic joining of "development" and "operations," the concept concerns bringing together developers and operations specialists to work more closely together in a business -- improving efficiency, development speed, communication and understanding.
Large enterprises absolutely are different from the startups and web "unicorns" such as Netflix, Google, Facebook, and Amazon -- the businesses most commonly highlighted as being at the forefront of DevOps maturity. Traditional large enterprises have calcified silos, cultures, processes, and org structures. They mostly use commercial off-the-shelf software from large vendors rather than free and open-source software from small startups. And they look for ROI more than cultural movements.
DevOps can help organizations address competitive challenges by extending the most valuable aspects of Agile development (improved time to market, higher quality, and lower costs) through to operations. But for large enterprises with entrenched traditional systems, DevOps can present a challenge.
Multiple, independently conducted research studies show that, not only are large enterprises already adopting DevOps, they are achieving substantial outcomes. One such study conducted by independent research organization IDG, shows that enterprises (measured by having more than $500 million in revenues) are adopting DevOps at an even faster rate than smaller businesses. Another study, conducted by independent research firm Vanson Bourne, found that large enterprises are not only adopting DevOps, but more than 90% have seen or expect to see significant benefits, with quantifiable improvements in delivery speed, development and operations costs, defect detection, ability to innovate, and many more, ranging from 17% to 23%. Then there is additional research from InformationWeek, which also shows high rates of adoption and benefits for large enterprises (measured by having 5,000 or more employees).
DevOpsConsulting agree that large enterprises cannot take the same approach to a DevOps transformation as startups and SMBs, hence my concept of "Big DevOps" as a somewhat alternate route to value addition. DevOps is great, not only for startups but also for large enterprises, because I know enterprises are experiencing tangible benefits by implementing DevOps processes and technologies today.
According to cloud computing company Rackspace, the enterprise are behind smaller counterparts when it comes to adopting DevOps programmes, but large corporations are slowly catching up.
A recent report from Puppet Labs highlights the reasons that DevOps is a journey worth making. The study surveyed more than 9,200 respondents from 110 countries, making it one of the larger studies on DevOps and its effect on the way organizations do business. Here are some of the highlights:
- Traditional Ops are 41 percent more time-consuming overall.
- Traditional Ops spends 21 percent more time putting out fires.
- DevOps spends 33 percent more time on infrastructure improvements.
- The data suggests that organizations using DevOps practices see organizational performance benefits, and that firms actually investing in DevOps see significant gains compared to those who do not.
- The longer an organization uses DevOps methods the higher their IT departments perform.
- High performing IT organizations have 50 percent lower change fail rates than medium and low performing IT organizations.