The implementation of DevOps can take on many forms but it is most often recognized through implementation of continuous delivery practices. When implementing continuous delivery the activities of build, test, and deploy are automated such that it ensures that your software is always in a release ready state. Successfully adopting DevOps through Continuous Delivery provides many business and technical advantages including:
1. Shorter development cycles result in a faster time-to-market:enabling the business to respond to market conditions and gain or maintain competitive advantage.
2. Increased productivity results in increased efficiencies: such as higher throughput and lower costs
3. Higher quality software results in increased customer satisfaction: which in turn translates to increased customer retention and attraction
4. Ability to adopt and delivery emerging technologies: provides competitive advantage by ensuring the business can be first to market or early to market with differentiating capabilities
5. Higher job satisfaction among team members: translates to increased employee retention and increased ability to recruit top talent
These benefits can be summed up in a single advantage of DevOps to the business: Gain and maintain competitive advantage, in the application economy by delivering software and services rapidly and reliably.
Brian Dawson is DevOps Practitioner at CloudBees.
