Will we still be talking about DevOps in five years?

Rackspace has released further findings from its global study into the uptake of DevOps programmes for software application development and delivery. The research highlights that 60 per cent of UK companies already implementing DevOps have DevOps-specific roles in their organisations while 52 per cent still planning implementation will not have DevOps-specific roles in-house.

In the organisations that have implemented DevOps, the primary roles have been the DevOps developers (34 per cent), followed by DevOps engineers (29 per cent) and DevOps system admins (23 per cent). And, for those in planning phase, the DevOps consultant (22 per cent) was cited as the role believed most crucial to the success of the project.

Nigel Beighton VP of Technology and Product at Rackspace said: “The early DevOps adopters brought DevOps into their businesses by creating specific DevOps roles; which works when you are needing to build early-adopter competency/knowledge. Longer term for the mass market this is potentially counterproductive to the principle of breaking down operational silos in order to improve collaboration and ultimately productivity."

“Now, as DevOps matures and consultants and partners begin to emerge, the mass market second-phase adopters are well placed to use external parties to help embed DevOps into the entire IT operation. Building out a DevOps capability with a partner, alongside the existing teams, is a great way to accelerate the implementation and reduce the dependency on specific DevOps-roles; leaving not only the developers and operations, but the organisation to work together in a coherent and stable way.

“As we move forward it remains to be seen whether these roles will persist or if we will start to see them tailing off as respective Development and Operations teams adapt to the new way of working.”

Outsourcing Automation Services

Outsourcing DevOps services to third parties is an area that both groups are looking to in terms of expanding their DevOps skills base. 52 per cent of those that have implemented DevOps currently outsource some or all of these automated services, with 51 per cent intending to outsource DevOps services when they have implemented their DevOps projects.

Beighton continues: “Outsourcing the basic plumbing of a DevOps model, for example configuration management and application performance monitoring capabilities, allows teams to advance business value faster if they can partner up with experts who can take care of the low-level execution while they focus on innovation and productivity.”

Eagle Eye, a business that specialises in digital customer engagement started using Rackspace’s DevOps Automation service last year. The inhouse developer and operations teams collaborate with Rackspace specialists to discuss real time application insight and performance metrics, make decisions about application architecture and ensure the infrastructure automation is optimal in respect to market conditions.

Steve Rothwell, Founder and Director, Eagle Eye said: “With the help of the DevOps specialists at Rackspace we can react to the market like never before, have the flexibility to scale up and down and get products to potential and existing customers faster. We let Rackspace focus on our infrastructure and the tools we need to run more efficiently and our team can focus on writing code for our products. It’s the perfect fit.”