The DevOps toolchain is a set of digital tools for performing complex software delivery tasks. Tools in a tool chain are usually executed one after another, with the output of one tool being the input of the next.
That’s why standardization of these tools is so important. Most importantly, the DevOps tool chain should improve collaboration between developers, automate any necessary tasks, and support higher quality software while providing visibility into infrastructure and applications.
Seamless integration between tools is really hard to achieve. Especially if you don’t have years of experience in DevOps. Each instance has its own syntax and functionality. Addressing gaps, overlaps, and dependencies between tools is a tedious task. This is also known as tool creep. Using a lot of tools can put a big burden on your cost management. It eats up your budget to address innovation opportunities in your business.
DevOps life cycle
A DevOps tool chain should cover all phases of the DevOps process, which are:
Planning and Collaboration
Communication and collaboration between development, test, and product teams is critical for faster and high-quality software releases. Planning provides transparency for the company, it ensures that everyone is on the same stage.
build
Once the planning is complete, the part of building the application begins. This includes designing the solution, developing the code, and validating the developed code. The solution needs to pass acceptance and integration testing.
CI/CD
The CI/CD pipeline includes infrastructure configuration and automation, configuration management, and coordination. Automated continuous integration and delivery enables teams to acquire features more frequently. That way, they can get feedback faster to improve the product.
Operation and peacekeeping monitoring
Better operational and monitoring leads to better incident response. In addition, it helps to analyze and identify the root causes of errors in the system. This makes the software more resilient.
Continuous feedback
Listening to customers can help drive business improvement and innovation. Similarly, analyzing and integrating feedback can help you more effectively deliver features that customers really want and need.
Built-in DevOps tool chain
There are two possible ways to create a DevOps toolchain: built-in or custom. With a built-in approach, you can take tools developed by others and adapt them to your specific needs. Better standardization and less integration can be achieved using off-the-shelf tools.
This year’s DevOps status report, which will be interpreted in the next article, shows significant progress in the platform approach to software delivery. Companies find this necessary when several different teams need to accomplish the same goal — delivering a product to market.
The platform should provide the infrastructure, environment, deployment pipeline, and services for the application team. The team then uses the platform to build, deploy, and run applications.
The main reason the built-in DevOps toolchain works is that it takes the burden off the developer. Constant context switching between application development and infrastructure operations can reduce productivity. As a result, having a clear environment between the platform and the application enables higher quality software.
Customize the DevOps tool chain
Customizing a toolset means that you need to select the tools you want for the toolchain. However, here you need to coordinate all the different tools to work together.
This approach is good because it enables you to use the best tools available. It is also difficult to lock in vendors using this approach. But standardization is not really a given feature.
To create custom toolchains, it is necessary to have team members specialize in tool research to investigate compatibility and dependency matching between tools. Sharing information between these tools can be a challenge if they don’t integrate well with each other. In other words, team members should understand the infrastructure operations and tools they need to manage. In addition, custom methods can be more expensive than built-in methods.
conclusion
In summary, selecting tools for the DevOps tool chain is a delicate and timely process. It requires a lot of research, testing and proof of concept. Unlike other types of tools, development and delivery tools tend to stay in the organization longer. Therefore, such tools need to be carefully considered to fit the entire team.