Understanding DevOps & Bridging the Gap from Continuous Integration to Continuous Delivery

DevOps is considered an emerging concept that is seen by various experts as a strong solution in eliminating the traditional division and barriers that exist between the operations and developers in many organizations today. As the adoption of Agile transition has occurred in the last few years, IT companies have begun to incorporate continuous integration concepts in their software development lifecycle, and therefore improving the efficiency and reliability of the overall development process. The biggest advantage of DevOps is its quick and regular product updates in continuous delivery of software. These features allow fast responses to customers' evolving needs. This is a huge benefit for businesses looking at gaining a competitive advantage over other market players. Continuous delivery is dependent on efficient teamwork and automation to respond to various customer needs faster. It is now known that the time spent on formalizing and integrating processes, alone, does not accelerate delivery speed or promote overall organizational performance. If the whole delivery chain functions smoothly, efficiency in an organization will be achieved. This paper will focus on the concept of DevOps as well as how the gaps from continuous integration to continuous delivery can be bridged. The information that will be covered will involve how the aspects of DevOps apply to different SDLC phases in terms of customer needs, how to switch from continuous integration to continuous delivery, including the various benefits. It briefly discusses different factors one must think about before implementing DevOps, including the advantages that one might expect