How to implement DevOps automation in your business?

If the ability to deploy in hours, proactively fix user pain points issues and reduce human-related error in your deployment processes is the dream, read on. We've outlined everything you need to know about DevOps automation, the tools you'll need, and the services to consider.

Top level definition: DevOps expands agile working principles outwards from your product/development teams to include your IT operations team.

When implemented well, the productivity benefits of Agile – like short sprints and continuous delivery – become even more pronounced. With DevOps, you can deploy several times a day instead of just a couple of times a week.

How does it work? Through Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD), which allows phases to run concurrently, speeding up processes and bypassing potential blockers.

You've been running Agile a while. It works fine. Why risk disrupting everything now?

It's a valid question – every major change carries risk, and you should absolutely weigh the benefits against potential disruptions. But here's our take: DevOps is the only methodology you can implement that will actually keep you ahead of the competition, rather than just keeping up with it.

While traditional approaches might get you weekly deployments, DevOps enables multiple deployments per day. Think about that scale of improvement in your delivery speed and user experience.

Today's SaaS landscape is unforgiving. With subscription-based models dominating the market, users can jump ship at any moment. When switching providers is as easy as a click, your deployment speed and responsiveness to user needs can make or break customer retention.

DevOps automation isn't really about any one process or tool in particular. There's no such thing as a single DevOps automation platform you can implement that will take care of everything. Instead, DevOps automation is achieved through implementing a host of different tools, each with a specific purpose. These include:

Implementing an entirely new methodology held up by numerous different types of software can sound intimidating. Spend time nailing down your requirements, break large phases down into smaller tasks, and commit to measuring your success. You'll get there.

This will vary from business to business, but a rough structure for your DevOps implementation might look something like:

Day to day, DevOps is mainly going to affect your product, design, development and IT operations teams – but it has an impact far wider than that.

DevOps offers deployment speeds that have never been possible before, and that's going to have a ripple effect across many other parts of your business. If you're releasing new products or features at the rate of knots, you might need to check in with customer service, marketing and more to help them up the pace.

There are DevOps engineers and DevOps engineers. Whilst it can be tempting to hire one or two very good generalists and hope that will see you through, a specialist can be worth their weight in gold when the technical aspects of implementation roll around.

Spend some time looking at your requirements and who you need to fulfill them. You might need some or all of the following specialist DevOps engineers.

Our top tip: overestimate, overestimate, overestimate.

Obviously, don't be cynical. Adding huge swathes of time to your project might make higher-ups question its viability (not to mention the extra budget a longer budget would require).

Equally, DevOps is a complex implementation with several tricky technical components. Those extra couple of days or weeks could be the difference between a confident team delivering on time and a stressed team desperately trying to claw back overruns.

By all means build targets into your implementation plan, but see them as a guide to keep you on track, rather than an imperative that must be met at all costs. There's such a thing as getting too hung-up on numbers, particularly in the early stages whilst everyone's getting used to new ways of working and there's potential for efficiency slowdowns as a result.

In terms of what sort of KPIs you should be measuring, aim for a mix of:

Ask for feedback before, during and after each implementation stage, and build in time to tweak anything that isn't quite right. Creating a stakeholder panel is a great way to build a balanced source of feedback that represents the business as a whole.

We'd love to say, as developers, that tech behaves as you expect it to 100% of the time, but we all know that would be optimistic at best and extremely disingenuous at worst. Often it's not an open and shut case of whether it works or not – it's whether it works for you. Having time set aside to check in with your IT teams can help you identify customizations that result in major efficiency gains in the long term.

DevOps implementation requires active organizational involvement, but external expertise can significantly enhance your transformation journey. Organizations typically engage with two main types of external support: third-party DevOps consultancies that provide independent guidance and implementation oversight, and freelance DevOps engineers who bring specialized technical expertise to specific aspects of your project.

Partnering with external DevOps specialists offers several strategic advantages. These experts bring diverse project experience across industries, providing unbiased recommendations based on proven best practices. This approach is particularly cost-effective for accessing niche skills without maintaining full-time specialists. External partners also offer access to global talent networks and can provide ongoing framework management, ensuring your DevOps practices stay current and effective.

At Kellton Europe, we've consulted on a wide range of DevOps projects for major Fortune 500 companies and hotly-tipped startups alike. Our DevOps automation services get you where you need to be to reap the benefits of CI/CD – with ongoing support and maintenance where needed.

Got a project going? Get in touch to see how our team could help.