“Software companies are able to speed up the process of software release is because they are now moving into a new way of developing software and testing and releasing it. This new process is called DevOps,” says Ashok Vasan, vice president, application delivery, Asia Pacific & Japan, CA Technologies.
In conversation with Rashi Varshney
Edited Excerpts
How does DevOps help in creating a healthy culture of innovation in IT industry?
The writing of software is done through a process in which different groups have to collaborate. The software developers write the lines of code, which goes to the group, whose job is to test the software. Once the testing has been done and bugs, if any, have been dealt with, the software goes to the OPS group, which has to release the final software for production. The movement of software from development phase to the testing phase and finally to OPS group usually takes lot of time. In fact, most large software companies are able to release their software only once a year. However, things are changing now. As we have smartphones, the number of releases has increased and this is leading to new features, new bulk fixes, new functionality coming in quite rapidly. The reason that the software companies are able to speed up the process of software release is because they are now moving into a new way of developing software and testing and releasing it. This new process is called DevOps. This process of software development is more collaborative.
Is it right to think that the system of DevOps can be a threat to the legacy systems in the enterprises?
Most enterprises are on the lookout for ways of reforming or removing their legacy systems. But just because it is a legacy system, it does not mean that it has to be 20 years old. I can be relatively new and by the use of DevOps they can take better advantage of such legacy systems. Essentially, the DevOps model is designed to enable the creation of apps on top of the legacy systems. The DevOps model is designed to take full advantage of the data and the capability that resides in the backend legacy systems. In the DevOps model all the groups in the enterprise come together. The concept of DevOps was first developed about 10 years ago by some people in Yahoo.
Why is DevOps gaining so much importance now?
You have to look at what is now possible, in order to understand why DevOps now. Service virtualization as a capability did not exist years ago. New tools and technologies are complicating or at least making the software deployment process very complex. Therefore, you need to have a release automation framework. For instance, if you look at payment space, 30 years ago people used to pay in cash. Then credit cards came. Then debit cards came. Now we have got other payment methods. So what is happening is that systematically people are adding layer, upon layer, upon layer of different ways in which they can transact. We have the mainframe systems, client service systems and the web systems and now we also have the mobile systems. All of them continue to be used. You need DevOps to leverage all the existing capabilities and ensure that applications get released faster in the market.
How is the DevOps model evolving?
Teams are now recognising that they should not be working in isolation. So under the umbrella of DevOps, they are adopting work methodologies that are agile, and where the teams come together for improving efficiency. This enables them to relate apps much more frequently. They use tools like service virtualization, which eliminates constraints that previously used to exist. They are using much better tools to manage test data and are having much better collaboration with their OPS teams.
How is DevOps growing globally and in India ?
Adoption of DevOps is continually growing yearly. In India, we did a survey according to which 52% of Indian CEOs are now considering using DevOps practices. Very high interest for DevOps can be seen in verticals like IT, BFSI companies. In fact, we are seeing interest for DevOps in most of the enterprises which are engaged in serving the end-customer. I see the market for DevOps doubling in India.
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