Agile and DevOps – Symbiotic Approaches for Development

Software development methodology has come a long way since 1970, when the Waterfall approach emphasized a linear track from requirement to deployment, and then retirement. Agile, a big improvement over its predecessor, helped adaptation and made the process more flexible. Recently, DevOps is fast emerging as a player in the development field, with improved mechanics.
DevOps is the latest darling of the management circles, and everyone wants to use it. But, the gap is apparent from the fact that it is often confused with Agile and is seen as a challenger to Agile. A slightly older concept than DevOps, Agile has made its presence and advantages known in the IT world, especially in software development. There are now a number of courses available for it - Agile Business Analysis course, Scrum Master course, Kanban course, and so many others. The corresponding DevOps courses are a little way off.
In this article, we try to understand the basics of Agile and DevOps. We also aim to highlight their differences, as well as establish their symbiotic and interdependent nature. We begin where any Agile Business Analysis course would start – understanding the principles of Agile methodology. It was initially proposed to overcome the challenges of the traditional software development methodology – the Waterfall method.
About the Agile Development Methodology
The most important aspect of Agile is the iterative nature of development, which makes demonstration and course-correction easier in the early stages. To achieve this, the Agile teams consist of members of all the concerned teams. These include including business users, developers, and quality teams. The first step is to understand the expectations of the business and their requirements, which is where the Agile Business Analysis course comes in handy.
Once the requirements are clear and the project backlog is ready, the teams prioritize the features, and development takes place. The focus of any Agile team is delivering as many features in a sprint as can make a workable product. To achieve this, the development team may go for a number of deployments. Many Agile Business Analysis course includes details about identifying the backlog, prioritization and iteration; one oft-overlooked aspect is the fact that these regular developments may have breaks in the versions of the features or other inherent problems.

How DevOps Comes into the Picture

Although most people associate DevOps with Continuous Deployment and Continuous Integration, it essentially is the correct and meaningful handshake of development and operations. Automated deployments is just a part of the DevOps methodology, bringing in the much-needed stability in a rapid development scenario.
Another aspect that the Agile Business Analysis course may not cover is the fact that often, there are system related features that need to be taken care of. These features often ensure scalability and sustainability of the system. While these may feature in the backlog in the best-case scenarios, they definitely do not get the requisite prioritization, since they do not contribute to a tangible feature for the business. Here, the inclusion of an operations team makes all the difference.

Once the operations team has had their say in an amalgamation of DevOps with Agile, the development is not just fast but also stable and sustainable. Although the two may seem contradictory, practitioners assert that incorporating DevOps with Agile leads to much better productivity. Thus, Agile and DevOps are completely different and independent steps in the development lifecycle, but yield better output when implemented together.

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