Right from the start, software development comprises two different departments; the development team that develops the plan designs and build the system from scratch and the operations team for testing and implementation of whatever is developed. 

The operations team gives the development team feedback on anything that needs fixing and any rework required. Invariably the development team will be waiting for feedback from the operations team. This undoubtedly extends timelines and delays the entire software development cycle. This lead to the invention of a DevOps approach 

DevOps is a culture that implements technology in order to promote collaboration between the development and operations teams, to deploy code to production faster in an automated and reputable way. The DevOps approach makes companies adapt faster to update and development changes, the teams can now deliver quickly with consistent and seamless code deployments. Though there may be problems in communication, DevOps manages the streamlined flow between the teams and makes the software development process successful. 

Who is a DevOps engineer? 

A DevOps engineer is an IT specialist, who has a broad knowledge of both development and operations. DevOps engineers are familiar with combining code, application maintenance, and application management. A DevOps engineer works with various tools to integrate continuous integration and continuous deployment. Examples of such tools are; Git, Jenkins, Puppet, Chef etc. 

Importance of DevOps 

1. Faster time to market 

DevOps assist developers by taking charge of codebase testing. They ensure a test-driven development and are also able to push codes to production faster. This approach speed up the amount of time it takes to go from development to production. This is important because companies succeed on the basis of their ability to innovate faster than their competitors. 

2. Enhances efficiency with automation 

Typically, software engineers have to develop projects from scratch, the whole process entails following all the steps one after the other eg. transitions, upgrades, maintenance, testing, validation etc. All these make the whole process lengthy and monotonous. 

In contrast DevOps leverages the power of automation, all these steps are carried out manually in different methods. For example, let's take a look at the banking sector, some years back, people have to go to the bank to make money transfers as well as withdrawals. You have to go through a long queue, which can be stressful to both the bankers and the customer. Nowadays, you can make a transfer from the comfort of your home and you don’t need to go to the bank to make withdrawals. It has become easier for both the bankers and their customers. 

3. Improves speed and stability 

DevOps helps to break the wall between the developers and the operations team, through continuous deployment, testing and resolving problems. This process helps to speed up the software development cycle in the IT space. Developers can now identify problems and provide solutions 35% faster. 

4. Amplify feedback loops 

To update and further improve, users feedback is a crucial component, so to make the necessary corrections on a project continually, magnifying the feedback loops is essential. The feedback loop is the process that collects data and returns information to the source. DevOps can successfully amplify the feedback loop as the environment is designed to detect the problem and solution faster 

DevOps Skills 

1. Strong communication skills 

For a DevOps engineer to be successful, you need strong communication skills. Soft skills are incredibly important not just for the individual engineer but also in making the organisational cultural shift to implementing and standardising DevOps 

2. Tools and technology 

Since new technologies and tools continually crop up on the DevOps landscape it’s highly important for a good DevOps engineer to have a broad understanding of those in the following areas; 

● source control like Git, Bitbucket, Svn etc. 

● Continuous integration like Jenkins, Bamboo, VSTS etc. 

● Infrastructure Automation like Puppet, Chef, Ansible etc. 

● Deployment Automation and orchestration like Jenkins, VSTS, Octopus deploy etc.

● Container concepts like LXD, Docker 

● Orchestration like Mesos, Swarm 

● Cloud-like AWS, Azure, google cloud

3. Software and infrastructure security 

DevOps engineers must be able to write secured codes to protect the applications from attack as well as defend against common cybersecurity vulnerabilities. 

4. Infrastructure Automation tools 

As in so many techs environments, the key element of DevOps is automation. A lot of the manual tests performed by more traditional system administrators and engineering roles can be automated using scripting languages like Python, Ruby, BASH etc. 

5. Testing skill 

Automation is driven by testing, so strong testing skill is needed to be a successful DevOps engineer. When proper tests are employed you are rest assured that each function is carrying out its intended task on all stages from development to deployment. You can run a test to make sure that the entire system is interacting and has all the 

new features.

6. Customer-first mindset 

A DevOps engineer always cares about delivering value to his or her customer. By caring about the end-product they will have the right instincts with regard to optimising for end-to-end success. 

7. Collaboration 

Strong DevOps engineers must be a great team members and help relieve issues by assisting coworkers as necessary. Any problem within a project is everyone problem and a good DevOps engineer will make everyone around them better. 

In conclusion, world-leading companies like Facebook, Walmart, Amazon, Adobe etc. are also implementing DevOps. All of these renowned companies are using DevOps for adaptive release management, shorter development cycle and faster time to market. That is how they are able to improve their businesses.