Does DevOps Really Live Up To All The Hype?

You’ve probably heard the hype about DevOps: It helps you deliver products faster, improves your profitability, ensures continuous integration, removes roadblocks from your releases and gives you a competitive advantage.

But, is all of that just a little too good to be true? Actually, DevOps does have the chops to back up the hype. However, making the transition from traditional development and operations to a true DevOps model is not an easy undertaking – if you’re planning to tackle it all on your own. Fortunately, there’s a quicker and more seamless way to reap the full benefits of DevOps, and that’s by working with a Managed DevOps provider.

From continuous integration capabilities to DevOps expertise, the reasons you should partner with a Managed DevOps team are numerous.

Let’s explore the four greatest benefits you don’t want to pass up.

Managed DevOps Delivers Expertise

There are few problems that an expert Managed DevOps team hasn’t tackled, glitches it hasn’t repaired or 500 Internal Server Errors it hasn’t worked through. These pros have seen it all. They’re the Yodas of current tech and the pioneers of future best practices – because it’s their job to be.

The real Managed DevOps whizzes are constantly searching for new challenges and ways to be at the forefront of their industry. Their expertise stems not only from years of experience, but also from working on a wide range of diverse projects, each with their own unique quirks.

You could theoretically find a top industry performer and bring that individual in-house. But, assuming you could identify a worthy candidate and successfully recruit him or her to join your company, you’d be on the hook for 100% of that person’s compensation. By working with a Managed DevOps team, you’re able to access decades of experience from multiple experts – without incurring the great expense of handling these services in-house.

Managed DevOps Provides Focus

Managed DevOps teams bring laser focus to the table, which takes continuous integration from a dream to a reality. Any in-house team you employ has to juggle numerous responsibilities, from writing code to handling daily operations. A dedicated Managed DevOps team has a tighter focus.

They have the time and resources to scale your SaaS application for growth, deploy updates, continuously integrate and make adjustments as fast as your coders can code. You also avoid the hassle of writing and testing new versions and preparing for release, a hinderance that the Managed DevOps team removes from your path.

A Managed DevOps team’s focus also frees up your resources for other significant work, like business optimization and developing new products and features. You’ll have the freedom to work on your app’s “Next Big Thing” and secure your competitive advantage. With the infrastructure taken care of and already prepped to grow with your company, you’re able to innovate – without getting bogged down in the details of execution. While those details are essential, they aren’t what drew you to SaaS or what drew users to you.

Managed DevOps Enables Collaboration

Mediation always works best when it comes from a third party. One benefit of partnering with a Managed DevOps provider is the positive impact it has on collaboration. Solutions architects, or the brains behind your Managed DevOps strategy, are the mediators that bridge the gap between development and operations. They’re strategic players – ones that would not be at the table if you were working exclusively in-house.

Solutions architects have the ability to facilitate collaboration between developers and operations, which increases efficiency while ensuring that both departments get what they need and work together to complete projects.

Managed DevOps Powers Profitability

While profits vary from business to business, making the switch to Managed DevOps has the potential to improve your financial trajectory in a few critical ways:

• Faster Release. Managed DevOps gets your products out faster than in-house options, plain and simple. This means you have more customers using your SaaS application on a shorter timeline. It also means you’re able to respond to issues faster. (Everyone’s code has bugs in it sometimes!) You have the power to implement new features without going through a prolonged, traditional develop-test-release cycle.
• Greater Competitive Advantage. The competitive advantage you’re gaining from DevOps stems from the faster time frame in which you’re working compared to your competition. It comes from the continuous integration that Managed DevOps teams provide allowing you to constantly improve your end users’ experience. Your users have opinions about your application. With Managed DevOps, you have the power to take that feedback into consideration and respond with lightning speed.
• Easier Scalability. You don’t want the app’s success or market appeal to outgrow its infrastructure, causing you to press the pause button on profits in order to scale your product. When you’re handing the reins over to a Managed DevOps team, your programs and products are easily scalable. This maximizes both your room for growth and your profitability. You’re no longer held back by compartmentalization struggles or the risk of outgrowing your server. Ultimately, you’re set up for profitability, not suffering from downtime.

Mission achieved this increase in profitability for one of our clients, YEC. Struggling with lags in deployment time due to minimal code deployment automation and no server automation, YEC turned to Mission for a solution. By implementing an Amazon Web Services cloud module, YEC was able to introduce new technologies and architect an application in practically no time. This switch to Managed DevOps brought increased profitability and improved services.

Now that you understand why you need an expert team in order to get true value from DevOps – the kind that really lives up to all the hype – it’s time to find the best partner to meet your needs.