While many trends are both influencing and restraining enterprise technology adoption, they can all be broadly categorised under three pillars: infrastructure, architecture and technology. What are these trends and how can they influence DevOps and DevSecOps adoption in tech corporations worldwide?

Trends in architecture

In computing, architecture is a collection of protocols encompassing the utility, structure, and execution of software applications. Architecture outlines the working of an application and determines the function of each aspect, such as data storage and computing capability, among others. Trends in architecture bring about changes in how technology is manifested and radically modify the work cycle for organisations developing software, making it an influential field over DevOps.

Trend #1: Monolithic to microservice architecture: From massive, inflexible systems that limit compatibility, the new trend of concise, compatible software has increased the adoption of DevOps and DevSecOps substantially. With architectures such as containers becoming mainstream, it has become easier than ever for teams to code, debug, and deploy faster.

The computerised, un-editable logging has made work transparent. The lightweight choice has made projects free for development on any platform, kept in sync via the internet. Endorsing microservice architecture gives the benefit of install, run, maintain systems.

This trend, which is becoming the new normal, is a great catalyst to DevOps adoption, and with secure architecture such as containers, it’s indeed upgrading work cycles to DevSecOps.

Trend #2: Cloud-first trend: Stemming off the microservices trend, mobile-first cloud-first development has worked wonders for data transportation, security, and collaboration. On all grounds—efficiency, safety, transparency, collaboration—the cloud-first adoption has made development perpetual, seamless, and efficient.

In many ways, adapting to the trendy, cloud-first architecture is directly integrating a part of the DevOps work cycle into the company, making it promotive of DevOps/DevSecOps adoption in technology organisations.

Trends in infrastructure

In IT, infrastructure is the foundation that deals with software, hardware, networking resources, systems, and tools that allow companies to operate and manage their production processes.

Trends in infrastructure heavily affect the hard and soft tools used by companies for tracking and manufacturing their products. Therefore, many of these trends directly affect their adoptive or restrictive tendencies toward DevOps and DevSecOps implementation in the work cycle.

Trend #3: Kubernetes plus/minus DevOps: A significant infrastructure trend affecting DevOps is the increasing adoption of Kubernetes by global technology companies. An open-source software designed to orchestrate the management, deployment, and scaling of containers, Kubernetes has seen wide-scale adoption in the tech industry.

But what does this mean for DevOps? Well, it is double-sided. On the one hand, Kubernetes empowers organisations to produce more expeditiously and with greater security. Containers in Kubernetes makes it seamless for multiple teams to develop in a project simultaneously. Resource management and transparency are significantly enhanced, the time taken to fix bugs can be shortened, and a truly fast and secure work cycle can be created.

On the other hand, Kubernetes and the container management system can dissolve the need for any human interaction and create a fully automated, NoOps scenario. Kubernetes makes use of the pipeline architecture that makes it extremely easy for AI and ML tools to analyse, predict, and automate data and work processes, thereby eliminating any need for humans (the DevOps operators) to improve system efficiency.

Furthermore, Kubernetes sets an infrastructure backed on logging, continuous detection, consistency, and self-healing, making it extremely easy and considerably faster for computers to make sense of the data, potentially eliminating human interaction. The infrastructure established by the trendy Kubernetes technology is both advancing and restraining DevOps adoption in companies worldwide, depending on how the companies implement Kubernetes into their work cycle.

Trend #4: The agile infrastructure trend: Agile infrastructure for software development has been on a buoyant trend for years. Thought of as a parallel to DevOps itself, Agile focuses on collaboration, organisation, diversity of skill set to achieve resilience, quick distribution, and self improving work processes. This is perhaps the most influential trend for DevOps adoption in the tech fraternity. In many ways, DevOps can be thought of as a framework for Agile.

Adapting to an Agile infrastructure means each team has members skilled in various fields, creating a wholesomeness of knowledge. Each product delivered is followed by a feedback cycle. All teams in an enterprise are transparent, collaborative, and resilient to internal and external conditions. It checks all the boxes for a successful DevOps implementation and is a trend that has been exponentially adopted amongst tech companies all over the world.

Trends in technology

Advancements in technology shake the entire tech industry. They enable new foundations and new practices. As tech trends change, the work cycles, processes, and mindset evolve. It has a direct impact on DevOps/DevSecOps, both positively and negatively.

Trend #5: Release and deployment automation: Manually shifting software between testing and production environments is an inefficient, painful task that must be repeated every time updates are added or new software is built. The gap between CI and CD remains significant, which slows down the entire process.

With the rise of release and deployment automation, software companies can entirely automate this transition, saving time while boosting reliability. At the click of a button, the test-mode code is automatically converted to production-level work and deployed onto version controls or hosting services. It virtually blurs the line between CI and CD from a coder’s perspective. As an increasing number of companies take advantage of this for the transition between test and production modes, DevOps adoptions skyrockets.

Trend #6: Site reliability engineers: Site Reliability Engineers (SREs), a subset of DevOps engineers, have become in-demand job seekers, clearing out the traditional software engineers. SREs build on the characteristics of software engineering and implement them into procedural and infrastructural problems within tech organisations.

Their ultimate mission is to create highly scalable and secure software. SREs build software that uses automation to a high degree. They create self-healing systems that focus on operations and leave the development almost entirely to computers. Such business alignment influenced by SRE has automatically implemented a DevSecOpsbased framework within countless companies.

Trend #7: Shift towards AI/ML: The evolution of artificial intelligence and machine learning is changing our entire perspective on the development and utilisation of technology. With increasing automation, ML systems can process large amounts of data, make reliable predictions and provide extremely accurate analysis. AI can make use of this data and predictions to determine what to do next and create a truly intelligent machine that can function independently of human intervention.

While this makes the system faster, autonomous, and reliable—which is what DevOps promotes—it can eventually create a NoOps cycle where no development or operations are required from humans. While in the short-term it may appear to be an influencer of DevOps adoption, AI/ML could ultimately turn into a threat to this work cycle and establish NoOps management in tech companies.

Photo by Maciej Pienczewski on Unsplash

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