The DevOps Impact: Comparing Organizations With and Without DevOps Practices

In our DevOps series, we’re today looking at how adopting DevOps principles has become crucial for organizations aiming to speed up their time to market. This blog post specifically highlights the benefits in of DevOps development, automation, security, and tool integration by contrasting traditional, isolated workflows with the cohesive, efficient practices under DevOps. It details the evolution from adopting basic DevOps principles to achieving a sophisticated, streamlined production pipeline. For those starting or advancing their DevOps adoption, this post also provides insights as to how organizations can benefit from Bitrise's mobile DevOps tools, emphasizing how DevOps is essential for modern software strategy.

What to expect in this series

• What is DevOps? Or Mobile DevOps?
• The role of Release Management in DevOps
• What is DevSecOps? A look into security and DevOps
• The impact of DevOps: Comparing organizations with and without DevOps practices (you are here) 

What is DevOps? Or Mobile DevOps?

Let’s start with a top level definition of what DevOps is. DevOps is a culmination of a DevOps philosophy, a DevOps platform and DevOps tools which, when packaged together, helps organizations eliminate siloes. Where DevOps focuses on software¹ development, Mobile DevOps hones in on software development for mobile only.

“DevOps, or mobile DevOps, is a blend of practices and tools designed to increase an organization's ability to deliver applications faster. It’s a philosophy or a way of working that emphasizes collaboration and communication between software developers (Dev), IT operations (Ops), and security teams.” What is DevOps? Or Mobile DevOps? [online]. Bitrise Blog. Available here.

Organizations without DevOps

Organizations without DevOps typically have teams with compartmentalized and sequential workflows; siloes. When this is the case, development teams tend to focus solely on coding, passing it on to Quality Assurance (QA) for testing, and when approved, the baton is passed to IT operations by QA for deployment and ongoing maintenance.

In organizations without DevOps, teams operate in siloes, often with minimal interaction or collaboration with others. This separation can lead to a range of inefficiencies and delays, as the handover between development stages is typically slow and laden with communication gaps. Security checks, often treated as an afterthought, are only performed post-deployment, potentially leaving vulnerabilities unaddressed until late in the development cycle. 

The problem with organizations without DevOps? 

Addressing issues can be cumbersome. When a problem arises, it often requires revisiting earlier stages of the development cycle, resetting the entire process, and further prolonging time to market. It slows down software delivery and impedes the organization's ability to respond swiftly to market changes and customer needs.

Organizations with DevOps

In organizations with DevOps, the software development process is drastically different. Teams operate under a unified and collaborative framework (a DevOps philosophy), integrating development and operations into a cohesive workflow. Two key aspects of this transformation are 1) the convergence of team silos (bringing together diverse teams to work in unison), and 2) the implementation of a DevOps platform that harmonizes the tooling environment. A DevOps platform, like Bitrise, integrates a variety of tools into a singular, efficient ecosystem.

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Traditionally, many teams begin their journey in DevOps with an assorted set of tools, each requiring individual maintenance and often lacking seamless integration capabilities. A DevOps platform addresses this challenge by amalgamating these tools within a single application. This consolidation fosters team collaboration, enhances visibility across processes, and significantly boosts software development velocity. 

The goal of DevOps for organizations

The goal of DevOps, or mobile DevOps, is to serve high-quality apps to your users for them to keep coming back to. However, DevOps' specific "goals" can vary significantly across different organizations, depending on where they are in the DevOps maturity lifecycle.

For organizations in the early stages of adopting DevOps, a primary goal might be to streamline development and operational processes, breaking down team silos. This initial phase often focuses on establishing the bedrock of the DevOps philosophy. This includes establishing a culture of collaboration, integrating basic automation tools, and setting the foundation for CI/CD practices.

As organizations scale up or progress in their DevOps journey, their goals tend to evolve and become more sophisticated. For advanced DevOps practitioners, the objectives could extend to achieving higher operational efficiency, implementing full-scale automation, enhancing security integration (DevSecOps), and leveraging observability for insightful decision-making.

In the realm of Mobile DevOps, the goals also include addressing the unique challenges of mobile application development, such as managing diverse device ecosystems, ensuring seamless user experiences across different platforms, and navigating the complexities of mobile-specific releases.

Ultimately, regardless of the implementation stage, DevOps's overarching goal remains the same: to deliver high-quality software quickly, leading to increased user value and a competitive advantage for your organization.

The benefits of DevOps for your organization

With DevOps, efficiency, and innovation are at any organization's core. Implemented correctly, frustrating development inefficiencies and delays, slow handovers between software development stages and teams, stakeholder communication gaps, and post-deployment security checks are a thing of the past.

As DevOps redefines how the development and operations team collaborate, organizations with DevOps can expect increased streamlined team integration, responsive and agile operations, accelerated delivery with QA, and empowered DevOps Engineers and Team Leads.

Inter-team collaboration

DevOps fosters a seamless integration of development and operations teams. This alignment reduces friction during handoffs, ensuring everyone is aligned with unified goals and objectives. By adopting this collaborative environment, DevOps eliminates bottlenecks and streamlines the development workflow, thereby enhancing the overall efficiency of the software development process.

Real-time feedback 

Goodbye bottlenecks and hello quick decision-making. With DevOps, team agility is unparalleled. It fosters an environment of real-time feedback and rapid adaptation. As teams collaborate more closely, they can swiftly implement changes and improvements, significantly reducing the guesswork in decision-making. 

Accelerated delivery

A core advantage of DevOps is the dramatic reduction in the cycle time for software releases. Enhanced communication and CI/CD practices enable teams to release new code more frequently, without compromising on quality or security. This accelerated pace ensures that your organization can keep up with the demands of the market while maintaining high app quality.

Empowering DevOps Engineers and Team Leads

For DevOps-driven organizations, the roles of DevOps Engineers and Team Leads are pivotal. Engineers work closely with developers, providing essential, secure, and compliant tools and environments on demand. They also leverage automation for repetitive tasks that often complicate and slow app development. On the other hand, DevOps Team Leads oversee the successful implementation of DevOps practices throughout the software development and deployment processes. They monitor workflows, manage software releases, and lead with a mix of technical acumen and problem-solving skills.

How Bitrise helps organizations with DevOps

With 6000+ customers building mobile apps on the Bitrise DevOps platform, including everyone from banks, to social networks, to small dev shops, Bitrise aims to always provide up-to-date, mobile-first, and functional build environments to mobile developers. Here are some of the reasons why mobile developers love Bitrise.

Mobile-first tooling

Bitrise addresses the limitations of using generic or web-centric tooling. By leveraging DevOps tools designed specifically for mobile development, developer teams can unlock seamless workflows and maximize efficiency throughout the entire Mobile DevOps process. 

View: Mobile-specific testing, mobile-app-developer-first focus, automated code signing.

Optimized infrastructure and automation

Bitrise accelerates build and deployment processes significantly to reduce build times. This means mobile teams can test and iterate faster, speeding up time to market. Moreover, users can access continuously refreshed VM images for all common mobile development use cases, and seamlessly transition with retained older versions. With new tool updates like Xcode delivered within 24 hours of release, users are equipped with the latest technology for their builds, all the time.

View: Bitrise Stacks, Build Pipelines, Step library, M1, trigger builds on PRs.

Frequent deployments 

Increasing deployment frequency allows for faster delivery of new features and updates, keeping your app up-to-date and responsive to user needs. By using tools like the Bitrise Build Cache, which intelligently stores and reuses build and test results, developers can avoid starting from scratch. This reduces time to market, enhances developer experience (DevX), and optimizes CI/CD costs.

View: Release Management, remote build caching, dependency caching.

Automated testing and real-time error reporting

Proactive issue resolution leads to early problem identification and handling, improving app stability and user satisfaction. With Bitrise developers can streamline the process with automated unit, UI, and Snapshot testing, eliminating unnecessary back-and-forth. Flaky test detection further helps identify unreliable tests and improve code stability. Developers can test apps under real-world conditions with support for real devices, emulators, and simulators, as well as benefit from detailed test reports and seamless integration with tools like Xcode and Gradle for in-depth performance insights and faster debugging.

View: Unit, UI, and Snapshot testing, Bitrise Insights 

Cloud infrastructure and pay-as-you-go model

Leverage our cloud infrastructure and the flexibility of a pay-as-you-go model for efficient Mobile DevOps spending. Maximize your investment's value while scaling and adapting to your project's needs. Choose between the Dedicated Build Platform for secure, exclusive access, or the Private Build Platform, which offers custom configurations, a secure firewall, computing setup, and a site-to-site VPN for enhanced security.

View: Cloud environment  

To conclude

The difference between organizations with and without DevOps is stark. While traditional development processes, characterized by siloed teams and sequential workflows, slow down innovation and responsiveness, DevOps emerges as a powerful solution to these challenges. By fostering a culture of collaboration, automating the software delivery process, and integrating disparate teams, DevOps organizations drastically enhance their speed, efficiency, and reliability of app development.

The benefits of adopting DevOps, especially within mobile development, cannot be overstated. Organizations that embrace DevOps principles enjoy a competitive edge, characterized by faster time-to-market, higher software quality, and a more agile response to customer needs and market trends. Mobile DevOps, with its focus on the unique challenges of mobile application development, further ensures that apps are developed quickly and perform as they should across the various devices in the market.

In essence, organizations that have integrated DevOps into their workflow are better positioned to meet the demands of the modern digital landscape. Join organizations already building with Bitrise’s suite of mobile DevOps tools, and experience the difference mobile DevOps can make for your team. Start a free trial today.

Clarification of certain terms

¹Software: Includes, but is not limited to Mainframes, embedded systems, machine learning, etc.