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Embracing Automation: A Guide for DevOps Leaders

by GuardRails on April 26, 2023

The current landscape has made embracing automation a must for DevOps leaders. The adoption of DevOps and Agile approaches to software development has been a groundbreaking innovation to the industry. However, the current rate of digital transformation is accelerating and DevOps teams are being stretched to their limit in order to keep up with the pace. Further complicating the matter are many of the manual tasks related to detecting and mitigating code quality issues that DevOps teams must address. Combining the previous issues with the constant threat of malicious hackers’ neverending search for vulnerabilities in code to exploit, the risk of a potential cybersecurity incident is greatly increased.

Unfortunately, many teams are forced to put the quality and security of code on the “backburner” in order to meet increasingly tightening deadlines, thus contributing to unstable code full of security flaws. To effectively combat these issues calls for leaders to embrace DevOps automation and DevSecOps automation strategies for their organizations.

In this blog post, we will provide details to DevOps leaders on how to successfully embrace automation and integrate it into the software development lifecycle. We will provide an overview of some of the benefits, challenges and high-level strategies for implementing automation into the software development lifecycle.

Benefits of DevOps Automation

Embracing automation has become a critical success factor that provides numerous benefits to DevOps teams. Effectively integrating automation into the software development lifecycle greatly enables teams to produce secure and reliable software. Furthermore, automation removes many of the intensive manual tasks and “people factors” that may create bottlenecks in the software development process.

In addition to the positives mentioned in the previous paragraph, other benefits include:

Improvements in efficiency – Integration of automation supports a seamless and rapid software development process.
Early detection of defects – Timely detection and faster response to software vulnerabilities, early in the software development lifecycle.
Increased collaboration – Contributes to collaboration among various departments and the ability to deliver quality software at an accelerated pace.
Better communication – Higher levels of communication and interaction among the various teams breaks down silos.
More rapid releases – Improved operational efficiencies in the CI/CD pipeline lead to more rapid releases.
Boost in innovation – Developers have more time to focus on innovating new features and enhancements, instead of spending large chunks of time dealing with manual tasks.
Improved customer satisfaction – Better products lead to better customer experience.

The benefits have caught the attention of many industry leaders as they recognize automation is essential to meet the increasing demands of conducting business in the digital world. In a recent report by Gartner, they predict by 2025, 70% of organizations will implement structured infrastructu r e automation to deliver flexibility and efficiency, up from 20% in 2021. Furthermore, in the same report, 80% of respondents consider automation to be a top tactic for cost optimization. These statistics should pique the interests of anyone working in the software development industry.

There are numerous automation tools for DevOps that can be deployed. These tools can be used for a variety of tasks ranging from static analysis (tfsec), security auditing (DevAudit), continuous integration and deployment (Jenkins, Kubernetes), or logging and monitoring, just to name a few areas. With such a wide variety of tools available, basically every aspect of the development lifecycle can be automated.

Common Challenges of DevOps Automation

Even though DevOps automation provides numerous benefits, there are some common challenges that many DevOps teams may encounter when implementing automation. Some of these challenges include:

Overcoming People and culture resistance

Quite often the “people factors” are the biggest obstacle to implementing something new, such as automation.

Solution

To alleviate this challenge, gaining executive / management level buy-in and support is essential.

Appropriately measuring performance

Finding the metrics and KPIs that are relevant and meaningful that truly gauge performance can be difficult.

Solution

Identify what needs to be measured and which KPIs support meeting your goals. Clearly communicate to leadership the what, why and how on what’s being measured and how the selected KPIs apply, so that there is a general understanding.

Trying to do too much too soon

Single, large-scale implementation of automation is a high-risk and likely to fail approach to integrating automation.

Solution

Instead, the better approach is to start small by automating smaller processes first.

Implementing numerous and complex tools

Integrating multiple tools, especially from multiple sources can complicate matters and likely hamper fully embracing automation.

Solution

Choose tools that promote efficiency and streamline processes. Start with only a few tools initially to promote better adoption.

Setting unrealistic goals and expectations

Implementing DevOps automation should not be viewed as a panacea. Having unreasonable expectations will lead to disappointment and failure.

Solution

Starting with small goals and expectations initially then gradually expanding to more ambitious goals is a better approach.

Developing an Automation Strategy

It is often said that “proper planning prevents poor performance”. When it comes to integrating automation into software development this idiom also holds true. There are several key steps that should be taken into consideration when developing an automation strategy.

Step 1: Assess your current state and level of maturity

Before jumping into an automation implementation project, organizations should first assess their current state and readiness to adopt automation.

Step 2: Identify goals and priorities

Define the objectives to accomplish through automation and how these desired outcomes align with overall business strategy

Step 3: Select the appropriate technology

Determine the appropriate technology and tools to integrate into the software development lifecycle to automation goals

Step 4: Plan and execute the project

Develop and conduct a well thought-out plan with achievable milestones to minimize the potential complexities and challenges of the project.

Step 5: Monitor and evaluate

Conduct continuous monitoring and performance evaluation after initiating the project and eventually going-live. Make necessary performance improvement changes, as needed.

Implementing Automation in the Software Development Lifecycle

Successfully integrating automation into the software development lifecycle does have some challenges. The first and most important areas to address are people and culture related. A successful automation implementation requires a cultural change throughout the organization that embraces automation in the software development lifecycle.

Additionally, using established frameworks or security models such as the NIST Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF) or the OWASP Devsecops Maturity Model as a point of reference for best practices that can be beneficial when implementing automation.

Other success factors include ensuring there’s collaboration and communication among the various teams, building momentum by incrementally integrating automation, and finding a “DevOps Champion” in leadership that can be an advocate for the project.

Measuring Automation Success

Determining the appropriate metrics to measure success of automation in the software development life cycle is a necessity. In the April 2019 article by Gartner, 10 Automation Mistakes to Avoid, it’s recommended to “focus the measurement of automation success on KPIs that specifically quantify the business outcome the automation deployment is supposed to achieve”. This would include metrics such as, Lead time for changes, Change failure rate, Deployment frequency, and Customer ticket volume, just to name a few.

Conclusion

Embracing automation in software development can provide numerous benefits. In general, these benefits promote efficiency, productivity, cost saving, compliance, fewer errors, and improved customer satisfaction.

Successfully integrating automation relies on more than just incorporating new tools or revamping processes to overcome these obstacles. It takes some effort and persistence to successfully integrate automation into the software development lifecycle. But, automation is an essential part of DevOps/DevSecOps and must be fully embraced by organizations to truly reap the benefits of the approach.