Guest post originally published on Traceroute42’s blog
DevOps movement is still an evolving field and is influenced by a variety of factors such as technological advances, industry trends, and organizational needs. That makes it difficult to make specific predictions about the future of DevOps engineering. However, in our opinion, there are a few trends that are likely to continue to shape the field of CI/CD in the coming year:
1. Continued adoption of cloud native technologies
Cloud-native technologies such as containerization, microservices, and serverless computing will likely continue to be widely adopted in DevOps environments, as they enable organizations to build, deploy, and manage applications more efficiently and effectively. These technologies offer a number of benefits for all kinds of projects, including:
- Improved scalability and reliability: Cloud-native technologies can make it easier for DevOps teams to build, deploy, and manage applications that are scalable and resilient.
- Faster deployment and iteration: Cloud-native technologies can enable teams to deploy and iterate on applications more quickly, helping organizations move faster and respond to changing business needs.
- Greater flexibility and agility: Cloud-native technologies can provide DevOps teams with greater flexibility and agility, allowing them to build and deploy applications using a wide range of tools and platforms.
Overall, the adoption of cloud-native technologies is likely to continue to be a trend in DevOps in the coming year(s), as organizations seek to improve their efficiency and competitiveness in the digital age. Kubernetes and similar orchestration platforms will be still an important part of this process (The Global Kubernetes Solutions Market Size is projected to reach USD 5467.40 million by 2028!), as they provide a consistent, cloud-based environment for building, deploying and managing containerized applications and infrastructure.
2. Increased focus on security and compliance
As the importance of security and compliance continues to grow, organizations will likely place greater emphasis on incorporating security and compliance best practices into their processes and tools.
There are a few specific areas where security and compliance are likely to be particularly important in the coming years:
- Cloud security – As more organizations adopt cloud-based infrastructure and services, there will be a greater need for DevOps teams to focus on cloud security and compliance. This could include ensuring that the cloud environments are configured securely, that data is encrypted in transit and at rest, as well as that access to cloud resources is controlled and monitored.
- Application security – DevOps teams will need to focus on building secure applications and ensuring that they are tested and deployed in a secure manner. This could include implementing secure coding practices, incorporating security testing into the development process, and deploying applications using secure configurations.
- Compliance with regulations and standards – teams will need to ensure that their processes and tools comply with relevant regulations and industry standards, such as GDPR, PCI DSS, etc.. This could include implementing controls to protect sensitive data, ensuring that systems are configured in a compliant manner, and demonstrating compliance through audits and assessments, as well as pushing some of that responsibility onto the cloud providers where applicable.
Summing up, the focus on security and compliance in DevOps will definitely grow, as organizations seek to protect their systems, data, and customers from cyber threats and ensure compliance with relevant regulations and standards. It will also lead to a greater role for DevSecOps specialists in DevOps teams.
3. Greater collaboration between development and operations teams
The DevOps movement is based on the idea of bringing development and operations teams together to work more closely and effectively. This trend is likely to continue in the coming years, with a focus on improving communication and collaboration between these teams.
There are a few key areas where collaboration between development and operations teams is likely to be particularly important in the coming years:
- Continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) – Development and operations teams will need to work closely together to ensure that code changes are tested, deployed, and monitored effectively, and that any issues are quickly identified and addressed.
- Incident management – Development and operations teams will need to collaborate to identify and resolve issues that arise in production environments, and to develop strategies for preventing similar issues from occurring in the future.
- Capacity planning and resource management – Development and operations teams will need to work together to ensure that systems have the necessary resources to meet demand, and to plan for future growth.
The success of DevOps depends on strong collaboration between development and operations teams, and this is likely to continue to be a key focus in 2023.
4. Continued evolution of automation and AI
Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are likely to play a significant role in the evolution of DevOps. Automated tools can help DevOps teams program repetitive tasks, improve efficiency, and reduce the risk of man-made errors, while AI can be used to analyze data, identify patterns, and assist in making more informed decisions.
One potential area where AI could have a significant impact in DevOps is in the realm of predictive analytics. By analyzing data from past deployments and performance metrics, AI algorithms can potentially identify patterns and predict future outcomes, allowing teams to make better optimization of their processes and improve their overall performance.
Another area where AI could have an impact is in the realm of incident management. AI algorithms could potentially be used to analyze log data and identify potential issues before they occur, allowing teams to proactively address arising problems before they become major incidents.
Overall, the evolution of automation and AI in DevOps is likely to lead to more efficient and effective processes, as well as improved performance and reliability for applications and systems. However, it is important for organizations to carefully consider the potential impact of these technologies and ensure that they are used in a way that aligns with their business goals and values. The implementation of automation and AI should be part of a strategy: including needed integration into business processes from the very beginning, alignment of expectations and goals, estimation of costs and also associated risks and challenges. Implementing both just for the sake of it does not necessitate gain from them, and on the contrary, it can lead to additional issues in the long term perspective stemming from their upkeep. .
5. Multi-cloud support with Infrastructure as code
Infrastructure as code (IaC) is becoming an increasingly popular practice that involves managing infrastructure using the same version control and collaboration tools that are used for managing code. This allows organizations to treat their infrastructure as a first-class citizen and makes it easier to automate the provisioning and management of infrastructure.
Multi-cloud infrastructure refers to the use of multiple cloud computing platforms, such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, within a single organization. This approach can provide organizations with greater flexibility and resiliency, as they are not dependent on a single provider.
Combining these two concepts, multicloud support for IaC refers to the ability to use IaC practices and tools to manage and automate the provisioning and configuration of resources across multiple cloud platforms. This can include using IaC to define and deploy infrastructure resources, such as virtual machines, networks, and storage, as well as to manage the configuration of those resources.
Using IaC to manage multicloud infrastructure can provide several benefits. It can help organizations to achieve greater consistency and standardization across their environments, as well as reduce the complexity of managing resources in multiple cloud platforms. It can also enable organizations to more easily migrate workloads between cloud platforms and to take advantage of the unique capabilities of each platform.
Overall, multicloud support for IaC will likely continue to be an important factor for organizations looking to optimize their use of multiple cloud platforms and to streamline the management of their multicloud infrastructure.
6. Greater emphasis on diversity and inclusion
As the technology industry continues to focus on diversity and inclusion, DevOps teams are likely to place more emphasis on building diverse and inclusive teams and creating more inclusive work environments – including by:
- Feeding teams with people with new, non-technical skills to fill a deep skills gap. According to the Upskilling IT 2022 report, there are seven key skills needed in IT: process and framework skills, people skills, technical skills, automation skills, leadership skills, digital skills, business skills and advanced cognitive skills. Unfortunately, most IT managers reach for technical skills first, overlooking “soft skills” – this may be the biggest factor hindering the further development of DevOps in organizations.
- Skill development of entire teams as well as individual DevOps members. Recent years have put everyone to the test (pandemic, uncertain economic situation) and have left more and more IT professionals unsure of their skills and feeling the need for further training and development. Meanwhile, according to the Upskilling IT 2022 report, only 52% of the IT organizations surveyed have a formal upskilling program. This in effect results in the biggest challenge in global IT teams being a lack of skills.
- Opening up to external teams, guaranteeing a rapid increase in competence and expected quality at the same time. Both in the sense of outsourcing and body leasing, as well as other forms of cooperation. This could also result in tangible benefits in terms of optimizing production costs (which is certainly one of the most important factors in doing business these days).
Summary
The above aspects were selected as, in our opinion, the most relevant in 2023. Certainly, everyone from their perspective could add other points such as: serverless computing, low-code and no-code solutions, GitOps or the adoption of the SRE (Site Reliability Engineering). Moreover, many of those listed will still evolve and continue to appear in similar lists for years to come.
If your organization or DevOps team wants to follow these trends but needs support in any area of DevOps engineering, contact us and after a quick consultation, we will be happy to help you.