There are several opinions about the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and DevOps. Those opinions frequently pit the two IT approaches against each other. Organizations seem to have a difficult task when choosing between ITIL and DevOps. Both are not incompatible. They could be complementary models, each providing its advantages to the IT field.
Technological development allows companies to streamline their operations and better serve their clients. Using ITSM or DevOps makes it easy to coordinate these technologies and deliver efficient services to clients. Understanding the differences between ITIL and DevOps can provide IT teams with a standardized roadmap for delivering applications as dependable services.
LeanIX IT firm revealed its ‘State of Developer Experience Survey’ report and stated a significant gap between DevOps vision and reality. More than 50% of IT pros work on a team with a low DevOps maturity level. In contrast, 70% of developers believe that this challenge impacts their work.
The DevOps concept leverages advanced automation throughout the SDLC. As a result, it is possible to rework the culture and structure of all the teams combined in the development and deployment of software. Meanwhile, ITIL works on the process, such as aligning IT tasks with business and service based work for better productivity.
Echoing similar sentiments for ITIM are other surveys. A report from Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) said that 62% of users want to implement the ITIL approach in their workflow. The EMA received 400 responses from around the world.
Useful link: Why Should You Adopt DevOps and What are the Benefits it Offers?
Let’s dive into understanding the significant difference between DevOps and ITIM and their concepts without further ado.
What is DevOps? DevOps combines development and operations engineers to improve work throughout the SDLC. Using DevOps tools increases a company’s ability to deliver services and applications quickly. It delivers products faster than companies using infrastructure management processes and traditional software development. This speed allows enterprises to serve their client’ requirements better and compete efficiently in the current market.
DevOps is the solution for building better software quickly. Its practices permit Dev and Ops teams to accelerate delivery through fast feedback, automation, and iterative improvement. DevOps’s goal was to increase the maintainability, predictability, and efficiency of operational processes. It was built to address the inefficiencies of the Waterfall method.
Useful link: Waterfall Vs. Agile Vs. DevOps: Which Production Method Should You Take?
Especially, they are:
- New releases have a lower failure rate
- Speed recovery if a new release gets crashed
- Less time to fix in between leads
- MNCs such as Intel, Facebook, and PayPal must frequently deliver on their commitments, which is a significant advantage for these companies.
DevOps advantages
How can a business stay ahead in the competitive market and offer the best features to end users within a set time frame?
The following are some significant advantages a company can embrace regarding productivity.
- The early detection of defections
- Enabling teams to develop and incorporate code continuously
- Make sure of faster deployment
- Improving work environments
- Improving product quality
- Allowing more room for innovation due to the automation of repetitive tasks
- Promotes agility in your business to stay ahead in the market
- Continuous software delivery
- Speed delivery of features
- Reduce complexity to manage
- Accelerate time to resolution
- Reduce the cost of production
- Delivers high productivity
Useful link: Pros and Cons of DevOps Methodology and its Principles
What is ITIL?
ITIL is a set of principles for IT service management. It is a highly structured model designed to boost productivity and provide metrics for IT teams. ITIL is a subset of ITSM; it primarily focuses on procedures for delivering, managing, and improving IT services to businesses and customers. It improves predictability and the efficiency of IT service delivery.
It is a service management framework that involves five key stages. Let’s dig in.
1) Service Strategy
All managers follow instructions to develop a service strategy that ensures the company can manage all associated costs and risks. There are multiple roles involved in service strategy, and they can be defined as follows.
A) Business relationship manager
B) Finance manager
C) IT steering group (ISG)
D) Demand manager
E) Service Strategy manager
F) Service Portfolio manager
2) Service Operation
Service operation includes technical support teams and application management that respond when an issue impacts the business.
3) Service Design
It involves developing the service’s architecture and translating the business needs into technical requirements.
4) Service Transition
In this stage, all assets are controlled to deliver a complete testing and integration service.
5) Service Improvement
It is a reflective approach that involves four stages to ensure services remain aligned with the business’s demands.
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ITIL advantages
Similar to ITSM, the ITIL model boosts effectiveness and efficiency. When IT teams implement this model into their workflows, they can increase the potential of their IT services and address compliance issues.
Some advantages of ITIL include:
- Enhancing learning of IT resources and costs
- The improvement of reactions to shift business needs
- Enhancing customer relationships
- Establishing a secure IT environment that promotes the development
- Boosting the efficiency of resource use
- Implementing continual procedures
- Promoting continuous growth
- Improved alignment between the IT and enterprise
- Enhanced service delivery and quality of service
- Reduced risk
ITIL tools
There are two leading ITIL tools available in the current market.
1) SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)
Web Help Desk is an excellent software for change management, asset management, and ticketing. It allows WHD to create tech tickets from service request emails to save time. It combines WHD with third party tools such as JAMF Casper Suite and Microsoft SCCM. SLA reminder alerts ensure you never forget about the service level agreements again. You may also set up WHD to create user surveys automatically once their service request has been addressed.
2) SolarWinds Service Desk
It covers all ITSM solutions and enables ITIL services, including employee service portals, problem management, incident management, and asset management. SolarWinds Service Desk streamlines the ticketing process by permitting seamless employee communication.
Each company uniquely runs ITIL aligned solutions. It allows you to identify your employees’ requirements and fulfill them by visualizing the entire issue lifecycle.
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DevOps and ITIL use cases
DevOps and ITIL have numerous applications. Although there are countless use cases for DevOps and ITIL, they may address a few problems.
1) DevOps can expedite new release cycles
DevOps’ agile model includes risk management and speed. Small and regular releases move through development more quickly and are easy to rectify in the event of an incident.
2) ITSM can reduce IT service desk calls
Knowledge management is an ITSM best practice that requires the IT team to document their work as they resolve issues. Allowing internal and external customers to self serve can significantly reduce the service desk workload.
3) Improve your processes with DevOps and ITIL
The IT process has been around for a while and has evolved to fit the sector’s ever shifting requirements. There’s no need to create new processes when creating your processes. ITIL offers a tried and true starting point.
Furthermore, ITIL’s processes can improve workflow, whereas DevOps can provide enhancements such as automation, a collaborative model, and blameless post mortems.
Comparison between DevOps and ITIL
Let’s have a look at the different parameters between DevOps and ITIL
| Parameters | DevOps | ITIL |
| Role | The roles involved in DevOps are 1) Software developer 2) The release manager 3) The DevOps evangelist 4) The automation architects 5) Security professional 6) Assurance professional | There are different roles involved in ITIL, and they are 1) Financial manager 2) Business relationship manager 3) IT steering group (ISG) 4) Demand manager 5) Service strategy manager |
| Delivery | DevOps aims to provide for better coordination and quicker delivery between developers and the production team | ITIL takes a unique approach to software delivery and aims to combine the delivery process into different business processes |
| Lifecycle | DevOps lifecycle involves 1) Development 2) Testing 3) Integration 4) Deployment, and 5) Monitoring | ITIL service lifecycle involves 1) Service Strategy 2) Service Design 3) Service Transition 4) Service Operation and 5) Continual Service Improvement |
| Change Management | In DevOps, all changes are anticipated at the starting stage of the development life cycle. | ITIL provides a set of ITSM best practices, including change management, to identify service management challenges |
| Goal | DevOps aims to improve coordination and collaboration by developing better working relationships between the development and Operations Teams. | ITIL’s goal is to standardize a company’s ITSM structure for the quick and successful delivery of IT services |
| Approach | It uses a systematic approach to reduce conflict between two teams | ITIL uses a systematic model to manage IT services Capping it off |
| Services | CI/CD is hard enough to increase | ITIL services are created, tested, and implemented |
DevOps and ITIL can be involved when a company encourages a culture of openness and collaboration, with professionals working towards a shared goal. ITIL uses to develop standardizations both inside and outside the company. Whereas DevOps leverages human resources and promotes creativity.
It helps push new updates to customers quickly. It is better to implement both methodologies that offer something unique and provide you with a starting point to improve work and operations faster and more effectively.
Adopting DevOps and ITIL methodologies is not a big deal, but making it successful matters. This is where the Stevie Award Winner Veritis comes into place. Veritis, a leading DevOps consulting services provider, has the expertise to enhance your productivity and deliver the best services for your company at a cost effective price.
