SRE vs DevOps: Which Productivity Approach is Better?

When a new concept emerges in software development, companies increasingly adopt methodologies that allow for dependable and scalable software. Two concepts have been trending in IT for the past few years: DevOps and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE). They both coexist in the fields of software development and deployment.

Both these may appear to be competitors at first glance. However, deep insights revealed that alleged competitors have distinct processes and identities to meet the requisite goals. While different in their approaches, Site Reliability Engineering vs DevOps share a common goal of bridging the gap between development and operations teams to improve the software life cycle without compromising quality. SRE teams focus on maintaining the reliability and stability of systems, while DevOps teams emphasize the collaboration and integration of development and operations. For the past few years, the rise of these approaches and practices has become mainstream.

According to Dynatrace, a leading software intelligence platform, 88 percent of SRE respondents believe they have a deeper understanding of the strategic importance of their role now than they did three years ago. However, 99 percent of these respondents also reported facing challenges when creating and designing SLOs to evaluate service levels for infrastructure and applications. Despite these challenges, the benefits of SRE are undeniable. Improved system reliability and reduced downtime are among the key advantages. Looking ahead, 85 percent of SRE respondents anticipate the need to run the same observability platform from development to operations and security by 2025. This could pose a challenge, but it also promises consistency and efficiency.

Another survey conducted by Transposit firm on National DevOps Day stated that two-thirds of respondents (63 percent) had noticed a rapid growth in service incidents after affecting their clients during the last 14 months. Furthermore, in the DevOps workflow, over half of respondents (58 percent) said that downtime for their company could be up to USD 4,99,999 per hour on average, with 40 % informed that the cost increased in the previous year.

Before delving into the significant difference between Site Reliability Engineering vs DevOps, let’s first explore the concepts.

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Before delving deep into the significant difference between Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) and DevOps, let’s explore the concepts first.

What is Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)?

The concept of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) originated at Google in 2003 under the direction of Ben Treynor Sloss, vice president overseeing technical operations at Google. In recent times, SRE has gained much traction in the IT world.

Google’s vice president Treynor Sloss said, “So SRE is fundamentally doing work that an operations team has historically done, but using engineers with software expertise, and banking on the fact that these engineers are inherently both predisposed to, and can, substitute automation for human labor.”

SRE combines system operations responsibilities such as latency, performance, ensuring availability, scalability, capacity, and software system deployment. SRE tools offer a unique model for service management and application life cycle by integrating various aspects of software development into IT operations.

SRE measures a system’s performance using three Service Level Commitments.

1) Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

SLA is a documented agreement between a client and a service provider, mainly what services a service provider will offer and the standard.

2) Service level objectives (SLOs)

Service level objectives (SLOs) cater to values and goals created by SRE teams that must be met to meet SLAs.

3) Service Level Indicators (SLIs)

SLIs are metrics and attributes that show how well a system complies with SLOs. Typical SLIs include development frequency, mean time to restore (MTTR), system throughput, request latency, lead time, and availability error rate.

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Benefits of SRE

Whereas DevOps improves company collaboration and speed, one of the primary benefits of SRE is increased uptime. Their focus is primarily on service operational or software platforms. SRE aims to keep things operational, and tasks such as prevention, reliability, redundancy, and disaster management are paramount.

The goal of the SRE team is to figure out the best solutions to avoid issues that could result in downtime and keep things running. This is especially key for managing large-scale systems. Site reliability engineering allows businesses to minimize manual tasks, giving developers more time to create innovative ways. Moreover, in SRE DevOps, any flaws are swiftly identified and rectified efficiently.

Roles and responsibilities of SRE

The purpose of SRE in an organization is quite simple: The SRE team ensures that the service or platform is available to clients whenever they require it. In addition, through the refinement and automation of routine processes, an SRE DevOps ensures seamless collaboration between development teams and IT operations.

Some responsibilities of an SRE include:

• Software development, configuration, and deployment for operations teams
• Taking care of escalation flaws in support
• Reviewing incidents and reporting on them
• Creating documentation for the system
• Management changes
• Approving and determining new features and enhancements and developing system documentation.
• SRE enables developers to develop more dependable systems by focusing on development and operations. As a result, the developers have a far better perspective for supporting production systems.

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What is DevOps?

Andrew Clay and Patrick Debois coined the concept of DevOps in 2008. The movement began to coalesce between 2007 and 2008 when software development and IT operations teams raised issues about what they witnessed as a terminal degree of dysfunction in the industry.

DevOps combines tools, practices, and cultural philosophy that improve work through implementing lean practices and agile in a system-oriented model. Simply, it is an approach to software development. Developers or programmers were responsible for developing and coding the required functionality in the traditional software development lifecycle. It combines practices and concepts related to software delivery and development. DevOps also permits improved customer satisfaction and reliable service delivery by collaborating and communicating between cross-functional teams.

DevOps Methods and Practices

Continuous, incremental improvements are the foundation of DevOps processes, aided by automation. While full automation is rarely attainable, a DevOps methodology focuses on the following factors for total automation:

Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD)

DevOps aims to update and deliver apps to clients as quickly as possible. DevOps automates releasing and updating code into production using CI/CD pipelines to connect procedures and processes.

Continuous monitoring and deployment are also part of CI/CD to maintain code consistency across multiple software versions and deployment environments.

1) Infrastructure as code

DevOps emphasizes the abstraction of IT infrastructure so that it may be provisioned and controlled automatically using software engineering methodologies. Consequently, you’ll have an efficient system that permits your team to monitor infrastructure configurations and track changes that have unanticipated or undesirable consequences that should roll back.

2) Automated Testing

While updating or writing the code, it is continuously and automatically tested. The continuous mechanism accelerates deployment by eliminating bottlenecks associated with pre-release testing.

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Benefits of DevOps

DevOps decreases the complexity of managing software engineering projects through automation and collaboration.

The following are some of the benefits of implementing DevOps:

• DevOps speeds up software delivery by making a few modifications and frequently delivering application features.
• Create a balanced approach to managing the Software Development Life Cycle (SLDC) to increase software team productivity.
• Fixes and updates are also simpler and faster, and the software’s stability has been enhanced.
• Vast software was split into services or microservices to make replacements and updates easy and fast.
• Reduce production costs by eliminating infrastructure management and maintenance errors.
• DevOps also enhances software stability because changes are regularly pushed to production but are minimal and less likely to cause interruption.

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Similarities Between SRE vs DevOps

SRE and DevOps share more similarities than differences, emerging from a common goal of improving the customer experience and establishing an efficient IT environment. Both methodologies prioritize automation, foster team collaboration, and advocate for a comprehensive perspective on software development and delivery.

1) Shared Goals and Objectives

• Both SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) and DevOps share common overarching goals centered around improving the overall customer experience and ensuring the efficiency of IT operations.
• Both methodologies aim to bridge the gap between development and operations teams to achieve seamless collaboration and synergy in software development and deployment processes.

2) Focus on Automation

• Automation is a fundamental principle in both SRE and DevOps methodologies. They emphasize automating repetitive tasks like provisioning infrastructure, testing, and deployment processes.
• By automating routine tasks, teams can free up valuable time and resources to focus on innovation, problem-solving, and strategic initiatives.

3) Emphasis on Team Collaboration

• SRE and DevOps promote a culture of collaboration and shared responsibility across development, operations, and other relevant teams.
• Collaboration is crucial for effective communication, knowledge sharing, and collective problem-solving. It leads to faster issue resolution and improved overall system reliability.

4) Holistic Approach to Software Development

• Both methodologies adopt a holistic approach to software development and delivery, considering code quality and factors like system reliability, scalability, and performance.
• They encourage a comprehensive view of the entire software lifecycle, from the development process and testing to deployment, monitoring, and maintenance.

5) Continuous Improvement and Measurement

• SRE and DevOps prioritize continuous improvement through iterative processes and feedback loops.
• They measure success using similar metrics, such as mean time to recovery (MTTR), deployment frequency, error rates, and customer satisfaction, to drive ongoing improvements and optimize system performance over time.

Useful link: ITOps vs DevOps vs NoOps Comparison

Difference between SRE and DevOps

Let’s explore the in-depth difference between SRE and DevOps on different parameters.

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Final Thoughts on Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) and DevOps

DevOps and SRE are considered two parts of the same thing, with SRE techniques and tooling complementing DevOps practices and philosophies. However, most organizations have already implemented DevOps culture in the past few years. 50 percent of organizations have already implemented SRE for automation and enhanced reliability.

SRE and DevOps have standard features because both approaches monitor production and ensure operation management runs smoothly. They both aim to improve the performance of complicated distributed systems. They both trust that change is mandatory to improve and emphasize the importance of people working as a team with shared responsibilities. They focus on enabling reliability and automation.

DevOps and SRE can coexist since the two methodologies aren’t mutually exclusive. The work culture is different in both models, and they share some foundational values. But in this world of numerous options, zeroing in on an MSP is arduous. This is where Veritis steps in. A Stevie and Globee Business Awards winner, Veritis offers numerous technology services and cutting-edge tools for competitive differentiation. Veritis offers the best services for your organization with a cost-effective solution.

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