Why DevOps Traceability is the Need of the Hour

DevOps, the methodology that is moving the world forward, is continuing to grow globally. Waterfall, one of the production methodologies, is a relatively rigid approach that keeps the development and operations staffing members in siloes; the work demarcation increases the time-to-market.

The inadequacies paved the way for the agile approach, which allowed the developers and operations team members to work in tandem. This significantly reduced the time-to-market and fostered collaboration among the project members as the siloed structures gradually faded.

Taking cues from agile, DevOps came forth with a radical approach to combine the development and operation members to increase the production pace and quality. The USP of the DevOps approach is that it brings forth great products with automation capabilities. The latter aspect keeps the quality high while keeping the time consumption low.

Moreover, with errors wicked away and some of the operational duties shouldered by automation, the DevOps project members can focus on the aspects which require their intervention and efforts.

While the DevOps concept sounds great, there is more to it than meets the eye, as DevOps is more than a production approach. It is an idea that brings a cultural change to the company, and given its magnitude, there is a chance that not everyone fully comprehends it. There will always be instances wherein a deliverable is deployed with a flaw or a mistake that must be rectified. And given the amount of collaboration, it is pretty understandable to find it complex to track what changes have been performed and who made the modifications.

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This had become even more complex as remote working conditions have set in, and one cannot track the changes as they used to do before as the siloes, which were eliminated from the waterfall methods, started setting in once more. These disadvantages or challenges only stunt the advantages of DevOps.

This is where DevOps traceability comes in. When Hansel and Gretel had a tough time retracing their steps, they devised an ingenious method to leave a breadcrumb trail to achieve their goal. This is the concept of traceability. The concept allows the project members to track the project development throughout the Software Development Lifecycle (SLDC).

While this may sound like an optional feature, you should consider it as CI/CD has become an integral part of most companies in recent times. It is pretty tough to track the changes when CI/CD and other modifications are done incessantly while developing a product.

The traceability will lend additional transparency to users and developers as one can derive better insights from traceability in these DevOps applications. For instance, a consumer can see where his product is and track its movements throughout the delivery.

From its sourcing to dispatch, a consumer would be able to see the product’s lifecycle, which promotes customer retention while reducing some of the headaches for the source company as the customer can track it on his end itself. These reassurances go a long way as the customers would add the brownie points to the seller for this transparency.

Useful link: What are the benefits of adopting DevOps?

DevOps traceability is to provide customers with the most transparent, accountable, and high-quality final product possible. But with DevOps, it’s crucial because there’s an ongoing demand to create apps quickly, get them in the hands of consumers, and then integrate user input asap. Unfortunately, this hasty approach encourages the scope for errors as haste often makes waste.

Additionally, DevOps teams have worked to hasten this process by giving their teams more autonomy and independence. This is justified because it enables speedier supply and installation. Finally, communication programs with screen share options and other technical improvements can promote collaboration.

This relaxation of control does have the potential to cause some misunderstanding during the project development, though. For starters, constant cooperation between programmers and testers may become more challenging.

Here are the main justifications for why traceability ought to be your top DevOps goal. All of them are based on the struggles and experiences of development teams.

Reduction of Flaws

It’s possible that certain defects won’t be fixed as soon or as effectively as they could otherwise be due to pressures for rapid product deployment and responses. However, it is also a given that unreliable and subpar user experiences offered by buggy applications would seriously harm a company’s brand.

Since news spreads quickly, thanks to social media, this might have significant consequences. Therefore, it is to your best advantage to make every effort to ensure that your program operates as efficiently and dependably as possible.

Experience shows that your apps will be less prone to errors and more stringent your traceability procedures are. Here, the completeness of your collected traceability data is everything.

Therefore, more thorough traceability information will be valuable to software developers as it will help lower the likelihood of defects. This association between thorough traceability and defect rate might help developers create more dependable apps and increase productivity by eliminating unnecessary errors and defects. When applicable, you should aggressively seek user input and incorporate it into your overall customer care strategy.

Useful link: DevOps Adoption and Transformation: Approach, Best Practices and Business Benefits!

Compliance Implementation

In some industrial sectors, state agencies frequently impose strict traceability prerequisites.

This can help in the eventuality that a commodity has to be recalled so that the whole supply chain can be looked at again and examine the issue’s root cause. For instance, the General Food Law, which went into effect in 2002, imposes mandatory traceability requirements on food and feed enterprises operating in the EU. Therefore, developers must consider regulatory compliance in DevOps in the same manner.

Thus, comprehensive traceability aids DevOps companies operating in various industries in their efforts to comply. This applies to many businesses, including financial services (a well-known regulatory quagmire). From HR software to healthcare organizations, various sectors’ software applications can be potentially bettered by DevOps traceability.

Tracing code is a standard criterion that compliance standards demand. For instance, you won’t be able to satisfy the Systems and Organization Controls 2 (SOC 2) process integrity criterion unless you can give a detailed, supported description of each change made to your application’s source code.

Ensuring Quality and Speed

In today’s world, speed and quality are significant factors, and one has to balance them out while considering the time criticalities. How effective your balance is, the better your products will be.

We’ve also seen that when individual portions get more autonomous, it may become more difficult for them to coordinate with one another, which may result in some gains in terms of speed and rollout but frequently at the expense of the final product’s dependability and quality. Finding a means to thread the needle here is crucial to enabling the production of apps at a regular rate of speed while upholding strict standards.

The role of traceability here is crucial. It aids in raising quality as well as improving speed. It enables developers to do things more rapidly while raising the bar at which they complete them.

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The overall efficiency levels also benefit from this because resources (i.e., team members) may now be used for other activities for which they may be required. In addition, engineers developing contact center software applications might gain from effectively developed and executed code by repurposing or changing existing code as needed.

Reiterating here that requirement-to-code traceability can be required in terms of regulation. Of course, it will depend on the sector of the economy you’re in. But even if it’s not, doing it is still worthwhile. It may result in significant advancements on all fronts, fostering streamlined and effective procedures that boost team productivity, help clients and consumers, and—most importantly—deliver tangible advantages.

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Capping it Off

DevOps has many intrinsic variables. Be it testing, collaboration, or traceability, DevOps has a lot more under its hood than just bringing together developers and operation staff members. While some have aced their DevOps strategy, most don’t risk it or leave anything to chance while executing their production policies.

Instead, MSPs such as Veritis are roped to implement the DevOps traceability approach. Awarded the Stevie Award for DevOps excellence, we are the preferred choice for many organizations which are keen to stay future-proof. So, reach out to us, and we shall leave no stone unturned to ingrain DevOps traceability with your infrastructure.

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Additional Resources:

• DevOps on AWS: An Introduction on How to Integrate Seamlessly
• 8 DevOps Adoption Challenges Businesses Must Overcome
• What is Azure DevOps and How it Helps Businesses Drive Growth
• DevOps – A Perfect Fit in ‘Digital Transformation’ Journey

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