DevOps Phases

DevOps overview

Traditional software development often suffers from delays and inefficiencies due to a lack of collaboration between development and operations teams. Developers write code and then hand it over to operations for deployment, which can cause bottlenecks, slow feedback, and issues with code quality. As projects grow more complex and customer demands increase, this siloed approach makes it harder to keep up.

DevOps addresses these issues by bringing development and operations together as a unified front. Using automation and continuous processes, DevOps enables a seamless workflow from planning and coding to deployment and monitoring. This approach emphasizes collaboration, speed, and feedback, allowing teams to deliver reliable software more quickly and adapt rapidly to new requirements.

This resource breaks down each phase of the DevOps life cycle, showing how they work together to deliver high-quality software faster. Keep reading to learn more.

• What is the DevOps life cycle?
  
• DevOps life cycle phases (The seven Cs of DevOps)
  
• Best practices for the DevOps life cycle
  
• Challenges of the DevOps life cycle
• Key takeaways and DevOps resources
  

What is the DevOps life cycle?

Imagine you’re working with a team to build and launch an application. From initial brainstorming to the final release, a series of steps – often called the DevOps life cycle – keeps everything running smoothly and improves developer productivity. Each phase has its purpose, and all work together to help you deliver reliable software faster with fewer roadblocks.

Plan

It all starts with planning. Here, you and your team outline your project’s goals, features, and timeline. Planning ensures that developers, operations, and sales are on the same page. Think of this as setting your foundation – ensuring everyone understands the roadmap and what’s required for a successful release.

Code

Once you have a plan, it’s time to start coding. In this phase, developers bring ideas to life, writing the code that powers the application. Using version control tools like GitHub and GitLab, your team can work simultaneously, track changes, and ensure everyone’s contributions fit together seamlessly.

Build

Now comes the build phase. This is where the code transforms into an actual application. Automated tools compile everything so that you can catch and fix any issues early on. Think of it as assembling all the pieces to ensure they fit and function as expected.

Test

With the application built, it’s time to test it. Here, automated and manual tests help ensure your software works as intended. By identifying and fixing bugs at this stage, you ensure users get the best experience possible, saving you and your team future headaches.

Deploy

Once everything is tested and ready, it’s time to deploy. Using automated deployment tools like Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, and Azure DevOps, you can release your software to users quickly and reliably. This phase ensures that the transition from testing to live use is smooth and that users can access updates without a hitch.

Operate

Now that your software is live, it’s all about keeping it running smoothly. During this phase, your team monitors the system’s infrastructure, ensuring it’s available, reliable, and ready to handle demand. Here, you manage resources and ensure everything scales as your user base grows.

Monitor

Finally, in the monitoring phase, you track performance and gather feedback. This helps you catch issues early and see how users interact with the software. By keeping a close eye on things, you not only maintain quality but also gain insights for the next round of improvements.

Each phase in the DevOps life cycle works together to create an efficient, adaptable, and always improving flow. As you move through them, you’re setting up a process that supports faster releases, higher quality, and happier users.

DevOps life cycle phases (The seven Cs of DevOps)

The DevOps life cycle is structured around seven continuous phases, known as the seven Cs. Each phase is vital in delivering software more efficiently, ensuring high quality, and maintaining responsiveness to user needs. Here’s a closer look at each phase and the tools commonly used during these stages.

Continuous development

In the continuous development phase, teams plan, design, and write code for new features and enhancements. This phase emphasizes collaboration among developers, operations, and stakeholders to ensure everyone is aligned on goals and requirements. Tools like Git and Apache Subversion (SVN) are used for version control, allowing teams to manage code changes and collaborate effectively. Project management tools such as Jira and Trello help track tasks and progress throughout development.

Continuous integration

Continuous integration (CI) involves regularly merging code changes into a shared repository. Each integration triggers automated builds and tests, allowing teams to identify and resolve issues early in the development process. Tools like Jenkins and GitLab CI/CD facilitate the setup of CI pipelines and automate the build process, while CircleCI and Travis CI integrate testing and deployment workflows, ensuring that the latest changes are continuously integrated and validated.

Continuous testing

The continuous testing phase ensures that all code changes are thoroughly tested before release. Automated testing allows for consistent validation of features, catching bugs early, and ensuring software quality. Testing frameworks like Selenium provide automated functional testing for web applications, while JUnit and TestNG are commonly used for unit and integration testing in Java applications. Additionally, Postman is popular for API testing, validating service endpoints to ensure they perform as expected.

Continuous deployment

In the continuous deployment phase, successful builds from the CI process are automatically released to production environments. This allows for rapid delivery of new features and fixes, reducing time to market. Deployment tools like AWS CodeDeploy streamline the deployment process to Amazon EC2 instances, while Octopus Deploy helps manage complex release processes. For containerized applications, Kubernetes facilitates seamless updates and orchestration, ensuring that new code is deployed smoothly.

Continuous feedback

Continuous feedback focuses on collecting user and system feedback to guide future improvements. This phase ensures that teams can respond quickly to user needs and address any issues that arise after deployment. Monitoring tools like New Relic and Dynatrace gather performance metrics and user analytics, providing valuable insights into how the application is used. Additionally, Google Analytics tracks user interactions, and tools like Hotjar provide heatmaps and feedback to enhance user experience.

Continuous monitoring

In the continuous monitoring phase, teams track the health and performance of applications in real time. This proactive approach helps detect issues before they impact users, ensuring a smooth experience. Tools like Prometheus and Grafana are commonly used for system monitoring and visualizing metrics, while Splunk analyzes logs and operational data to identify potential problems quickly.

Continuous operations

The continuous operations phase ensures that applications and systems remain functional and available without downtime. This phase includes regular maintenance, scaling, and updates to support ongoing service delivery. Configuration management tools like Ansible and Chef Infra automate system updates and maintenance tasks, while Terraform enables infrastructure as code (IaC), managing and provisioning resources automatically. Kubernetes also plays a crucial role in orchestrating and managing containerized applications, ensuring efficient resource allocation and operational resilience.

Together, the seven Cs of DevOps create a comprehensive life cycle that promotes collaboration, automation, and continuous improvement, enabling teams to deliver high-quality software efficiently and responsively.

Best practices for the DevOps life cycle

The DevOps life cycle is a continuous process involving development, testing, integration, deployment, and monitoring. Best practices aim to streamline and automate these steps for rapid, reliable delivery. Here’s an overview of best practices:

Shift-left testing

Shift-left testing involves moving testing to the earliest stages of the DevOps life cycle, emphasizing early and continuous testing to catch issues before they escalate. This approach integrates test-driven development (TDD) and behavior-driven development (BDD), allowing for automated testing with each code change. By identifying defects early, shift-left testing reduces rework, improves code quality, and ensures smoother, more reliable releases, enhancing developer efficiency and product stability.

Monitoring and logging

Monitoring and logging provide essential visibility into application and infrastructure health. Effective monitoring captures real-time performance metrics, while logging offers a detailed historical record for debugging. Observability expands on these by directly integrating telemetry data (logs, metrics, and traces) into the pipeline to identify data quality issues and proactively address root causes. Together, monitoring, logging, and observability enable quick issue resolution, minimize downtime, and support data-driven decision-making, ensuring a resilient and efficient DevOps process.

Security as code (SaC) / DevSecOps

SaC, or DevSecOps, integrates security practices directly into the DevOps pipeline, making security a continuous part of development. Security checks, such as vulnerability scans and dependency analysis, are automated within the CI/CD process, ensuring potential issues are identified early. By embedding security into code, infrastructure, and processes, DevSecOps reduces risk, strengthens compliance, and builds resilient systems capable of responding to evolving threats.

Challenges of the DevOps life cycle

The DevOps life cycle presents several challenges as teams work to streamline development, integration, and deployment processes. Here are some key challenges:

Cultural shift and collaboration

One of the biggest hurdles is the cultural shift required, especially in traditional environments where development and operations teams operate in silos. Transitioning to DevOps demands cross-functional collaboration and a mindset of continuous learning, which can meet resistance without strong leadership support and clear communication. In addition to the cultural shift, there’s often a challenge with tool overload; DevOps pipelines typically involve multiple tools for CI/CD, testing, and monitoring. Integrating these tools seamlessly can become complex, leading to redundancies or workflow inefficiencies if not managed carefully.

Skill gaps

DevOps requires a range of skills and knowledge of coding, infrastructure, automation, testing, and security. This broad skill set can be challenging to find in a single team, leading to potential gaps in expertise. When teams lack certain skills, it can hinder automation efforts, limit troubleshooting capabilities, and slow the adoption of new tools or practices. Closing these skill gaps requires continuous training and upskilling and fostering a culture where team members share knowledge and specialize in key areas of the DevOps pipeline.

Automating testing and quality assurance

Building comprehensive automated tests for complex applications is challenging and often demands substantial time and resources. If test suites are incomplete or poorly maintained, defects may go undetected, leading to quality issues in production. Adopting a shift-left approach helps because it moves testing to earlier in the development cycle, focusing on high-value tests such as unit, integration, and functional tests. Regularly reviewing and updating tests ensures they stay aligned with current requirements, helping to minimize bottlenecks and maintain efficient, reliable test coverage.

Key takeaways and DevOps resources

We have explored the fundamentals of DevOps, including its core principles and the various phases within the DevOps life cycle, such as planning, development, testing, deployment, and monitoring. We have also discussed best practices, including shift-left testing, robust monitoring and observability, and integrating security as code to enhance collaboration and efficiency. Additionally, we examined the challenges faced in implementing DevOps, such as cultural resistance, tool overload, and maintaining data quality. By understanding these elements, teams can better navigate the complexities of DevOps, ultimately driving innovation and improving software delivery processes.

Review these resources for more information about development:

• Development Environment Overview
• Application Development Life Cycle (Phases and Management Models)
• What Is Modern Application Development? A Guide

You can visit our blog and concepts hub to learn more about DevOps from Couchbase.