Truth be told, there are dozens of different frameworks in existence and all have their unique perspectives on how a project is managed and executed. Frameworks such as Agile, ITIL, lean, cobit, six sigma and many others were built on an ideology of following a path defined by best practices.
With DevOps, two of those frameworks, Agile and ITIL, have become the basis for arguments on how to do DevOps correctly. Yet, until recently those frameworks were very different in the paths offered to bring about project success. With the announcement of ITIL V4, things have changed a little: ITIL is becoming a little more like Agile, adding to the confusion of what path makes the most sense in the world of DevOps.
The foundations of DevOps were built upon the ruins of non-iterative application release cycles. Or look at it this way: DevOps is all about not taking a plunge over the waterfall. While those observations are little more than metaphors for something that rings true, DevOps has brought a new paradigm to software development and deployment. A new paradigm that comes with its own recommended practices.
Yet, current DevOps practices—or let’s call them rules—can come up short in the modern enterprise, meaning that other management best practices—such as those illustrated in the Agile and ITIL methodologies—are borrowed to drive DevOps further forward. That said, the common DevOps ideology is built around a few foundational practices that define the framework of DevOps. The primary goal here is to bring application development and operations together as a functional team. Some of the generic best practices include:
While the above best practices are simplified representations of a full DevOps framework, they do establish that DevOps relies heavily on collaboration and iterative processes to support the ideology of continuous development and deployment. Now, comparing the DevOps ideology to what constitutes either Agile software development practices or the ITIL Framework brings up some additional questions and establishes that Agile and ITIL may very well have different goals. A more simple way of looking at it is to think of Agile as a set of practices to provide faster software delivery, while ITIL is a framework squarely focused on processes and not practices.
Therein lies the real dilemma of establishing a path to DevOps using either Agile or ITIL ideologies. ITIL is designed from the perspective of the governance of IT service management and establishes a framework that supports continuous measurement and should deliver improvement of the quality of IT services. Agile is a set of processes designed for software development that meets the needs of customers and cross functional teams.
Interestingly, Agile and ITIL prove to be complimentary in the world of DevOps, where ITIL can be used to ensure quality and value while Agile brings forth a continuous stream of improvements in applications. Ultimately, with the arrival of ITIL V4, Agile and ITIL will become more aligned with each other and offer benefits to DevOps.
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