A global survey of DevOps professionals building apps in Salesforce environments found 44% of respondents reported their organization has a continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform in place, with another 39% planning to adopt one.
The survey, conducted by Gearset, a provider of a DevOps platform for building custom applications in Salesforce environments, polled 1,254 DevOps professionals that are building and deploying custom applications on top of the Salesforce software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform. The survey also found nearly half (49%) implemented change monitoring, with another 33% planning to follow suit. More than half (52%) implemented source-drive workflows, with another 33% similarly planning to follow suit. A total of 41% of respondents noted that, over the last 12 months, they have more custom code to manage.
Overall, the survey found 54% of respondents reported increased productivity, followed by improved quality and faster releases at 41% each. Nearly three-quarters (72%) reported they are able to deploy changes from one environment to another within four hours. Well over a third (39%) of this group are able to complete a deployment in less than an hour. Just under a quarter (23%) are also able to release code multiple times a week.
However, only 18% can release a new feature to production in less than a day. Nearly half can complete the release within one day to a week. A total of 43% claimed that less than 10% of releases include a bug or error, with 46% reporting they can roll back a release in a day or less, if needed. Just over a third can restore a process in a day or less.
The biggest obstacle to DevOps adoption is lack of experience (41%), followed by a third (29%) of respondents that reported difficulties with collaboration and another 29% that experienced limited buy-in from the rest of the application development team. Only 30% received DevOps training once a month, with 50% citing additional CI/CD and automation training as their biggest need.
Despite these issues, a full 98% are generating a return on their DevOps investments, with 59% of teams reporting returns of over $10,000 per month and 40% reporting returns in excess of $50,000 per month. The top two priorities for the next 12 months are to consolidate systems and processes and improve flexibility, tied at 47% each, followed closely by 43% that noted that digital business transformation is a top priority.
David Runciman, technical content manager for Gearset, said that while Salesforce applications are based on unique object architecture, it’s apparent that organizations are extending those applications using, for example, low-code tools more quickly. The issue that creates is, as organizations move to deploy these applications, they are encountering bottlenecks that conspire to slow the pace of innovation, he noted.
The maturity level of DevOps teams building these applications will naturally vary. However, as the number of applications being built—especially by professional developers—increases, it’s only a matter of time before more organizations embrace DevOps best practices to bring order to the chaos, noted Runciman. While there may be some citizen developers building applications in Salesforce environments, the bulk of enterprise-class applications are built by professional developers that typically appreciate DevOps best practices, he added.
The issue remaining is just how quickly those DevOps teams will be able to implement DevOps best practices as demand for additional applications grows.
