5 Ways DevOps can make IT Infrastructure more Scalable

DevOps, did you even hear about it in the first place? Or is it familiar? Before we go to learning the 5 Ways DevOps can make IT Infrastructure more Scalable, we must explore each term and practices around it first.

DevOps has been a term revolutionizing the world of software developments. You could have heard about it somehow. It has proven to be very helpful in terms of making any team ranging from developers to testers to automate routine tasks as they work smoothly hand in hand.

At this moment, you may have been wondering what is scripting in DevOps, how it is a trend, and why most individuals are looking for ways in learning it. Development and Operations, or DevOps, has simplified an organization's utilization of too many resources by making it more dynamic, flexible and effective while restoring the development team’s overall flexibility.

It just shows that through DevOps, the procedure has simplified the process in general as it checks every aspect of any organization.

But, what is Scripting in DevOps?

The industry of software development has been growing fast. With that in mind, competition is everywhere and it is very critical for DevOps Engineers to do any coding from scratch. They need to understand about it considering that learning new skills is essential to beat the competition. They need to realize its importance, and in order to do that, a variety of DevOps Scripting Languages are required for DevOps to know.

Now, let us dig deeper and take a look at some popular DevOps Scripting Tools/Languages to help you get started:

• Bash Scripting
  It is one of the most widely used Unix Shell Scripting as it provides good support, and available for both Windows and Mac Operating Systems. Bash Scripting and Shell Scripting languages also support thousands of Linux systems worldwide. Though Bash Scripting is an implementation of the POSIX.2 shell specification, it is still a POSIX-compliant shell and available with several extensions. The command shell programming and shell scripting language of Bash has been used to automate the process of ‘N’ number of Linux Servers around the world.
• C/C++
  C/C++ are high-level programming languages and remain the most learned languages among the DevOps. Also, you must know that C++ is the third most used and popular language after Java and C Language. Both C/C++ have few pros and cons. Like for example, if an agile DevOps Engineer is looking to build a high-performance and wants to optimized code, then C/C++ would be a great choice. However, it may lead to a few challenges in implementing C/C++ DevOps environments. It may give a representation that those compiled codebases might not be portable and often be too large.
• Go DevOps Scripting Tool
  It was built based on the C Language and was introduced in 2009. Since its release, it has made a remarkable impact on the market. The designers made sure to make it a statically typed language for humans to easily read considering that it must work well at scale. The only disadvantage is that not many DevOps are familiar with it because it is new and it lacks a track record. But still, “Go” has been the choice of many DevOps as it is a very good and useful language that offers excellent performance, and unlike the C Language, it is very portable and handles any concurrency as well. 
• JavaScript
  Earlier, Javascript was named as LightScript, but Netscape changed it later on to what it is known now. JavaScript is hugely preferred by the majority of DevOps because they usually use its scripting to create network-centric applications. Other advantages also include it as being lightweight and easily interpreted DevOps scripting language, as well as it has lesser server interaction, increased activity with richer interfaces, and immediate feedback to the visitors. Furthermore, JavaScript has benefited from a vast user base though it is not as flexible as Python. But still, in recent years, JavaScript has also been being used in Game Development, Mobile App Development and Desktop App Development.
• Python
  Python is an amazing multi-purpose easy to learn language platform that can be used to develop user interfaces as well as Business Applications like ERP. Often, it is considered as the first scripting language for any DevOps. In addition, Python comes with inbuilt libraries to handle Internet Protocols (e.g. JSON, HTML, XML). It supports web applications through frameworks like Django, as it is also needed when building Cloud Infrastructure projects like OpenStack. Also, Python can help in implementing configuration management efforts or CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery) with different kinds of DevOps tools.
• Ruby
  Ruby is another DevOps Scripting language that offers flexible approaches towards programming as it gives DevOps more freedom when it comes to writing codes. It is also an excellent tool for IT Infrastructure and used by many IT infrastructure projects like ManageIQ which is a Ruby on Rails App. Other ways of implementation also include HotRuby, IronRuby, JRuby, MacRuby, MagLev, mruby, Opal, and Topaz.

Now, how can DevOps make IT Infrastructure more scalable?

Scalability usually refers to defining the exact capability of the system as it can easily adapt to the constantly changing needs of the world. The demands of customers are increasing rapidly with market evolution.

This makes you rethink and redesign systems and processes in a different manner to attract new customers.

Due to this, it would be great for companies or for any individuals to invest in DevOps related time and dollars. This is to ensure scalability due to the evolving trends and dependency of customers on your service as IT companies need to focus on preparing comprehensive strategies.

So, to assist in creating a secure and high-performance deployment, here are the 5 ways DevOps can make IT Infrastructure more Scalable:

1. Automatic Data Backup and Automate Everything
   Agile DevOps can easily recognize when manual processes work negatively especially for safety, fast value delivery, and high productivity. To ensure the security and integrity of your services, it is important to automatically update critical data. This is to protect your code as you save time and expense while enabling creation of quick processes for repeatable environments. By automating everything, it eases the learning process and market response while increasing good customer feedback as it becomes easy to audit, improve, understand and secure. Other Automated Testing Tools may include acceptance testing, load testing, performance testing and unit testing.
2. Collaboration and Organization
   Collaborative work always makes sure that proper solutions are to be delivered faster and done more efficiently. Agile DevOps and IT Operations team collaborate properly in an ongoing and consistent manner.
3. Enables Low-Risk Release
   Any system needs to be designed for deployability, fast recovery from operational failures, low-risk components, and service-based release in order to support the concept of release on-demand and continuous delivery pipeline. In case of ensuring fast recovery, few more techniques may include a ‘stop-the-line’ mentality which allows everyone to focus on a problem until it gets resolved and building a competitive environment to fix forward or rollback to settle issues quickly whenever it is necessary. Furthermore, DevOps should rehearse and plan for failures with a proactive approach while experiencing the failure to increase the team’s response practice which will also lead them to be attentive.
4. Lean Flow and Ease of Use
   In general, scripting in DevOps is about repetitiveness and data automation. Certain tools for automation must be used hand-in-hand with available resources to achieve easier product installation and configuration. To improve the workflow, batch sizes of the work must be minimized so it can move fast into the system with less variability. In addition, Agile DevOps are trained to achieve a continuous state of flow as well as manage work in progress through available development and operations capability. This will support frequent deployments and faster learning which may eventually lead to investment in maintaining automation and IT infrastructure to reduce the transactional cost for each batch.
5. Proper Deployment and Monitoring
   One of the ways to improve the quality of software in real-time is continuous proper deployment which allows the release of code into production after the successful completion of the Testing Phase. In this manner, users will be able to access the latest version of the product, while proper monitoring is still necessary especially for any task or working on any project. Small or big change, the sooner you discover the problem, then the easier you can minimize the damages as you get it fixed. Through close monitoring, the DevOps will be able to get immediate updates over any type of issues like errors, bugs, or such situations that may cause the product to crash. This will allow them to work effectively while saving costly technical debts.

But, what do we aim for Scripting in DevOps?

DevOps always aims to improve collaboration by developing and automating continuous delivery pipelines from project planning to delivery.

To achieve this, DevOps must first improve the quality of the provided solutions to minimize the lead required to fix any issues while increasing deployment frequency. Innovation and Mean Time of Recovery (MTTR) must also be improved as well as risk-taking to ensure safety when experimenting.

This will reduce serious issues and frequency of failures in the timely release of the product.

Throughout the years, DevOps has been becoming in-demand. DevOps must take the initiative to add and learn appropriate programming skills to progress in their own careers. There is no need to learn all the scripting languages today.

Any good developer can prove to be great assets to different companies if provided with the right tools and skillsets to work over on a variety of projects.