DevOps Archive - Bitwise https://www.bitwiseglobal.com/en-us/blog/tag/devops/ Technology Consulting and Data Management Services Tue, 20 Aug 2024 09:33:48 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://cdn2.bitwiseglobal.com/bwglobalprod-cdn/2022/12/cropped-cropped-bitwise-favicon-32x32.png DevOps Archive - Bitwise https://www.bitwiseglobal.com/en-us/blog/tag/devops/ 32 32 Mastering DevOps Branching: Your Ultimate Guide to Git Flow, Trunk, Tag-Based and Hybrid Strategies https://www.bitwiseglobal.com/en-us/blog/mastering-devops-branching-your-ultimate-guide-to-git-flow-trunk-tag-based-and-hybrid-strategies/ https://www.bitwiseglobal.com/en-us/blog/mastering-devops-branching-your-ultimate-guide-to-git-flow-trunk-tag-based-and-hybrid-strategies/#respond Wed, 14 Aug 2024 12:53:25 +0000 https://www.bitwiseglobal.com/en-us/?p=48826 Methods of Branching Git Flow: Git Workflow: Separate branches are created for development (development), feature development (feature/), hotfix (hotfix/), and release (release/*). Code from the feature branches is combined into development, releases are branched from development, and hotfixes are applied in both the development and release branches. Benefits of Git Flow: Clear difference in concerns ... Read more

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Methods of Branching

Git Flow:

  • Git Workflow: Separate branches are created for development (development), feature development (feature/), hotfix (hotfix/), and release (release/*). Code from the feature branches is combined into development, releases are branched from development, and hotfixes are applied in both the development and release branches.
  • Benefits of Git Flow: Clear difference in concerns leads to stable releases, ideal for large teams with complex projects.
  • Drawbacks of Git Flow: Possible merger conflicts and overhead of managing multiple branches.
  • Challenges addressed: Release stability, large enterprises and collaboration.
  • Suitable for: Large-scale ETL projects and complex web applications.

Reference:

Trunk-Based Development (TDD):

  • Business process: All development takes place directly at the main branch (master). Frequent integration and deployment ensure an efficient codebase.
  • Benefits: Promotes collaboration and response speed, simplifies branch management.
  • Cons: Strong CI/CD are needed, not ideal for large or complex projects and requires disciplined development practices.
  • Challenges addressed: Streamlined development workflow, ongoing integration testing.
  • Suitable for: ETL processes that require frequent updates and Small to large web applications.

Reference:

Trunk Based Development:

  • Workflow: Feature branches with short lives are merged directly into the main (master) branch. The release is tagged on the main branch.
  • Pros: Fast releases, simple and good for small groups or projects that require frequent use.
  • Cons: Difficult to restore change and main branch can become unstable
  • Challenges addressed: Accelerated development cycle, continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD).
  • Suitable for: Simple web applications, short ETL pipelines.

Tag Based Development:

Workflow: This includes features of Git Flow and Tag-Based. It can comprise feature branches that are not temporarily merged into the development branch before being merged into the main branch, or feature branches that are directly merged from the main branch that are often given tagging for release.

  • Pros: Exposes containers for development, adaptable to project needs, balances stability and development speed, flexible, tags for rollback and redeployment
  • Disadvantages: Requires discipline to avoid complications and planning.
  • Challenges addressed: Adapting to the size and complexity of the project, maintaining the consistency of the release.
  • Suitable: Depending on specific requirements, both web applications and ETL projects.

How to choose the right branching strategy for DevOps:

The best method depends on the specific needs of your project. Consider the following:

  • Project Size and Complexity: Large projects with large numbers of developers will benefit from the Git Flow framework.
  • Frequency of release: If released frequently may prefer tag-based or hybrid methods.
  • Group Experience: The hybrid approach may require more discipline but offers more flexibility.
  • Deployment frequency: TDD or hybrid which often includes master branch merges work best for fast deployments.

Conclusion

This includes selecting the optimal branching strategy for your DevOps environment is crucial for efficient development, deployment, and maintenance. The guide has explored Git Flow, Trunk-Based Development, Tag-Based, and Hybrid approaches, highlighting their strengths, weaknesses, and suitability for different project types. To make an informed decision, carefully evaluate your project’s size, complexity, release frequency, team experience, and desired deployment speed. Consider adopting a hybrid approach that combines elements of different strategies to tailor the process to your specific needs. Contact Us for carefully selecting and implementing the appropriate branching strategy, that can significantly enhance your DevOps workflow and help achieve project goals.

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Comparing DevOps VS Traditional SDLC https://www.bitwiseglobal.com/en-us/blog/comparing-devops-vs-traditional-sdlc/ https://www.bitwiseglobal.com/en-us/blog/comparing-devops-vs-traditional-sdlc/#respond Mon, 24 Aug 2015 15:05:00 +0000 https://www.bitwiseglobal.com/en-us/comparing-devops-vs-traditional-sdlc/ Traditional Software Development Life Cycle Challenges Requirements to Production deployment of any business need or story (in Extreme programming) is an interesting journey with a lot of human intervention at different milestones. Predicting where things may go wrong even when risks are identified and mitigated is challenging for any software project. The basic thinking is ... Read more

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Traditional Software Development Life Cycle Challenges

Requirements to Production deployment of any business need or story (in Extreme programming) is an interesting journey with a lot of human intervention at different milestones.

Predicting where things may go wrong even when risks are identified and mitigated is challenging for any software project. The basic thinking is to code; once ready after system and integration testing is released to the Operations team for install.

Things can be fine and dandy if there is utmost synchronization between the Development team and Operations team but more often there are challenges:

  • The operations team deploys it but with a possibility that whatever was working in Development, environment does not work in a Production environment. The response from the development team usually is, “It works just fine in development…” The reason for the failure is that these two environments are different or are not periodically synchronized.
  • New development tools make coding faster but sometimes the operations team is not able to cope with frequent changes and releases.
  • Production servers may need some tweaking or fine-tuning at the database or OS level. If there is a lack of skill or expertise then the deployment is at a risk.
  • Developers usually do not have access to Production servers to check how the application is behaving so there is a need of feedback from end-users, which, is not often received by the Developers for obvious reasons.
    In some instances, there are no clear instructions/details of the deployment. Ops team has to figure out some things based on their experience/skill – poor transition.

With traditional SDLC approaches, companies may regret the complexity to bridge the gap between Developers and the Operations team; production systems are at stake no matter what.

Such challenges have a greater impact on the cost, schedule, and reputation of the organization.

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To help illustrate these complexities, Lori MacVittie talks about the butterfly effect to demonstrate effects of not addressing challenges in terms of time, money, and risk.

DevOps Provides a Solution to Traditional software development

These challenges seemed like they would continue to remain part of the development lifecycle until Patrick Debios decided to take these up.

This initiative formed the basis of DevOps – a term coined by combining Dev(elopers) and Op(erations)s.

DevOps

is a philosophy to bring in cultural change aiming to deliver functionalities faster at a higher rate of quality. It is a way to bridge the gap between Developers and the Operations team for frequent deployments. It could be called “Near Real-Time” development or “Elastic” deployment cycle because you can automatically deploy as soon as a change is committed by the developers. Human intervention is minimized wherever possible. Automation throughout the development life cycle, continuous feedback, and process improvement is the key for adopting DevOps.

The following are some of the DevOps principles:

  • Create production-like systems for development and testing environment
  • Deployments need to iterative and frequent. Ensure a reliable and repeatable process
  • Continuously monitor and validate operational quality characteristics
  • Amplify feedback loop

Automation tools are helping companies adopt DevOps. These tools include Jenkins, GitHub, Chef, Puppet, SaltStack, New Relic, Nagios, Ganglia, Munin, Splunk, Rundeck, to name a few.

Coming back to our parked questions: DevOps – What’s new in it? Is it a marketing gimmick? Is it a sledgehammer to kill a fly?

Typically we have planned releases that are deployed through a toolset – some may be automated but you need to enter commands to invoke it. A tool by itself would not mean anything but the utilization of it and Integration of all automated tools right from check-in to deployment is offered by DevOps.

Frequent or continuous deployments (e.g. 10 per day) need discipline at all levels and commitment to make it happen. You may also be having war room meetings between developers and the operations team prior to deployment. What if the development and operations teams are geographically dispersed (i.e. thousands of miles away and there is the challenge of time difference to conduct phone meetings). The operations team’s agenda is to keep the system down to a minimum time and in this process, some critical errors are not resolved in a timely manner or are ignored. DevOps once in place can take all these factors out and make the deployment journey as smooth as silk.

Conclusion

Using individual automated tools in a sporadic manner is trying to bring in efficiency (i.e. you are doing things right but DevOps brings in effectiveness ensuring you are doing the right things and cannot be sniffed at). Before you jump on the DevOps bandwagon there is a lot of thinking, planning, and work that goes into it. There are challenges right out of the gates – from choosing the right tool to change management, but the payoff, in the long run, may enable you to scale to heights.

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