Some people say that the end of DevOps has already arrived, before this model even reached its maturity and having been given the opportunity to be largely experienced by companies. But is it the end of DevOps for real? Let’s try to figure out what the term NoOps exactly means.
What is NoOps model?
As we have seen in the last posts, the main aim of DevOps model is to increase the rapidity and efficiency of software deployment process through the collaboration between the development and the operations teams (Dev+Ops).
NoOps approach has the same purpose, that is to improve deployment, but it would to achieve it by relieving developers of any infrastructural issue while preventing for losing their time in the interactions with system admins (No+Ops). The model includes the use of Continuous Integration techniques which allow developers to focus only on the applications development. With NoOps, developers just write the code, make the push changes and, through proper systems of build, the related application is automatically produced, ready for the deployment. In this way the development team not need to communicate with system administrators anymore and save the time devoted to infrastructural issues. We can say that NoOps represents a step forward in the innovation and, thanks to the proper tools, it enables to get a faster deployment process, even more than DevOps.
How to implement the NoOps method?
Several PaaS (PaaS) solutions to automate deployment process are available on the market and give to developers with no skills about operations the chance to launch applications autonomously, without the need of request system admins help. Indeed, the operations team would simply prepare the infrastructure, with the aim of providing to developers an environment ready to deploy applications quickly and easily. PaaS solutions described above provide a set of services to orchestrate and manage the execution, scaling the infrastructure according to each application need. In addition, PaaS solutions include a significant number of features, including the administration of resources, servers and operative systems maintenance.According to NoOps model, thanks to these platforms developers can work autonomously and, especially, they can do without the support of system administrators.
All that glitters is not gold.
The model seems very advantageous, but there are some emerging issues.
- Is it possible to remove totally the operations team?
Probably not. The need to manage the infrastructure remains, as well as the necessity to manage the information about who use services and related costs. Not to mention that all these responsibilities would bear down just on developers shoulders. - Firms are ready to accept these new development modalities?
Probably not even that. Not every application is compatible with the latest PaaS solutions and the related transition to a complete automation will cause difficulties for companies.
To conclude, we can say that NoOps model follows the same principles and culture of DevOps and, instead of its end, it could be considered as its evolution: a new way to approach the development process which will bring important changes but it won’t be able to totally untie development from operations.
