DevOps certification

DevOps is a culture and practice that brings developers and IT operations together to work collaboratively, taking ownership of software applications from design all the way through to deployment and beyond.

The methodology evolved from the need for a more holistic approach to software development and delivery, following the success of agile working.

DevOps teams focus on communication, integration and automation of processes - allowing them to design, build and deploy applications at a faster rate.

Adopting DevOps in your business can help you avoid the silos and bottlenecks that characterise more traditional software development methods.

By empowering a cross-functional team to build, test, deliver and support its own applications, you can significantly cut down the time it takes to deploy new software products and services while also improving on quality.

A DevOps culture builds on agile values; championing collaboration, shared responsibility, increased automation and quality feedback resulting in more reliable applications and systems.

With its primary focus on end-to-end stakeholder collaboration, DevOps methodology doesn’t rely on a common framework.

Automation tools are an important part of the DevOps mix - your DevOps toolkit may include tools for build and testing, configuration management, application deployment, version control and monitoring. 

By incorporating DevOps practices, the benefits your business enjoys are both commercial and cultural:

• Faster and more frequent delivery of applications
• Higher quality, lower failure rates
• Speedy resolution of problems
• Improved communication and collaboration
• Engaged and productive employees
• More time for creativity and innovation

DevOps engineers work across the DevOps team, understanding the needs of stakeholders and overseeing the technology, people and processes to ensure continuous delivery and integration. Their technical and soft skills are vital to support collaboration between developers, testers, operations teams and clients alike.

They also need to be familiar with at least the basics of software development languages, the IT infrastructure and automation tools. Typical tasks may include updating existing code, prepping test data, analysing results, troubleshooting issues and monitoring performance after deployment.

You might transition to the role of DevOps engineer from a range of career backgrounds, for example from software developer, tester, systems administrator or analyst.

Implementing DevOps into your business starts with changing mindsets - your teams must be open and ready to do things a little differently. Remember, DevOps is fundamentally about collaboration and communication so the benefits of this cultural shift will ripple all the way through your workplace!

Of course, transitioning to DevOps doesn’t happen overnight. Introduce the practice of DevOps incrementally - start by identifying a single process or project that’s experiencing bottlenecks or inefficiencies. And be sure to record and track your progress - and failures - right from the beginning so you can learn and evolve your approach.

The BCS Foundation Certificate in DevOps is an ideal introduction for anyone in your business who’s going to be involved in your DevOps implementation, from the developers and testers to your database administrators, product owners and clients.