DevOps (development and operations) is an enterprise software development phrase used to define a unique type of agile relationship between development and IT operations. DevOps cycle follows multiple different but interlinked steps to deliver the product, continuous development, continuous testing, continuous integration, continuous deployment and continuous monitoring.
DevOps supports accountability, continuity and shared outcomes across both groups(Dev and IT operations), and throughout the lifecycle. With DevOps in place, responding to business requirements faster, with more grace and agility, gets a whole lot easier. DevOps has 100 plus tools which can be used in its cycle, but in this article we will cover the top 5 usefult tools.
Docker is a virtual machine lifecycle management tool, where a user can deploy, run, create applications within a given container. Containers have a lightweight operating system image where we can run any application like Ubuntu OS, CentOS etc.
Docker is a tool designed for DevOps. We have a term called docker images, images are building blocks of the container where we can specify all required programs for running an application including the operating system. Docker Registry is a repository of docker images which contains a library of 1000 plus images which were built by other users.
In docker, we build and deploy the applications inside the docker container and once we are done, we can easily destroy the container using a single command and can again start afresh. Containers are launched using images and can contain one or more running processes. You can run docker on your own host, server or Amazon EC2 hosts etc.
Git is a fast, scalable, distributed version control system with a rich command set that provides both high-level operations and full access to internals. In Git, you can create multiple branches for your code, commit code to the branches, switch back to previous branches etc.
You can split your project into role-based parts and you can merge all the code together whenever you want. You can create a new branch for a new feature and commit that changes or remerge it together to the original branch. You can create a new branch even for testing some new feature and delete it later. You can install Git in different platforms like your personal laptops or webserver. Staging area feature is available in git where we can make any changes to commit, they can be reviewed in the staging area. Git is released under the GNU General Public License version 2.0, which is an open source license.
Multiple platforms provide Git repositories features online like Github, Bitbucket etc.
Jenkins is an open source automation server that is widely used by many organizations to implement popular DevOps practices, such as Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery. Jenkins provides CI services for application development. Jenkins can be integrated with Github, Maven, Git Lab, Ant, Gradle etc.
Jenkins very easy to install, setup and upgrade. Jenkins also has some wonderful plugins providing some very useful features like build triggers, setting time for build, skin-changers and many more. For business purpose, to use Jenkins, you should set up good hardware environments with Java 8, 4 GB+ RAM, 500 GB+ free disk space for proper functioning of Jenkins.
It is an OpenSource software written in Ruby. It works on Linux, Unix (Solaris, AIX, *BSD), MacOS, Windows. Puppet is a configuration management tool that is extremely powerful in deploying, configuring, managing, and maintaining a server machine. Puppet configuration consists of a language, client-server processes, and the Resource Abstraction Layer. It provides control over all your configured machines, so any centralized (master-server or repo-based) changes get propagated to all system administrators. It is used for running scripting languages like Perl, Shell scripting, Python, Ruby, PHP and Go to automate repeated tasks.
Chef provides complete automation solution for both infrastructure and applications that takes you all the way from development to production. Chef is a powerful automation platform that transforms infrastructure into code. Whether you're operating in the cloud, on-premise, or in a hybrid environment, you can develop, test, and deploy your Chef code easily. Chef has an interesting component called cookbook where you administer your infrastructure, deploy and develop your code.
Another powerful tool is Chef Development Kit(ChefDK) which has a bunch of secondary tools to test your code. The primary testing tools you'll use with Chef are Cook style, Food critic, ChefSpec, InSpec and Test Kitchen. A Chef recipe is a file that groups related resources, such as everything needed to configure a web server, database server, or a load balancer. A Chef cookbook provides structure to your recipe. Chef Automate creates customizable reports that identify compliance issues, security risks, and outdated software. InSpec is used to write our own compliance rules.
Conclusion
DevOps is an emerging field in application development which speeds up the application delivery process by using various tools to connect each step of development, deployment, integration, build etc into a single process.
