Mastering DevOps: Your Ultimate Guide to DevOps Managed Services

Recently published research found that there are 1.35 million tech startups in the world, and the number is increasing rapidly. DevOps-managed services are gaining popularity daily, along with the rapid growth of the technology landscape.

In the early days, companies faced issues delivering software quickly and more efficiently due to the lack of proper communication, automation, and Collaboration between developers and operational teams. Intending to solve this type of issue, DevOps Managed Service was introduced in 2009 by Patrick Debois.

From that time to now, DevOps managed service’s popularity increasing rapidly. This article will cover everything about managed DevOps service, including its definition, benefits, and how it works. Before diving deep into it, let’s take a look at some statics and expert opinions that market Leaders found in their research:

DevOps Managed Service's Statics Found by Market Leader

1. According to a report by MarketsandMarkets, the global DevOps market size is expected to grow from $10.4 billion in 2023 to $25.5 billion by 2028, at a CAGR of 19.7% during the forecast period.
2. A survey by Puppet found that high-performing DevOps organizations deploy code 46 times more frequently than low performers and have a change failure rate of 7 times less.
3. Another DORA (DevOps Research and Assessment) survey found that organizations implementing DevOps practices have 46 times more frequent code deployments. Their lead time for changes is 440 times faster than low performers.

Expert’s Opinions about DevOps Managed Service

1. Gene Kim, author of “The Phoenix Project” and “The DevOps Handbook,” is a leading expert in the DevOps field. He has spoken and written extensively about the benefits and challenges of DevOps and is a strong advocate for its adoption.
2. Jez Humble, co-author of “Continuous Delivery” and “Accelerate,” is another expert in the DevOps space. He has conducted extensive research on the impact of DevOps on organizations and is a proponent of using metrics to measure performance.
3. Nicole Forsgren, co-author of “Accelerate,” has also researched the benefits of DevOps. Her work has shown that organizations with high-performing DevOps teams experience greater productivity, profitability, and customer satisfaction.

What Are DevOps Managed Services?

DevOps Managed Services provides a holistic approach to managing the entire DevOps lifecycle, covering development, quality assurance, and production environments. These services enable continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, allowing for automated and seamless deployments.

One of the key features of DevOps Managed Services is Infrastructure as Code (IaC), which automates the provisioning and management of cloud-based infrastructure through code, ensuring consistency and reducing the risk of human error.

Additionally, continuous monitoring ensures that systems are always running smoothly, with 24/7 support available to resolve any issues that arise. Cloud management, whether on AWS, Azure, or other platforms, is a cornerstone of these services, allowing businesses to scale their infrastructure on demand while maintaining security and compliance.

DevOps Managed Services also integrates essential tools like GitHub, CloudBees, and Azure DevOps to automate software development and configuration management, enhancing overall efficiency.

The full implementation of DevOps best practices is known as DevOps Managed Services, where automation and communication between developers and the operational team become easy.

To make the team smarter, DevOps has seven core principles that are:

1. Collaboration
2. Data-based decision making
3. Customer-centric decision making
4. Constant improvement
5. Responsibility throughout the lifecycle
6. DevOps Automation
7. Failure as a learning opportunity
8. Efficient Resource Usage

Why DevOps Managed Services Matter?

DevOps Managed Services matter in a world where speed and agility can define a company's success because they address the critical pain points many businesses face. Slow deployment cycles can stifle innovation and cause frustration among customers and internal teams.

Managed services eliminate these bottlenecks by enabling continuous integration and delivery, allowing updates and new features to be rolled out quickly and seamlessly.

Organizations that manage their infrastructure in-house typically face high maintenance costs and inefficiencies. By leveraging cloud technology and on-demand resources, businesses can reduce operational expenses with DevOps Managed Services.

The pay-as-you-go model allows companies to optimize their expenditures, only paying for what they need and scaling resources up or down as necessary. This approach reduces costs and improves overall resource management and efficiency.

Talent shortages, particularly in the specialized field of DevOps, can leave businesses struggling to keep up with the demands of modern software development and infrastructure management.

DevOps Managed Services bridges this gap by providing access to a team of skilled professionals who are experts in cloud management, configuration management, automation, and security. This ensures that businesses have the support they need without the ongoing challenge of recruiting and retaining in-house talent.

Security compliance and governance complexities are ever-present concerns in today's digital world. Businesses must navigate a landscape filled with stringent regulations, audits, and potential security breaches.

DevOps Managed Services helps mitigate these risks by implementing industry best practices and continuously monitoring for vulnerabilities. Managed services also keep businesses secure and compliant, whether through secure shell access, managing OAuth tokens, or ensuring proper authentication and access control.

Scalability and availability are essential for any growing business. As customer demand fluctuates, the ability to scale cloud infrastructure on demand becomes critical. DevOps Managed Services provide the flexibility to adapt to changing needs quickly, ensuring that businesses can handle increased workloads without compromising performance.

Additionally, high availability is maintained through robust cloud platforms like AWS and Azure, along with continuous monitoring that detects and resolves issues before they impact end-users.

Benefits of DevOps Managed Service for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

There are huge benefits to using fully managed DevOps Services. Firstly, look at the market leaders’ research and analysis reports of what organizations achieve after adopting DevOps for their organizations:

1. The 2020 State of DevOps Report, produced by Puppet and Splunk, surveyed over 2,400 IT professionals and found that high-performing DevOps teams deploy code 208 times more frequently than low performers, with 106 times faster lead times and 7 times lower change failure rates.
2. The 2021 DevOps Pulse Report, produced by Logz.io: Cloud Observability & Security Powered by Open Source , surveyed over 1,000 IT professionals and found that the top benefits of DevOps adoption were improved software quality (cited by 69% of respondents) and faster delivery of features and updates (cited by 62%).
3. A 2020 survey by IDG found that 74% of organizations had either adopted or were planning to adopt DevOps, with 47% reporting increased collaboration between development and operations teams as a key benefit.

Organizations that adopt DevOps can get lots of unique benefits, such as:

1. Improved Communication and Collaboration

Communication and Collaboration are the most critical parts of the software development process.

You can rely on every time (24/7-hour) assistant when you choose a fully managed DevOps Service. Collaborating between different teams with different expertise reduces the time of software development.

2. Faster Development and Deployment Process

Automation, CI/CD, Agile Methodologies, Cloud computing, etc., are the tools that shorten the development and deployment process.

Faster development and deployment processes can lead to faster time-to-market, improved agility, quality, and reduced costs.

3. Enhanced Quality Assurance and Testing

As mentioned earlier, DevOps follow CI/CD (Continous Integration/ Continous Development) methodologies. The entire software development lifecycle, from planning to development and maintenance, follows Continous Integration and testing every time.

DevOps teams can improve quality assurance and testing in software development by utilizing various technologies and techniques, including test automation, continuous testing, shift-left testing, and DevOps tools.

4. Cost Savings and Operational Efficiency

Another key goal of the DevOps approach to software development is cost savings and operational efficiency. DevOps teams can use various tools and practices to achieve these goals, such as automation, continuous improvement, Collaboration, and cloud computing.

In software development, cost savings and operational efficiency can lead to several benefits, including reduced development costs, increased productivity, reduced downtime, improved delivery time, etc.

5. Increased Scalability and Flexibility

DevOps can increase scalability and flexibility by emphasizing automation, cloud computing, continuous delivery, microservices architecture, and infrastructure as code.

By implementing these practices, organizations can quickly and efficiently reduce or eliminate resources according to market demand or customer needs and achieve greater operational flexibility.

6. Efficient Resource Usage

Efficient resource usage in DevOps Managed Services involves strategically allocating resources such as infrastructure, time, and personnel to maximize productivity while minimizing waste.

Managed services help optimize infrastructure by dynamically adjusting cloud resources based on demand, ensuring you're not paying for idle or underutilized resources.

Automation plays a key role in handling repetitive tasks like deployments and monitoring. This allows human resources to focus on more critical tasks, thus saving time and reducing errors.

Additionally, managed services continuously monitor and analyze resource usage to ensure that the right amount of resources is always available to meet business needs without overcommitting, which helps reduce costs and cloud management.

This approach also enables better planning and forecasting, ensuring the business can scale efficiently. Ultimately, efficient resource usage leads to cost savings, improved performance, and a more sustainable operational model.

The Future of DevOps Managed Services

Looking ahead, DevOps Managed Services will continue to evolve alongside emerging technologies.

As cloud platforms expand their offerings and new tools for automation and orchestration are developed, managed services will incorporate these advancements to enhance efficiency, scalability, and security further.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning will likely play a more significant role in DevOps automation, enabling predictive analytics and self-healing systems that anticipate and resolve issues automatically.

Additionally, as edge computing and the Internet of Things (IoT) gain traction, DevOps Managed Services will extend their reach to manage infrastructure and applications in these new and complex environments.

Ultimately, the future of DevOps Managed Services lies in their ability to help businesses innovate faster and more securely.

Managed services allow businesses to focus on creating value and staying ahead in an increasingly competitive market by taking care of the infrastructure, security, and operational complexities.

Challenges and Risks in DevOps Managed Services

Implementing the DevOps approach is challenging and risky and needs experts to implement it successfully. Being unaware can lead an organization to unplanned expenses. The top challenges are:

1. Integration and Compatibility

As discussed earlier,  DevOps involves multiple tools and systems, including source code management, continuous integration, testing, and deployment. If you are unsure that these tools and techniques are compatible and integrate properly with your platforms, they might harm you.

Here are some of the critical considerations for integration and compatibility in DevOps Managed Services:

• Choose the right tools that are easily compatible with each other.
• Use APIs and plug-ins to integrate different devices and systems.
• Standardize before integration. Standardization Can Automation and AI/ML Solve Our DevOps Hiring Problems? simplify integration and compatibility.
• Make sure your systems and tools are configured correctly.
• Test the tools and systems compatibility before integration.

2. Security Risks

DevOps security and compliance risks are another primary concern while implementing the DevOps approach. DevOps practices involve frequent changes and updates, which can increase the risk of security breaches.

Here are some of the critical security risks to consider when implementing DevOps:

• DevOps’s continuous integration and deployment process can lead to code vulnerabilities, making it easier for hackers to exploit.
• Managed configuration because Misconfigured infrastructure can have security vulnerabilities.
• Unauthorized access may exploit your data and information, so take control of your data access.
• Monitor and manage user activities and implement processes to detect and prevent insider threats.
• DevOps teams can sometimes prioritize speed over security, leading to a lack of security controls.

3. Infrastructure and Resource Constraints

Servers, networks, and storage are among the extensive infrastructure and resources needed for DevOps Managed Services. The pace and caliber of software delivery can be affected by slow or ineffective DevOps operations brought on by insufficient infrastructure and resources.

The following are essential factors to take into account when managing infrastructure and resource limitations in DevOps Managed Services:

• Use cloud-based infrastructure that can help address Infrastructure and Resource Constraints and pay for only what you used.
• Approach automation practice that can help streamline DevOps operations, reducing the need for manual interventions, saving time and resources, and ensuring that infrastructure and resources are optimized for efficient and effective DevOps operations.
• Look at your needs and plan your resources, what you need, and for how long.
• To identify infrastructure and resource constraints, proactively monitor the performance regularly.
• Frequently collaborate and communicate with DevOps and Operations teams to get updated information on your infrastructure.

4. Vendor Lock-in

Vendor lock-in means an organization ultimately depends upon a vendor for their Devops Services. Vendor lock-in can make switching to another vendor or bringing in-house services difficult, limiting an organization’s flexibility, increasing dependency on a single vendor, and affecting service cost, performance, and innovation.

Follow the below best practices to manage your vendor lock-in:

• Choose the right vendor
• Verify that the vendor’s DevOps services correspond to industry standards and are compatible with the organization’s current systems and processes.
• Negotiate the conditions of the contract to ensure that the vendor’s services can be easily linked with other systems and to permit the organization to swap providers if necessary.
• Make the organization’s data easily transferable and can be brought in-house or onto a platform from a different provider.
• Hire some in-house expertise to reduce vendor dependence.

5. Cost

DevOps Managed Services demand extensive infrastructure, staffing, and tool investments. Licensing payments, hardware expenses, payroll expenses, and ongoing maintenance and support expenses are a few examples of these costs. The organization’s size, complexity, and requirements can all influence cost considerations.

Here are some points you should consider to maintain your costs:

• Analyze the total cost of ownership, which includes the costs of the hardware, software, employees, ongoing maintenance, and support, before you begin.
• Try to automate as many tasks as possible because it helps to reduce the costs of streamlining operations and reducing the need for manual interventions.
• Use open-source tools that reduce costs; some are free, and some are low-cost alternatives to proprietary tools.
• Outsourcing is also a great way to leverage a third-party vendor’s expertise and resources and reduce costs.

Best Practices for Implementing DevOps Managed Services

Successful implementation requires a lot of pre-planning, execution, monitoring, etc. We have standard procedures that we follow our every client step by step. Our traditional methods for implementing DevOps Managed Services include:

Step 1: Clearly Define Goals and Objectives

First, we sit with our clients personally and determine their goals and business objectives. In this meeting, we mainly listen carefully and try to understand our client’s words.

Step 2: Build a team with the right skills

We have a vast team of DevOps engineers. Before reaching this step, we already have clear ideas, goals, and business objectives for our clients. In this step, we select a qualified team of engineers to meet our client’s requirements.

Based on the client’s requirements, we ensure the selected team is the right and best suitable. Once we completed building a team of professionals with diverse expertise, we moved forward to step 3.

Step 3: Emphasize Communication and Collaboration

Collaboration and communication are critical components of DevOps. We encourage team members to cooperate, exchange information, and speak honestly. This will ensure everyone is focused on the same objectives and help create a strong team culture.

Communicating with other teams helps determine the challenges they face during the working process and makes it easy to decide on possible solutions faster.

Step 4: Establish Processes and Workflows

Before reaching this step, let’s recall what we have now. We have a clear idea and business objectives of clients, and we have finalized the dedicated team and are collaborating with other groups already.

Now we have established a straightforward process and workflow for DevOps-managed service. This will make it easier to ensure everyone is working toward the same objectives and that everything goes perfectly throughout the process.

Step 5: Automation all the way

After everything is set up correctly and goes well, we focus on automating the processes as many as possible such as developing, testing, deploying, and monitoring.

Automating workflows will reduce the risk of human error, speed up the process, and free up team members to focus on higher-level tasks.

Read also: DevOps Outsourcing: How it works, benefits and how to get started

Step 6: Implement Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD

Automating testing and deployment of code changes is a critical component of CI/CD, enabling teams to produce code faster and error-free. Here’s how we do it step by step:

• First, we define the CI/CD pipeline stages: build, test, deploy, and identify the necessary tools and processes.
• Then we use automation tools such as Jenkins, Travis CI, or CircleCI to automate the pipeline.
• Then we integrate testing into your pipeline to catch errors early using automated tools like Selenium, JUnit, and pytest.
• Also, we use tools like Git to manage code changes and collaborate with your team.
• We use tools like Nagios, New Relic, or AppDynamics to monitor the pipeline and identify any issues.

Step 7: Monitor and measure progress

DevOps Managed Services must be continuously tracked and measured to achieve the required results. Create a system to track metrics, progress and report on outcomes.

To complete this step, we first decide on goals and then determine key performing indicators (KPI), use logging and analytics tools, use dashboards to visualize data and track progress, and conduct regular reviews.

Step 8: Continuously improve

DevOps is a method that always seeks to improve. To get better results, encourage your team to routinely examine and reflect on their procedures, pinpoint areas for improvement, and make the necessary adjustments.

More Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between DevOps and managed services?

DevOps focuses on improving the software development process and accelerating application delivery, while managed services provide ongoing support and maintenance for IT infrastructure and systems.

What is MSP in DevOps?

MSP stands for Managed Service Provider in DevOps. It refers to an external service provider responsible for managing and maintaining an organization’s IT infrastructure and systems, including DevOps processes if required.

What methodologies should I use to manage a DevOps project?

Implement Agile methodologies like Scrum and Kanban.

How can I ensure strong collaboration in my DevOps team?

Use tools that facilitate communication and transparency.

What practices help in automating code integration and delivery? 

Embrace Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD).

How can I manage infrastructure efficiently in a DevOps project?

 Utilize Infrastructure as Code (IaC).

Why is monitoring important in DevOps?

Regular monitoring helps track performance and make data-driven decisions.

What approach helps in delivering value quickly to users?

Adopt a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach.

Read More Resources on DevOps

1. DevOps as a Service and DevOps Solutions
2. DevOps Outsourcing: How to Do it Successfully
3. DevOps Outsourcing Services in Nepal: History, Trends & DevOps Service Providers
4. DevOps for Developers | A Comprehensive Guide in 2024
5. What is CI/CD in DevOps: Process, Definition, Benefits, and Best Practices
6. Maximizing Efficiency with DevOps Managed Services: Your Guide to Seamless Operations