The “Software Development Lifecycle” (SDLC) is generally used to describe the stages
that new development takes from planning through to maintenance. By contrast,
different methodologies — like waterfall or DevOps — focus on the approach you take
to building, releasing and maintaining your software. In other words, the SDLC is about
what you do whereas DevOps is about how you do it.
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What are the five key stages of the SDLC?
The SDLC helps product and engineering teams to define the stages of their process,
from gathering initial requirements through to maintaining a successful feature in live
environments.
As each business, engineering team, and product is different, the details of the SDLC
in terms of tools and processes will vary widely. However, at the core, all teams will
move through five key phases in their SDLC:
1. Discovery phase: investigating user requests and business objectives so you
can choose what to build to satisfy these requirements.
2. Development phase: building new or updating existing functionality.
3. Testing phase: verifying that code executes as intended, integrates with other
changes, and meets users’ expectations.
4. Deployment phase: promoting changes through environments and releasing to
production.
5. Operations phase: monitoring features in your live environment and feeding
insights back into new development work.
While each of these phases describes what teams should be doing, they don’t specify
how. There are many ways to investigate user requirements or test your code, but
some are better than others for creating a productive environment for your engineers,
building robust features, and satisfying end users. This is why you have to use the
right methodology.
At its core, DevOps is about breaking down silos. Originally, this meant bridging the
structural divide between development and operations teams, but that translates into
a broader principle: foster collaboration between any teams responsible for any aspect
of the SDLC. DevOps isn’t about arriving at a “perfect” process, but promoting a
culture of continuous improvement.
As we step through the five key stages of the SDLC, we’ll look at the ways DevOps can
create a more effective culture with more efficient processes. The recurring theme is
that DevOps accelerates the development lifecycle, by shortening and overlapping the
traditional phases of SDLC.
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Discovery phase
End users don’t always know how to ask for the features they need. As a result, most
developers have had the experience of building something, only to find it doesn’t quite
meet actual requirements. DevOps encourages developers to interact directly with end
users, do thorough discovery of end users’ existing processes and pain points, and
partner with them to design real solutions.
Since DevOps is about making small, frequent releases with iterative improvements,
this means developers can get continuous feedback on the features they’re building.
Having a short feedback loop helps to validate the direction of development or identify
the need to course correct.
Development phase
Taking the phases of SDLC in strict sequence would mean developers writing code
and building features in isolation for a period of time. DevOps rejects that way of
working. It establishes the tools and processes for a culture of collaboration, by
bringing all the later stages of the SDLC forward. Testing is conducted in development
environments, team mates review each other’s code, and deployments are run as soon
as a meaningful unit of change is complete.
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Testing phase
Testing manually is time-consuming and repetitive. And it’s especially painful for
development teams if testing is left until a late stage in the release process, because
correcting errors involves more rework and delays release schedules.
A DevOps approach to testing stresses the importance of shifting left — testing early
on in the development phase. The practice of continuous integration is pivotal;
developers merge their work early and often, with continuous testing and validation of
integrated work made possible with automation. Resolving errors becomes a small
part of developers’ daily work rather than being a distinct and drawn-out phase after
development is complete.
Automated testing and quality gates throughout the release pipeline help to reduce
the number of deployments that either fail or introduce a regression.
Deployment phase
Waiting until the end of a long development project before releasing inevitably stores
up all the complexities of deployments into one big challenge. Large releases like this
almost inevitably see lots of merge conflicts and require a lengthy review process.
By contrast, DevOps encourages an agile way of working with a rapid release
cadence. Deployment frequency is a vital metric of DevOps success. It’s a key DevOps
principle to be able to release on demand at any time. Deployments shouldn’t be a final
hurdle, but a frictionless way to get value to users multiple times a day rather than
once every few months.
Small, regular deployments are also more secure. If something goes wrong with a
release, it’s easier to identify the issue in a small set of changes, and either roll back or
roll forward to remedy the issue.
Operations phase
Traditionally, operations have been handled by a distinct team. DevOps directly
challenges that model, breaking down the silos of development and operations. With
continuous monitoring, development teams can readily understand the performance of
their code and user behavior, allowing them to quickly detect and proactively resolve
issues.
One measure of DevOps success is the ability to recover quickly. Bringing the insights
from operations to development teams allows for quick identification and remediation
of issues in production.
Streamline the development lifecycle with DevOps
In contrast to rigid, sequential approaches, DevOps compacts the development
lifecycle with more processes running continuously thanks to automation — from
testing work in early stages to monitoring code in production. DevOps puts more
weight on fostering a culture of collaboration in development teams, rather than
locking down an enforced stage-by-stage process.
As a result, DevOps streamlines and accelerates the release cycle, getting value to
users sooner and creating efficiencies in the engineering department. Wasted effort
on development is massively reduced, as developers stay close to their users and
build the right things the right way. Taking a DevOps approach to the SDLC means
development teams are better able to explain and deliver on the product strategy.
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