Over the last six months, we’ve asked teams and individual contributors to assess their DevOps platform practices by answering a 20-question quiz. To date, more than 600 people have shared their experiences, providing a clear, and somewhat surprising, snapshot of DevOps as it’s done today. There are obvious technical wins, of course, but there are also glimpses of how DevOps and modern software development are driving business change.
Here are some of the key takeaways:
DevOps is a stand up (and out) choice
Almost 35% of respondents say they’ve been doing DevOps for between one and three years, while 22% report they’ve been at DevOps less than a year. And 16% are in that DevOps sweet spot of between three and five years, while 15% are seasoned DevOps pros with more than five years of experience.
DevOps, of course, enables faster and safer software development and it’s clearly taking teams and entire organizations along for the ride, with much greater levels of collaboration/planning and a commitment to cross-functional processes. Nearly one-quarter of respondents say everyone in their organization considers themselves to be part of the DevOps team. And 17% say security, test, and design have joined dev and ops to create their DevOps teams.
Big changes are happening within those teams as well. Just shy of 30% say the traditional roles of “dev” and “ops” are definitely blurring and 16% report everyone on their team is “cross-functional”. Nearly 15% say dev, sec, ops, and test are all seeing roles change and blend together.
When asked how teams handle planning and collaboration, 50% say their processes were either “long-established and effective” or “completely seamless and baked into everything.” Meanwhile, 43% are either just starting a planning/collaboration process or are well underway.
To put it another way, it appears DevOps drives faster releases and better planning and collaboration almost in equal measure.
A DevOps platform in 2022
Just shy of 36% of quiz takers use an “out of the box” DevOps platform, while only 7% are considering one. Nearly one-third of respondents say their DevOps platform is a “hybrid” affair of homegrown and purchased solutions, or what GitLab refers to as DIY DevOps.
Not surprisingly, the technical benefits of a DevOps platform are clear, according to respondents. More than half of DevOps teams report most or all of their testing is automated and an overwhelming majority, 82%, say some, most, or all of their processes that can be automated are. More than half of teams say they’re generally releasing software more frequently, while one in five are releasing between 2x and 5x more frequently and 14% are releasing more than 5 times faster than before.
With a DevOps platform on board, it’s easier for teams to shift left as well. Just over 46% of respondents say they’ve either completely or partially shifted security left, and more than 65% say they’re running at least some security scans, including SAST and DAST.
No matter the name, it’s still DevOps
Only 11% of quiz takers say their teams aren’t doing DevOps. But it’s fair to say there are many types of DevOps, making it the flexible modern software application development option for nearly any organization.
Here’s how the nomenclature breaks down:
18% do “regular old DevOps” 28% chose DevOps/Agile/Kanban 27% describe it as DevOps/Agile 14% are team “DevSecOps” 13% do “AllTheDevOps” (dev, biz, sec, test, ops, etc.)
See how you rank
If you take the quiz, your score will send you down a learning path appropriate for your experience level. There is always a lot to learn!
“DevOps drives faster releases *and* better planning and collaboration almost in equal measure. Mind blown yet? Here's what else we found out in our DevOps assessment, and what you can expect in 2022.” – Valerie Silverthorne
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