What is Agile DevSecOps?

The Agile methodology allows development teams to collaborate across projects, easily pivot when priorities change, and iteratively incorporate customer feedback, leading to products that are more efficiently developed and more valuable to the end users.

However, traditional security practices are not implemented into the Agile workflow. Instead, security is often left to the end of the software development lifecycle (SDLC). By not prioritizing security earlier, teams uncover security issues too late in the process, ultimately, slowing down the speed of delivery.

This is where DevSecOps comes in. By integrating Agile into a DevSecOps framework, organizations can leverage the efficient, iterative advantages of Agile while prioritizing secure software delivery.

In this article, we’ll walk through the similarities and differences between Agile and DevSecOps methodologies and discuss how an integrated approach can be the solution to securely building software faster.

Agile was developed in the late 1990s as a response to traditional, waterfall-style software development frameworks that were inflexible and often resulted in missed deadlines or (worse) low-quality software. To address these challenges, a group of 17 software engineers came together to develop an Agile manifesto with four core principles:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

Agile delivery focuses on iterative development, customer collaboration, and providing value quickly to meet software’s changing needs.

Now, Agile is widely used across organizations. According to a survey by the Harvard Business Review, 80% of respondents shared that they use Agile methodologies throughout all principal business operations, such as R&D, customer service, and human resources.

Agile security vs. traditional security approaches

In traditional methodologies, security follows a waterfall model where security is often placed at the end of the development cycle. This results in vulnerabilities only being discovered once the feature or product has been developed causing teams to backtrack to fix the security issues.

With Agile’s pillar of continuous iteration, teams have the opportunity to incorporate security into each development iteration and the projects can be adapted to changing requirements and security needs. But, security is not a core tenant of Agile methodologies and needs to be prioritized among teams to become top-of-mind during development.

How to integrate security into Agile sprints

1. Incorporate security tasks as part of sprint planning: By including security issues in each sprint planning session, security becomes a continuous focus throughout the development cycle. This promotes the quick detection and remediation of vulnerabilities.

2. Foster a security-first culture: Create a culture where security doesn’t fall just on the security team. Instead, it is also prioritized among developers and operations teams.

3. Embed Agile into a DevSecOps platform: It’s much easier to incorporate security into Agile development when Agile is part of the DevSecOps environment. Security is automatically embedded into the development framework.

DevSecOps is a cultural shift that integrates security into the DevOps mindset. With the goal of DevOps to increase collaboration between development and operations teams, companies quickly realized there was one piece missing — security. The security teams and security as a practice needed to be involved sooner in the development cycle.

DevSecOps emphasizes system thinking, continuous improvement, and a collaborative approach to security. By automating security testing and integrating it into the CI/CD pipeline, DevSecOps helps teams build security into the product from the ground up.

The core principles of DevSecOps include:

• Shift security left: Incorporating security checks and testing early in the development process.
• Automation: Using tools and automation to streamline security tasks.
• Collaboration: Fostering a collaborative culture between development, security, and operations teams.
• Continuous improvement: Regularly evaluating and enhancing security practices.

How automation supports security in DevSecOps

Just because security is a priority in DevSecOps, does not mean that security slows down development. DevSecOps teams use features like automated security testing and continuous monitoring to meet security and compliance requirements.

Implement automated security testing

Manual testing doesn’t lend itself well to collaborating or communicating necessary changes. This leads to slower release cycles, teams working in silos, and vulnerabilities that slip through the cracks. Fortunately, implementing automated security testing into the CI/CD pipeline helps teams catch vulnerabilities early and improves delivery time.

Within GitLab, static application security testing (SAST) analyzes source code to help developers identify problems early in the software development lifecycle while dynamic application security testing (DAST) looks at runtime errors in executed applications.

Employ continuous security monitoring

Continuous security monitoring analyzes data patterns and triggers alerts when risk thresholds are met. This helps DevSecOps teams identify threats as soon as they occur, allowing them to more quickly respond and reducing the impact of security breaches.

While Agile and DevSecOps share a common goal of delivering high-quality software, the methodologies have distinct focuses. Agile prioritizes speed and adaptability, while DevSecOps emphasizes security and risk management.

However, these frameworks are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they complement each other. By aligning Agile's iterative approach with DevSecOps' security-focused setup, organizations can create a powerful system for software development.

The benefits of merging Agile and DevSecOps

Incorporating Agile directly into a DevSecOps environment unlocks a variety of benefits, including:

• Improved security posture: Proactive security measures help prevent breaches and minimize the impact of incidents.
• Increased collaboration and efficiency: Reducing context switching and improving visibility across the software development lifecycle with one, unified platform.
• Faster time-to-market with secure software: By shifting security left, vulnerabilities are identified and addressed earlier in the development lifecycle, reducing the time-to-market.

Migrating tools and changing platforms can feel overwhelming. Here are a few best practices to help you transition with ease.

• Thoroughly evaluate your data and integrations: Review your historical data and integrations to determine what can be retired and what must be migrated to the new system.
• Select Agile champions: Choose internal team members to be Agile champions. They can help you experiment with the new platform, be part of a pilot test, provide feedback, and support other team members as the workflows are expanded across teams.
• Start small and ease into adoption: To make the transition as seamless as possible, roll out the Agile DevSecOps integration over time. You can start with your Agile champions, then move to specific projects and select teams.

For a deeper look into the benefits of a combined Agile and DevSecOps solution, check out the real-life examples below.

Iron Mountain embraces Agile and DevSecOps

Iron Mountain found its development teams spending excessive amounts of time addressing coding issues late in the development cycle. To solve these challenges, Iron Mountain turned to the DevSecOps solution, GitLab Ultimate on Google Cloud to find security issues earlier in the process and give the team visibility into the entire environment.

Iron Mountain was able to scale their Agile framework, saving $150,000 per year on infrastructure costs and 20 hours in onboarding time per project.

Deutsche Telekom dramatically improves time to market

Deutsche Telekom took several years to transition from a waterfall approach to an Agile methodology, but Agile adoption was inconsistent. Teams across the organization used different tools for automation, so a single source of truth for sharing or collaborating on code was not available. The company started working with GitLab to create a centralized platform for developers to leverage automation and continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD).

“Time to market was a big issue for us. Before our transformation to Agile and DevOps started, we had release cycles of nearly 18 months in some cases. We've been able to dramatically reduce that to roughly 3 months.” – Thorsten Bastian, Business Owner IT, CI/CD Hub, Telekom IT

By combining the agility of Agile frameworks with the security-centric approach of DevSecOps, teams can achieve both speed and security. This powerful partnership enables faster, more secure software delivery while mitigating risks and protecting sensitive information.

Learn how to get started with Agile DevSecOps so you can plan, build, secure, and deploy all in one platform.