Combining DevOps with a Hybrid Cloud Architecture
A hybrid cloud architecture provides tools for sharing information and coordinating projects. Not only can teams share files with each other through cloud-hosted shared drives, but they can also duplicate and share virtual machines (VMs), allowing QA and development teams to rapidly exchange test environments. The speed with which these VMs can be provisioned helps DevOps organizations make the most of their limited time before each release cycle.
Since VMs can be torn down as quickly as they are created, any major errors can be rapidly worked around. The fact that errors happen in production environments external to the master copy of the VM ensures that critical data is never compromised—another necessity if an organization using DevOps is to stay on schedule.
Cloud virtualization can offer significant savings over physical production environments, where constant stress testing and changing requirements can lead to frequent replacement of expensive hardware. The cloud enables DevOps teams to work faster, with more flexibility, and at a higher rate of total efficiency for the following reasons:
Automation
The cloud is driven by the automation and virtualization of infrastructure, and cloud automation solutions enable the enterprise to deliver dynamic IT workloads by using scalable, efficient cloud computing resources accessed and managed through a self-service web user interface. Cloud computing enables agile infrastructure to support today's dynamic workloads. This equips DevOps teams with more agility for application development and testing.
Self-Service
DevOps teams need self-service cloud resources that increase acceleration and enhance collaboration across geographically dispersed teams. The cloud empowers DevOps teams with key requirements such as configurability, collaboration, visibility, and control. Self-service cloud solutions let DevOps teams utilize these features with the business and technical applications they already know and use. This capability is especially important for DevOps teams that don't want to rewrite applications currently in use.
Visibility and Control
DevOps teams using cloud resources still need to maintain important corporate policies and procedures. Cloud solutions with built-in management capabilities can help teams achieve that goal. Hybrid cloud solutions can provide detailed usage reports and control mechanisms to manage deployment, monitoring, failure recovery, operating system maintenance, system configuration, and overall performance. No matter the size of the enterprise, these solutions offer teams greater visibility and control while managing computing resources, quotas, and security policies.
The ability to provision new systems and architectures on-demand and in minutes dramatically reduces the time required to build a software environment, and automating the DevOps process allows the enterprise to benefit from the scale and flexibility advantages of a hybrid cloud. Organizations that want to profoundly accelerate their ability to deliver innovative software can embrace DevOps, agile development, and the hybrid cloud to break down traditional barriers between and among development, testing, and IT operations departments.
