DevOps has evolved over several years to become the go-to methodology for developers. It’s been adopted by some of the worlds most successful companies – Netflix, NASA, Etsy and Hertz. The rise in DevOps has been thanks to more companies adopting an agile development process. And technology is evolving to keep up with this trend too – look at Microsoft for example, they’ve created Azure DevOps which comes packed with industry-leading features such as Azure Pipelines, Azure Boards, Azure Repos and much more. If you’re looking to find out exactly what DevOps is, how it compares to traditional methods and how you can adopt it to benefit from some of these new technologies then you’ve come to the right blog. 

  

What is DevOps?

Microsoft defines DevOps as; A compound of development (Dev) and operations (Ops), DevOps is the union of people, processes and technology to continually provide value to customers. 

Adopting a DevOps culture alongside practices and tools, your team will be able to efficiently respond to customer needs and build applications quicker than ever. DevOps brings together siloed jobs such as IT operations, development teams, quality assurance and security to create a more fluid way of working that encourages collaboration. Which allows you to produce better applications or software by having all of those roles working towards a common goal. As all of those roles are working towards the same goal, right? 

  

How do traditional development methods compare to DevOps? 

We have answered some of the most popular questions we get asked on how traditional development methods, such as waterfall, compare to DevOps. 

 

How efficient are the development cycles? 

• Traditional methods often focus on planning big releases, which are much riskier due to the amount of work involved. When working in longer cycles with infrequent releases things can often become complex quite quickly. You’ll be up against hard deadlines compiled with a list of added features. Whilst the big releases look impressive, they are often an inefficient way of working. 
• DevOps on the other hand takes a different approach. They run with smaller releases that are often much easier to understand and test – making the release a lot less risky. It’s also easier to manage if things don’t go to plan as there isn’t so much to fix. By running more frequent smaller releases, DevOps enables your business to quickly respond to any new customer needs or requirements. 

 

How do they manage scheduling? 

• Traditional methods often use planning and scheduling systems, to help manage any development. Within traditional methods there are typically a lot of moving parts to a development cycle, making scheduling quite a challenging task. 
• DevOps is built on continuous smaller releases and automation from a dedicated team, making it much easier to schedule. You’ll be planning for the coming weeks as opposed to a few months, giving you better visibility of your team’s time. Plus, by having a dedicated team working on this, you’ll be able to coordinate everything effectively rather than having to schedule different people in different roles. 

 

What’s the big deal? 

• Traditional methods often make an event of their upcoming release or update. A lot more work would have gone into a single release when a company uses traditional methods – meaning there’s a lot more at stake and much higher risk. Have you ever seen developers locked in a room for hours on end before a big launch? That’s because they’ve been working weeks, if not months for this release and are spending the final push fire-fighting any last-minute issues to hit their hard launch date. 
• DevOps works in much smaller, more frequent cycles, meaning they don’t go popping the confetti every time they launch a release or update. There’s a lot less risk involved as not as much work would have been required since the last cycle. Plus, with automated testing in place, they can rest assured knowing that their environments are in sync. DevOps only promote from one stage to another if they are confident it will work. Thereby, eliminating the release window so they can move new functionality into productions at a faster rate. 

 

How easy is it to turn data into actionable improvements? 

• Traditional methods will typically have to get numerous different parties involved when trying to collate information and data, which often ends up in a wordy report that’s shared with management. Lengthy reports can typically become a bottleneck as it’s not clear on what data is relevant and can result in unactioned tasks. 

• DevOps enables you to quickly react to data thanks to the automated processes within the team. Meaning, you won’t have to sit and scroll through pages of information. By having a dedicated team gathering data from the application, you’re able to ensure that everyone within that team has a better understanding of the relevant information and data. This not only eliminates the time taken to gather the data but also to get sign-off from management. 

 

What type of culture do they encourage? 

• Traditional methods are often risk-averse. The culture is built around trying their absolute best to not harm the business, which results in them having a lot of pressure to get things perfect. When in reality, is anything ever perfect? 
• DevOps creates a culture very different from this. They adopt a ‘fail early’ culture, understanding that failure is inevitable. That’s why they’ve created a strong structure and process around controlled failure through continuous testing, smaller deployments and automation. The team adopts the mindset of the sooner you fail, the smaller the impact and the quicker you recover. 

 

What metrics do they use to measure success? 

• Traditional methods use a cost and capacity model which looks at how much they get done for the least amount of money. The key challenge with this model is that it can be difficult to cut costs but still maintain the same capacity – which is why a lot of companies using traditional methods have to regularly outsource tasks. 
• DevOps has taken this model one step further by adding in ‘flow’ since new applications should be measured by the time involved. This encourages them to review the end cycles time to identify any areas of waste by calculating true productivity so they can focus on the activities that add the most valuable. 

 

What do they define as a completed task? 

• Traditional methods often complete a task by doing their part and passing it onto the next person. They’ll be so focused on completing a task by meeting the deadline rather than making sure what is done is deployable. Using this method can often lead to a loss in quality and a lack of accountability. 
• DevOps on the other hand focuses on creating a cross-functional team where everyone’s accountable for the task being completed. All team members will be working towards the same goal and will therefore have the same definition of a completed task, which is creating high-quality software. They are driven by the bigger picture rather than focusing on the specific tasks they need to carry out. 

 

Looking to modernise your DevOps practices? 

Are you keen to start using DevOps practices to adopt new technologies? We can help. Microsoft has created Azure DevOps, which provides you with the tools you need to adopt a DevOps culture effectively. As an Azure Expert MSP, we can support you in transforming the way you work. Get in touch to talk to our experts about improving the way you create applications. 

Over the past five years, the way businesses use the cloud for their applications has changed dramatically – making it safe to say technology has transformed the way applications are made. With customers relying on SaaS solutions and cloud-based start-ups popping up left right and centre, it makes now a perfect time to migrate your application to the cloud. But where do you start? 

Application Rationalization is the first step in your migration. Microsoft defines it as; the process of evaluating assets to determine the best way to migration or modernise each asset in the cloud. The best way to analyse your applications environment is by using what Gartner articulately coined as the five R’s of application modernisation – this will help you choose the best path for your migration. 

So, when you’re looking to modernise application make sure you use the rationalization approach that fits your long-term strategy, motivations, and current state environment. Ready to explore the five R’s? Let’s jump in. 

 

Rehost 

Rehosting an application, more commonly known as a ‘lift and shift’, makes the least change to the architecture of the application. It is the simplest migration there is as it involves you moving your application from one environment to another. Rehosting your application is suitable for a legacy migration or if you have an IT team with limited cloud knowledge. 

It’s best to rehost when you’re looking to move fast or on-prem is costing your business too much. 

 

Refactor 

Refactoring an application is when you refactor the code to open your ISV up to new business opportunities. This doesn’t mean making any major overhauls to the code, just updating a few bits here and there to optimise your application. 

Once your application has been refactored, your ISV will have greater cloud efficiency, giving you access to better resources, speed, optimised costs and the ability to better manage your operations. Once your ISV has refactored your application you will be able to leverage Microsoft tools such as Azure SQL Database Managed Instances, Azure Container Services, Azure’ App Services, Azure Functions and Logic Apps. It’s best to refactor when creating a custom application or you don’t want to create or maintain infrastructure. 

 

Rearchitect 

Before you can even start thinking about moving to the cloud, you need to make sure your application is cloud compatible. Rearchitecting an application is when you completely re-write your application to better fit in the cloud. This is usually the case for a legacy or ageing applications that aren’t compatible with the latest cloud providers. 

The four key reasons why you may want to rearchitect your application are: 

• Your application is cloud-compatible, but not cloud-native 
• Improve your applications scale and agility 
• Making it easier to adopt new cloud capabilities
• If you use a mix of technology stacks 

 

Rebuild 

Sometimes, applications aren’t worth further investment as they don’t meet the businesses current needs and are now unsupported or misalign with the current business process. If this is the case, then it’s best if your ISV rebuilt their application with a new code base that will align with a cloud-native approach. This typically involves your ISV leaving the old application and rebuilding it from new using the Azure Platform as a Services (PaaS) such as, Azure Functions, Logic Apps and Azure SQL Database. 

So, if you’re planning to scale your application and futureproofing it using the latest cloud technologies then a rebuilding approach is right for you. 

 

Replace 

When building your application, you would have used the best technology and approach available at the time. But you know better than anyone that technology can get outdated quickly, particularly if it isn’t being maintained and keeping up with industry best practices. 

It’s best to replace when you don’t want to invest in a development team to revive your application. 

  

So, what approach will you take? 

Before modernising your application, you should apply the 5 R’s to help you make the right decision about your application. If you want help figuring out the best migration for your application or are looking for a partner to migrate with, simply get in touch with our application experts. 

Migrating to the cloud is a big investment, so it’s important you choose the right provider for your business. And really, it comes down to options – Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services. Let’s explore these two big players so you can decide which cloud provider best suits your business needs.  

 

What is Azure?

Microsoft Azure is a set of cloud services that can help your business achieve fearless growth. No matter how big or small your company, Azure can provide you with the freedom to build, manage and deploy apps using your favourite tools and frameworks. Azure offers a range of functionalities including, analytics, storage, computing, networking and more – all of which integrates with your cloud environment to help you achieve fearless growth.

Benefits of Azure:

• Create a hybrid cloud environment with ease
• It has a comprehensive set of compliance offerings
• Covers more global regions than any other cloud provider

 

What is AWS?

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has over one million customers and has been around for over 13 years. You’ll have the ability to scale your business through their services, including compute, storage and delivery.

Benefits of AWS:

• It’s one of the longest standing cloud solutions
• Easy to use application hosting
• Can use Amazon’s identity and security services

 

Azure VS AWS: Features

Azure and AWS have very similar features. However, Azure has some remarkable features that AWS simply doesn’t. These include; Azure Visual Studio Online, Azure Site Recovery, Azure Event Hubs and Azure Scheduler. Microsoft Azure offers a more advanced Hybrid Cloud with its integrated cloud service with multiple deployment options, allowing you to better manage your private and public cloud as one.

AWS offers a wide range of IaaS solutions, including; Compute, Storage and CDN, Database and Networking. But AWS doesn’t offer as comprehensive a hybrid cloud option as Microsoft does.

Depending on what you’re looking to do in your cloud environment will help determine whether your company would benefit from Azure or AWS. If you decide Azure is the way for you or just want to find out a bit more, then our experts know a thing or two about Azure and will help you identify whether it will provide your business with the cloud environment you’re looking for.

 

Azure VS AWS: Global coverage 

Having a cloud provider with a global infrastructure will allow you sustainably scale your business across the world. Now, who doesn’t want that? Azure and AWS both have a global footprint and operates in different regions across the world. But who has the most coverage?

AWS has 66 availability zones within 21 graphic regions and has plans to open in four more regions, including Bahrain, Cape Town, Jakarta and Milan.

Microsoft Azure infrastructure is in 54 regions and is available in 140 countries, with six more announced. That’s more than any other cloud provider. Azure provides you with the infrastructure you need to take your application to a global scale.

 

Azure VS AWS: Deploying Apps 

Cloud computing can make deploying an application a walk in the park. But what cloud provider offers the best tools for deploying your applications?

Microsoft Azure provides you with the tools you need to not only deploy your app but scale it to your business’s needs. Azure has multiple application deployment options to ensure you have a smooth deployment process, including; cloud services, container service, batch and application services.

AWS has similar solutions with Lambda, Elastic Beanstalk and container services. However, Amazon does not offer as many application hosting features as Azure.

 

Azure VS AWS: Security

Security is a big concern to many businesses, especially in the cloud. Azure and AWS are two of the biggest cloud providers, and both have the capabilities of making sure your cloud environment is secure.

Microsoft has created their own version of role-based access control (RBAC) called Azure Directory. RBAC will help you enhance and simplify security as you control users’ permissions. Thanks to Microsoft background on networking, they’ve been able to develop a complex and strong security feature that will allow you to manage users access successfully.

AWS has also developed its own RBAC, called Identity and Access Management (IAM). It doesn’t have as complex security services as Azure, but it does offer additional services such as GuardDuty and DDoS.

 

Azure VS AWS: Pricing  

AWS is five times more expensive than Azure for Windows Server and SQL Server. You could save up to 71% on your Windows Virtual Machines with Azure compared to AWS EC2.

Here at Cloud Direct, we’ve created our own portal to allow you to monitor your Azure spend and usage called PROVIDE. This will help you get a better understanding of your current and future costs in Azure.

Both AWS and Azure follow a pay as you go model allowing you to only pay for what you use. With Azure you pay by the hour, whereas with AWS you pay by the minute which is a more precise pricing model.

The good news is, Azure and AWS both offer a free trial of their services – meaning you can try before you buy.

Depending on what you’re using the cloud for will determine which provider will be more cost-effective for your business. Our experts are happy to help you understand how much you could save in Azure.

 

Azure vs AWS: Partners

Working with a partner when migrating to the cloud can make a huge difference. A partner can provide added value to your cloud environment. And if you’re looking to make the most of your cloud, then it’s important you’re choosing the provider that has partners to help you have a seamless migration.

AWS has over 100,000 partners that can help add value to your business. They have partners that specialise by industry, including; government, education, non-profit and more.

Azure has slightly fewer partners, with a total of 68,000 MSP partners. But it’s all about quality, not quantity – right? Azure has recently launched the Azure Expert MSP programme to ensure you’re getting the best partners for your cloud migration. This is made up of around 35 Azure Expert MSPs around the world. And we’re proud to be one of them.