“The most powerful tool we have as developers is automation.”
– Scott Hanselman
DevOps is a buzzword we have been hearing a lot about in recent times with many organizations using it now. There is no single right answer to the question “What is DevOps”. It is all about perception, experience, and understanding of the culture of the organization and how it fits in the current era. However, we will try to answer this frequently asked question.
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What Is DevOps?
“DevOps is a software development and delivery process.”
It mainly focuses on communication and is a collaboration between product management, software development, and operations professionals. DevOps is the combination of cultural philosophies, practices, and tools that aim at increasing an organization’s ability to deliver applications and services at high velocity: evolving and improving products at a faster pace than organizations using traditional software development and infrastructure management processes.
Now the next question that comes to our mind is “What does a DevOps engineer do?” So let’s find out.
What does a DevOps engineer do?
Software development and its usage no more involves old-fashioned ways. It’s all about the open-source technologies and how to use the already existing pieces of code in order to stitch a computer program that can adhere to your specific needs. Therefore, the role of a DevOps engineer needs to evolve and adapt to the new shift in paradigm that is transforming the world of software development lifecycle and beyond.
Some of the tasks of DevOps engineers do include :
- A firm knowledge of the various computer programming languages
- Working with a variety of open-source tools and technologies
- Having a thorough knowledge of the IT operations and sysadmin roles
- Expertise in software code testing and deployment
- Deploying the various automation tools of DevOps to perfection
- A firm grounding in the agile methodology of project management
- Ability to connect the technical and business goals with alacrity
- Very good skills in communication and working with teams.
Since now we have a basic idea about what DevOps is all about, let’s get into discussing what is Devops tools and the Latest Devops AutomationTools Every Developer Should Know How To Use In 2020.
Top 10 DevOps Tools Every Developer Should Know How To Use In 2020:
1. Git:
Git is an open-source, distributed and most popular software versioning system. It allows you to track changes in your file and, by using it you can easily coordinate the work among your team. With Git, organizations can develop branching versions of the code to experiment without compromising the entire project.
Key Features of Git includes:
- Free-Open Source Tool.
- Feature Branch Workflow.
- Allows Distributed Development.
- Supports Pull Request.
- Enables Faster Release Cycle.
- Separate branches of source code can be merged through Git.
- Slack can be integrated with either GitHub or Bitbucket.
Popular companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Netflix are extensively using Git in their CI/CD pipelines.
2. Jenkins:
Jenkins is an open source versatile, customizable automation server written in Java. It allows you to automate the different stages of your delivery pipeline. It has over 1,000 plugins listed in its database, allowing its integration with virtually any DevOps tools that you can imagine.
Key features of Jenkins include:
- Jenkins runs on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.
- Jenkins can be set up with a custom configuration or with plugins.
- Script your pipeline having one or more build jobs into a single workflow.
- Provides multiple ways of communication: web-based GUI, CLI and REST API.
Companies like Capgemini, LinkedIn, AngularJS, Open stack, Luxoft, Pentaho etc are using Jenkins.
3. Selenium:
Selenium is a free open source automated portable software testing framework for web applications. It is normally installed as a Firefox browser plugin and helps to record and playback of test scenarios.
Key features of Selenium include:
- Write test scripts in multiple languages like Java, Python, C#, Ruby, Perl, Php, JavaScript.
- Supports Multiplatform for testing like ios and Android.
- Easy to build a keyword-driven framework for a WebDriver.
- Selenium comes with capabilities to support Selenium IDE, Selenium Grid, and Selenium Remote Control (RC).
- Create robust, browser-based regression automation suites and tests.
ImpactQA is one of the largest companies that use Selenium for automated testing.
4. Docker:
Docker is a containerization technology that virtualizes the Operating System. It isolates applications into separate containers, so they become portable and more secure. You can package all the dependencies within the app’s container and ship the whole thing as an independent unit.
Key features of Docker include:
- Google Cloud and AWS both offer built-in support for Docker.
- Use Docker container with any language.
- CaaS Ready platform running with built-in orchestration.
- Flexible image management with a private registry to store, manage images and configure image caches.
- Isolates apps in containers to eliminate conflicts for enhancing security.
- Update with zero downtime.
Companies like Uber, Ebay, PayPal, etc are already using Docker.
5. Chef:
Chef is a very powerful configuration management tool used to manage, configure and deploy servers. It is a Cloud-based system and can be used to ease out complex tasks and perform automation. Chef converts the configuration of infrastructure into the code, which allows to easily manage a number of servers ranging from 5 or 50,000.
Key features of Chef include:
- Supports multiple platforms like AIX, RHEL/CentOS, FreeBSD.
- Ensures that your configuration policies will remain flexible, versionable, testable and readable.
- Easy to integrate with cloud-based platforms.
Companies like Facebook, Firefox, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Google Cloud Platform etc are using Chef.
6. Nagios:
Nagios is one of the most popular free and open source DevOps monitoring tools and is written in C. It allows you to monitor your infrastructure so that you can find and fix problems before they affect critical business processes.
Key features of Nagios include:
- It provides complete monitoring of desktop and server operating systems.
- Automatically fix problems when detected.
- It provides complete monitoring of Java Management Extensions.
- Plans infrastructure upgrades before outdated systems cause any failures.
- Helps in monitoring Windows, Linux, UNIX, and Web applications.
- Nagios Log Server lets you search log data and set up alerts about potential threats.
Companies using Nagios include Comcast, Yahoo, MTV, Toshiba, Sony, etc.
7. Splunk:
Splunk is a software platform used to search, analyze, visualize and convert machine data into valuable information. It allows bringing operational intelligence into the DevOps teams. Splunk uses predictive and actionable insights with artificial intelligence and machine data.
Key features of Splunk include:
- Create knowledge objects for operational intelligence.
- With the help of Splunk Cloud, Splunk can be deployed and managed as a service.
- Delivers a single, unified view of different IT services.
Companies like Cisco, Facebook, Bosch, Motorola, IBM, etc are already using Splunk.
8. Ansible:
Ansible is a configuration management tool, similar to Chef. It is an open source tool that provides software-related services like network configuration, cloud deployments, creation of development environments, etc.
Key features of Ansible include:
- Supports push configuration.
- Ansible can be used to orchestrate Open Stack deployments.
- Integrates neatly with Jenkins.
- It provides agentless architecture.
NASA is one of the big names using Ansible.
9. Puppet Enterprise:
Puppet Enterprise is a configuration management tool favored among large teams. It is an open-source configuration management tool that is used to automate the method of inspecting, delivering and operating your software across the entire lifecycle with platform independency. As it automates infrastructure management, you can deliver software faster and more securely.
Key features of Puppet Enterprise include:
- Integrates well with most major DevOps tools.
- Based on master-slave architecture.
- Offers real-time reports, node management and access control delineated by role.
Cisco, Scripps networks, Teradata, and JP Morgan Chase &Co. are a few companies using Puppet.
10. Bamboo:
Bamboo is a CI/CD server solution developed by Atlassian. Bamboo is a tool that gathers compilations, tests and automated versions in one single workflow. Bamboo seamlessly integrates with other Atlassian products such as Jira and Bitbucket.
Key features of Bamboo Enterprise include:
- It comes with a more intuitive UI with tooltips, auto-completion, and other handy features.
- It allows conducting parallel tests to facilitate and speed up errors detection.
- It allows making automated tests to revert any product exhaustively with each change.
- Bamboo’s user interface is intuitive and user-friendly.
Enterprises like NASA, Redfin, Sonatype and many more are using Bamboo.
Conclusion:
So, these are some of the most widely used DevOps tools currently. They are being used by many big enterprises and should be known to developers in 2019. However, this list is my point of view and do let me know if I missed any important name and I will surely include it in my next article. Do drop a comment guys if you find this list helpful and I will continue to bring such articles in the future too.