DevOps as a Service. Cloud Automation: AWS, AZURE, GCP, AliBaba and Digital Ocean

DevOps is capturing headlines. And there is a good reason for it - businesses who use DevOps can deal with changing requirements faster. Thus, new demands quickly fold back into the software. Moreover, its development, testing, deployment, and operations cost less. Those organizations that deployed their apps without DevOps use DevOps as a Service. Interested in how it works? Let's take a look under the hood of DevOps as a Service and check what part cloud computing plays in the process.

What Is DevOps as a Service?

DevOps is a culture that fosters cooperation between the Development and Operations teams. In a broad sense, it is a set of practices designed to speed up software delivery and enhance its quality.

Various functions-as-a-service continue to grow nowadays; the same applies to DevOps. DevOps as a service approach allows developers and operations teams to take greater control of their applications and infrastructure without hindering speed. This single, automated workflow with a shared focus increases product satisfaction. As a result, it delivers even higher business value.

Cloud computing ensures better and faster cooperation between the development and operations teams. So, DevOps as a Service is moving their traditional way of collaboration to the cloud. It allows you to automate many of the processes using stackable virtual development tools. Besides, this method reduces the cost of software development, testing, deployment, and maintenance.

That's the big picture. If you haven't wrapped your head around it yet, don't worry - let's delve deeper.

Who Needs DevOps as a Service?

Whatever is the stage of your project - development, QA, or it's already live, it is helpful to hire DevOps. When a project is just emerging, you need to think over the architecture of both the application and the pipes. In this case, DevOps as a Service can put the project on the right track from the very beginning and save the application from collapse in the future.

Apart from that, companies often employ DevOps to move their hardware to the cloud and vice versa. It is also a good idea to turn to DevOps as a Service to analyze the current situation of a project/application and optimize it in terms of resources, scalability, finance, architecture, and speed. 

Finally, imagine a quick-and-dirty software development that entered a stable phase. To prevent issues and downtimes, it needs DevOps monitoring. So, it can be any project where you need:

• A reliable, reproducible infrastructure
• Tasks automation
• CI / CD
• Application delivery to the end consumer or site.

Cloud Automation for DevOps

The technology that helps DevOps to avoid sending files back and forth between the team members is the cloud. It allows simultaneous development and quick prototyping solutions without extra expenses. You pay for what you need when you need it.

As we've touched previously, DevOps in the cloud is about migrating your development tools and processes to a hosted virtual platform. This is a list of the cloud migration options we provide.

AWS for DevOps

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has created a robust global network for virtually hosting the world's most complex IT environments. With its many features and capabilities, AWS is suitable for large projects in the Western market. 

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) ensures secure access to AWS resources. You can use IAM to control all authentications and authorizations.

Amazon web services offer highly automated work and scalability to thousands of instances. It is also easy to use - you only need an AWS account. An AWS Certified Solutions Architect can plan, design, and scale AWS cloud implementations using the best practices recommended by Amazon. More about AWS DevOps here.

AWS Developer Tools help you securely store and manage application source code, automatically build and test, and deploy applications to AWS or on-premises. There are 4 of them in total: 

• AWS CodePipeline
• AWS CodeBuild
• AWS CodeDeploy
• AWS CodeStar.

AWS CodePipeline

AWS CodePipeline is a continuous delivery service to prototype, visualize, and automate the steps required for the software release. You can model and configure different stages of a software release process. CodePipeline automates the steps needed to deliver your software changes every time there is a code change based on the release model you choose. In short, it allows you to provide features and updates quickly and reliably. You can also easily integrate AWS CodePipeline with third party services such as GitHub or your own plugin.

AWS CodeBuild

AWS CodeBuild is a tool for automation and managing build servers for applications located in the AWS cloud. It tests and builds deployment-ready software packages. CodeBuild is continuously scalable and can process several builds at a time, which means there will be no long queues. 

Developers can employ the service to do tests, compile source codes, and create applications that are ready to deploy. When a developer submits a build job to the CodeBuild, it runs them in compute containers created on every build and then discarded once the job is done. This eliminates the need for developers to manage, provision, and scale their servers. 

AWS CodeDeploy

AWS CodeDeploy is a tool that automates the deployment of code to any instance, including Amazon EC2 instances and on-premises servers. AWS CodeDeploy speeds up deployment processes and simplifies application upgrades.

AWS CodeStar

AWS CodeStar is a tool for integrating the user interface into a single system. AWS CodeStar simplifies and centralizes the management of all software development processes. It allows you to set up all tools for continuous software delivery in minutes, which speeds up code release.

Google Cloud Platform for DevOps

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is one of the largest computer networks. Like AWS, GCP is a solution for large projects that need a lot of features and capabilities. The difference is that GCP runs on the same infrastructure that Google uses internally for its end-user products: Gmail, YouTube, Google Sheets, etc. 

Google Cloud Console tools deploy, scale, and diagnose all business issues. Practically everything can be accomplished through the new graphical user interface. Building and configuring a compute server is now reduced mostly to mouse clicks in your browser. Besides, GCP supports complete cloud development kits for a wide range of platforms, including Visual Studio, Android Studio, Eclipse, Powershell, and many more.

Google Cloud Tools that help to develop, deploy, and manage your cloud apps, are the following:

• Cloud Console
• Google Compute Engine 
• GCP Deployment Manager.

Cloud Console

Cloud Console provides a simple web-based, graphical user interface to deploy, scale, and diagnose business issues. With its "on-the-go" function, you can be aware of any problems and even perform some basic actions on the mobile device, such as restarting the server. With the Google Cloud Console for DevOps, you can easily manage your process in the cloud.

Google Compute Engine

Google Compute Engine allows users to run workloads on Google's physical hardware. Its virtual machines are available in several settings, including predefined sizes or the ability to create custom machine types optimized for your specific needs. GCE allows administrators to choose the region where particular data will be stored and used.

GCP Deployment Manager

GCP Deployment Manager makes the whole job easier. DevOps experts can specify how the final deployment should look like, and the GCP will use the necessary tools and processes. With the Deployment Manager, users can specify all the resources needed for a program in a declarative format using YAML, Python, or Jinja2.

Microsoft Azure for DevOps

Azure is a product of software giant Microsoft. The primary consumers of this cloud are those who prefer Microsoft or are tied to its products. According to Forbes, more than 2/3 of companies use Microsoft services, so Azure is an excellent solution to meet their needs. 

Azure allows you to create a web service, virtual machine, site, database, or information store. At the same time, any designed product will be the way the user wants to see it, and you will have to pay for it only as the resources of the site are used. As well as the previous ones, Azure integrates with most leading tools on the market and is an excellent option for orchestrating a DevOps toolchain, the main ones are: 

• Azure DevOps
• Azure DevTest Labs
• Azure Pipelines
•  Azure Boards

Azure DevOps

Azure DevOps provides support services for teams to plan work, collaborate on code development, and build and deploy applications. Developers can work in the cloud using these services or on-premises using Azure DevOps Server.

It delivers integrated features accessible through your web browser or IDE client. 

Azure DevTest Lab

Azure DevTest Labs enables developers in teams to self-manage virtual machines (VMs) and PaaS resources. DevTest Labs creates labs composed of pre-configured Azure Resource Manager databases or templates. They have all the necessary tools and software that you can use to create environments. You can create an environment in minutes, not hours or days.

Azure Pipelines

Azure Pipelines is a cloud-based service that you can use to automatically build and test your code project and share it with others. It works with almost any language or type of project. Azure Pipelines combines continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) to test and build your code and ship it to any target.

Azure Boards

Teams can use the Azure Boards web service to manage their software projects. It provides a wide range of capabilities, including built-in Scrum and Kanban support, custom dashboards, and integrated reporting. These tools quickly scale as your business grows.

Alibaba for DevOps

People who want to move to the eastern market often use Alibaba. It is an astern counterpart of AWS. Alibaba Cloud provides high-performance and scalable container application management capabilities as well as simplified cluster design, scaling, and management. With its O&M tools, it is easy to manage complex cloud infrastructure, quickly imaging, and deploy solutions in a multi-cloud architecture. Alibaba is generally suitable for large projects with a reasonable budget. There are several related products: Elastic Compute Service, Alibaba Cloud CDN, and ApsaraDB for RDS.

DigitalOcean for DevOps

Digitalocean is suitable for those who need a minimal but stable package of services in the cloud: virtual servers, containers, networks, storage, and databases. In other words, all the essentials without frills. 

Digital Ocean is very popular due to its simplicity and clarity. There are data centers to choose from: in New York, San Francisco, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Toronto, Singapore, and Bangalore.

Conclusion

We did a walkthrough of some of the critical aspects of DevOps and cloud computing. Choosing DevOps as a service will help you expand your business faster and allow you to deliver more value to your customers. Outsourcing DevOps services from a trustworthy company will help you avoid the fuss about product planning, development, testing, deployment, and delivery.

So, if DevOps as a service sounds like a good fit for you, we are happy to provide DevOps for any project with any type of cloud.