What Are the Benefits & Challenges of DevOps Outsource?

According to Allied Market Research, the DevOps market size reached $6.78 billion in 2020. It is projected to increase to $57.90 billion in 2030 (CAGR 24.2% over 2021-2030). The reason is the growing popularity of DevOps outsource in organizations of all sizes and industries. Accordingly, businesses strive to maximize the transparency and consistency of teamwork.

Perfsol experts will tell you what place DevOps takes in a project, why it should be outsourced, and how to deal with possible difficulties.

A Few Words About the DevOps Approach

DevOps involves the close interaction of programmers and system administrators while creating a software product. The purpose of this practice is to ensure the predictability, security, and efficiency of work on a digital project at the same time.

DevOps engineers play a significant role at different stages of the SDLC:

• Project assessment: collecting primary information about the need for coding and making changes to the IT infrastructure.
• Design: Determination of requirements for your IT infrastructure.
• Development and QA: support for development tools, checking the readiness of the operating environment, monitoring, detecting, and fixing problems, product deployment.
• Release: ensuring the performance of all flows related to product delivery to the client.

As we can see, DevOps engineers have a special place in the project. They act as a link between two teams: Devs and Ops. These processes are automated and integrated into a single continuous flow. All phases consistently change from one to another, reducing the number of routine operations.

Engaging such a technical specialist becomes an essential step toward optimizing communication in teams of any size. As a result, the speed and stability of product delivery increase while maintaining decent quality.

Some companies have in-house engineers. However, this entails more staffing costs. Increasingly, businesses are turning to outsource agencies and hiring performers for a certain time, usually for one project.

What are the specifics of DevOps Outsourcing?

The bottom line is to attract third-party performers and delegate some project tasks to them. You introduce several specialists into your team who will optimize all processes: from design to support of the working product.

This type of cooperation is especially widespread in IT, moreover, on a global scale. According to Statesman, revenue in the IT segment will grow during 2023-2027 (CAGR 8.07%). As a result, it will reach $587.30 billion by 2027. Such popularity is not surprising because outsourcing is more flexible, convenient, and profitable than hiring staff.

Let's look at the key differences between DevOps engineers working according to modern and traditional models:

Staff member.

• Receives a fixed salary, which means regular expenses for the business for personnel needs.
• Has a fixed schedule, works in the office, and interacts with the team personally.
• Works on the same project all the time, which rules out the valuable opportunity to gain various experiences.

Outsourcing specialist:

• Receives payment for specific services provided for a specified period as the outsourcer.
• Has a flexible schedule (agreed between the parties in advance) and works remotely.
• Works with various projects and makes own decisions in unforeseen situations.

In the first case, you must go through all the steps to hire an employee: from searching to completing documents and adapting to new conditions. In the second case, a third-party company handles all organizational and personnel issues. The outsourcer selects a specialist or assembles a DevOps team with relevant experience.

By working according to this model, you get ample opportunities to implement technical ideas and support the product in the future.

Why should you choose DevOps outsource?

1. Hassle-free access to all necessary services

You can get the DevOps services that you currently need:

• migration to the cloud to empower and optimize team collaboration;
• infrastructure design following the specifics of your project;
• CI/CD to optimize, automate, and increase work flexibility;
• continuous monitoring, which gives access to valuable feedback on your software product’s state;
• implementing security measures to minimize any potential risks to operations;
• automation of key processes that affect the project’s effectiveness, including testing and deployment;
• DevOps consulting to configure required processes from scratch and choose the best ways to achieve the goal.

Turning to a professional DevOps team, you create optimal conditions to develop your project and cover all your needs.

2. Error Free Guarantee
   Deployment failures mainly occur due to bugs. DevOps includes shorter development cycles, so the code base is expanded more often. This makes it easier to find technical problems, which reduces the risk of failures. A team of experienced professionals can fix bugs, improve products, and release new features even faster and more efficiently.

3. Combination of flexibility and speed
   Modern DevOps professionals are focused on flexibility. They commonly use scalable infrastructures: cloud platforms, simultaneous workflows, automation tools. All this positively affects the team’s productivity and allows them to adapt to current needs. Development time is reduced by 50%!

4. Effective Teamwork
   Working with a DevOps company, you gain access to a variety of skills and knowledge. The outsourcer selects them according to your goals and needs. Performers join the team and constantly interact with your staff members. They accompany your project from start to finish. At the same time, you control the work and make management decisions.

5. Cost reduction
   This option saves you from many expenses: organizing a workplace, purchasing software tools, renting an additional office... Add here the monthly salary (which does not depend on the volume of tasks) and training costs. Outsourcing companies offer flexible pricing following the project’s specifics, and hired specialists have relevant experience already.

If you decide to involve DevOps engineers in your project, you will benefit from learning how to deal with potential barriers. We have divided them into three categories.

Artificial Intelligence

When it comes to DevOps outsourcing, the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) can offer significant benefits and address certain challenges. AI can assist in automating and optimizing various aspects of the DevOps lifecycle, including continuous integration, testing, and deployment. By leveraging AI-powered tools and frameworks, organizations can streamline their software development processes, reduce manual errors, and improve overall efficiency. AI can also aid in predictive analytics, allowing teams to anticipate and address potential issues before they occur, leading to improved system reliability and uptime. Additionally, AI can facilitate intelligent monitoring and alerting systems, enabling faster detection and resolution of performance bottlenecks and security vulnerabilities. While DevOps outsourcing may pose challenges such as communication and coordination across distributed teams, the integration of AI can help bridge these gaps by providing intelligent insights and collaboration capabilities. By combining the power of AI with DevOps outsourcing, organizations can achieve faster time-to-market, increased agility, and enhanced software quality while effectively managing the complexities of distributed development teams.

DevOps Outsourcing barriers and ways to overcome them

1. Organizational

It is necessary to understand that introducing new specialists into the project invariably affects the corporate culture and changes the approach to management. This is especially true for businesses that have been using traditional methods for a long time.

How to overcome the barrier:

• Choose the most convenient communication channels (Slack, Teams).
• Implement collaboration tools (Jira, Github, Gitlab).
• Prepare staff for the new model.
• Determine ways to monitor the team and track results.

2. Technical

The model requires standardization and automation. This entails some challenges for companies with ingrained infrastructure. The task is to integrate the new approach in a way that maintains a decent level of security.

How to overcome the barrier:

• Analyze current processes and infrastructure.
• Use DevOps consulting to create a new strategy.
• Select technologies and tools for current goals.
• Identify all processes that need to be automated.

3. Operating

Another area of work that requires close attention. The main issue is to ensure the security of deployments and rollbacks. Especially when it comes to a large-scale project of high complexity.

How to overcome the barrier:

• Determine the requirements for software and technological security.
• Designate persons responsible for control and security.
• Provide continuous monitoring and logging.
• Implement advanced security measures for cloud infrastructure.

Please note that all issues must be discussed and agreed upon at the start, i.e., before cooperation. They also need to be spelled out in the contract to ensure compliance by both parties.

Want to speed up your product launch? DevOps Outsourcing approach will allow you to implement the project from scratch in the shortest possible time. The Perfsol team is ready to help you achieve your goal. Contact us to get expert advice and discuss cooperation details.