MOBILE DevOps: THE WAY FORWARD IN APP DEVELOPMENT

DevOps is becoming a popular method for developing and delivering applications. This emphasizes communication and collaboration between development and operations inside organizations and focuses on quality assurance and delivery with automated deployment.

The Risk of mobile app deployment

One of the main risks of developing and deploying mobile apps is packaging too much change into one large deployment. The traditional waterfall method of development is also prevalent in application development. Normally a company spends 6-8 months working on requirements, 6-8 months developing, 7-8 months testing, and then they put their massive application into production. During all that time the problem is, the teams involved will likely miss some requirements, lose track of components,and even break part of the build. So to reduce this pitfall, the company implements a strict and complex governance process.

Companies often take same approach to development and deployment mobile application, because they want their first release of a mobile capability into the market, whether for their user base or employees, to be perfect. Well in real time scenario the app does not have to be perfect, it simply has to be usable and
instinctive. Most Companies don’t realize this, however, so they put a great deal of time and effort into what can become a costly shot also time consuming. Most apps which use the waterfall developments are late to market and often do not end up addressing their users’ needs.

The power of DevOps

Basically DevOps addresses the need to deploy a running application, with all the latest features, out to the production environment at any given point in time. This is an active approach, where a waterfall development methodology will not work. It is important to define your requirements and develop in small, functional pieces of business value. Every time a changes must be checked into the source code management system, to ensure that it is possible to build product or business function. This is the constant integration capability of DevOps.

Represent the build and deploying it through the various environments requires a robust set of continual delivery capabilities that can push apps:

• From a developer’s system with a simulator running Android, iOS, or another mobile platform
• To the test environment that might require a third party testing different handsets
• The back-end systems that expose services to be consumed by mobile devices
• And into a production environment where it will be provided to the various devices

Each platform has different attribute from a deployment perspective; however, independent from platformvariation, for the dispatch to be successful, you must identify, track, capture, and test every change. This requires a disciplined development team and operations teams together to ensure frequent, reliable, high-quality software deliveries. Development team and operation teams should work together toward a common objective: for mobile apps without anyone assigning blame or making excuses.

What DevOps can do: 

• It will Capture all changes
• It will Automate how those changes
• It will Automate testing of changes
• It will Keep the changes small enough to reduce risk to the business when they are moved into a production environment
• This will ensure that, at every stage along the pipeline, appropriately packaged business functions are replicated and pushed forward

It can be used for disciplined and automated approach, DevOps means transparency to changes so that all the stakeholders are aware of how new capabilities are progressing, thereby reducing the business risk.

Conclusion

All over the world Companies want to exploit the mobile market by providing customers and users with apps that make mobile computing easier. It is important to think through the development capability, how you will deploy it, and how you can ensure the continuity of your capabilities as you change them over time. DevOps ensure a successful mobile app life cycle that takes all of this into consideration. It not only brings automation but also business results because DevOps secure the feedback loop between developers and operations. So developers can make changes more quickly and organizations can speed the refinement and updates of their apps.