DevOps is a set of practices that combines software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) to shorten the life cycle of software development and provide continuous delivery with high software quality.
It aims to establish a culture and environment where building, testing, and releasing software can happen rapidly, frequently, and more reliably.
DevOps focuses on automation and monitoring at all steps of software construction, from integration, testing, releasing to deployment and infrastructure management. It helps to identify and solve problems quickly, resulting in faster time to market and continuous improvement of the software.
DevOps also emphasizes communication, collaboration, and integration between development and operations teams. By breaking down silos between teams, organizations can more effectively build and operate their systems.
Some of the key practices used in DevOps include:
Continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD)
Infrastructure as code
Monitoring and logging
Microservices
Containerization (e.g. Docker)
Cloud-based deployment
Agile and Lean methodologies.
Overall, DevOps helps organizations to deliver software faster, with fewer errors, and with higher quality, by bringing development and operations teams together and automating many of the processes involved in software development.