The number of smartphone users worldwide has exceeded 3 billion. It is estimated that the number of users will increase to hundreds of millions in the next few years. This steady increase in smartphone users and app downloads is a testament to the booming mobile app industry.
Today, in this age of ever-changing technology, mobile app development companies are striving to come up with better ideas, so they need to focus on elements of development that were previously overlooked.
To do this, companies need to adopt new approaches to deliver high-quality solutions at lower costs. DevOps is useful in this situation.
In this article, let’s take a look at the role that DevOps plays in mobile application development.
Before that, we must know what DevOps is.
What is DevOps?
DevOps was born out of Agile methods in 2001, which radically deviates from traditional waterfall software development methods.
DevOps, as a modern software development method, focuses on effective collaboration between software developers and operators (meeting business goals).
Businesses have found that traditional software development methods result in additional development time and cost, and are prone to customer dissatisfaction. However, DevOps builds a bridge between development and operations, which in turn overcomes the challenges associated with continuous software delivery.
Using DevOps for developing mobile applications is about fostering collaboration between teams.
How does DevOps work?
DevOps teams include developers and IT operations staff who collaborate throughout the product lifecycle to improve the speed and quality of software deployment. It’s a whole new way of working and a cultural transformation that has major implications for teams and the organizations they work in.
Development and operations teams are no longer “siloed” in the DevOps approach. Sometimes these two teams are merged into one team, where engineers are involved in the entire application lifecycle (from development and testing to deployment and operations) and have multidisciplinary skills.
DevOps teams use tools to automate and accelerate processes, which can help improve reliability. DevOps toolchains help teams tackle important DevOps fundamentals, including continuous integration, continuous delivery, automation, and collaboration.
The value of DevOps also sometimes applies to teams other than development teams. When security teams adopt a DevOps approach, security becomes an active part of the development process. This is called DevSecOps.
The role of DevOps in mobile app development
DevOps can be viewed as the ability to continuously deliver mobile applications that enables customers to shorten time-to-market and capture new market opportunities.
The fundamental principle of DevOps is continuity of delivery. This means on-demand or automated deployment of mobile applications and the environment in which they run at any stage of the SDLC (software development life cycle).
Whether you want to develop a mobile application or a web application, the main functions of DevOps are the same (although the challenges faced in mobile DevOps are slightly different and more specific).
Adopting DevOps in mobile app development can differentiate a company from the market. While the process may not seem simple, consulting with a DevOps service company may make the job much easier with less effort, and they can also help you move your project forward successfully.
DevOps can magically help you increase productivity, efficiency, customer satisfaction, and revenue.
Fundamentals of DevOps for Mobile Apps
There are 6 essential elements to consider in a DevOps approach. These elements are bound to each other in the overall process to ensure the quality and security of the software.
Planning : At this stage, all departments involved in the application creation process need to work together. These include developers, testers, analysts, and operations teams.
Collaboration : Developers must collaborate when writing code. This ensures that one team’s systems can be easily integrated with another team’s systems.
Testing: This phase is designed to ensure the quality of the product, identifying existing defects, problems, errors, etc. In DevOps, it is emphasized that “the automation of testing is a critical part of software development”.
Monitoring: Continuous monitoring is required as it helps to identify and resolve issues that arise during human interaction to ensure application stability and performance.
Delivery : After the code is written, the application is completed and launched, there is no additional time between departments to wait. DevOps ensures that code modifications are made in sync as changes are made.
Deployment : All changes that pass the automated testing process are automatically deployed.
Implementation of DevOps
Successful adoption of DevOps follows these three rules:
- Ongoing planning:
Ongoing planning means bringing the entire mobile app project team together. These include developers, project managers, operations staff and other stakeholders. DevOps requires the entire team to work together to finalize the scope of the mobile application in preparation for the final release.
- Continuous Integration:
Continuous integration refers to ensuring that code submitted by one developer works together with code provided by another developer or developers. In short, implementing continuous integration in mobile DevOps requires frequent builds that must be able to integrate with the latest developed systems.
- Continuous testing:
Testing is a key component of the application development lifecycle. It helps identify bugs and issues in the application early and ensures that a high-quality product is ultimately delivered to customers.
- Continuous monitoring:
In terms of monitoring, DevOps enables developers to have more testing and control before deploying applications to end users. Ongoing monitoring helps identify and resolve issues.
The development process remains stable no matter how human interactions change. This guarantees the stability of the application.
- Continuous Delivery:
Continuous delivery refers to the practice of ensuring that code can be deployed to the final production environment by committing changes to a production-like environment.
DevOps in mobile apps ensures that code is deployed in real-time as changes occur. Continuous delivery is all about building, testing, and delivering to customers faster and more often in shorter cycles.
- Continuous Deployment:
After continuous delivery, the next step is continuous deployment. In continuous deployment, all code that passes the automated testing phase can be automatically released to production.
The ROI of Mobile DevOps
In mobile DevOps, we also face some special challenges, and while it may cost a lot of time and money, DevOps can bring us many benefits.
- Enhanced customer experience:
The primary goal of all companies is to provide better services and products to their customers. DevOps is able to create higher quality applications for users through continuous automated testing. This increases customer satisfaction and optimizes their experience.
Apps with higher ratings also rank higher in the app store and are more discoverable by the general public. Rigorous testing is essential to creating a high-quality product. Increased testing speed helps reduce time to market and deliver mobile applications faster.
- Enhanced Innovation:
True innovation occurs when a company is able to release new software of the highest quality to the market in less time. With DevOps, you can respond quickly to customer feedback and changing markets.
DevOps for mobile application development ensures that development teams can create and deliver high-quality mobile applications that are thoroughly tested to meet user needs.
- Higher software quality:
DevOps brings faster development, more frequent releases, and high-quality and stable software. Combine Agile with DevOps for better collaboration and problem resolution.
The DevOps approach means that everything is closely monitored, such as user experience, performance, and security, resulting in robust and stable software.
Reward
Frankly, there is no such thing as a separate mobile DevOps, because DevOps is a general approach to all components and different types of application development.
You need to contact a DevOps service provider because they are the experts in the field and can provide you with the best guidance and services. All in all, despite the high cost of developing mobile applications and the initial pain of development, DevOps is sure to make the investment worthwhile.
Guest article written by: Santhosh is a Digital Marketing Executive. He designs marketing strategies with the intention of using high-quality content to educate and engage audiences. His specialties include social media marketing specialist, SEO, and he works closely with B2B and B2C businesses, providing digital marketing strategies that gain social media attention and increases your search engine visibility.