95% of IT leaders are adopting DevOps philosophy

Nearly all (95%) IT professionals polled for a recent survey are using or plan to use the DevOps software development and IT management philosophy, even though there remains no agreed-upon definition.

The research from B2B ratings and review company Clutch shows that no single definition of DevOps was selected by a majority of respondents, with Wikipedia’s definition securing the largest percentage at 35%. Yet 80% of respondents said they are at least somewhat familiar with the DevOps philosophy.

Wikipedia’s definition states that DevOps “is a term used to refer to a set of practices that emphasise the collaboration and communication of both software developers and IT professionals while automating the process of software delivery and infrastructure changes”, which aims to establish “a culture and environment where building, testing, and releasing software can happen rapidly, frequently, and more reliably”.

But experts are split on whether this definition accurately uses the word ‘culture’ and describes the easing of tensions between operations and development, or if DevOps is more of a methodology related to the process of development.

Another expert argued that DevOps is the evolution of the Agile IT movement, seeking to bring the same efficiency that Agile brings to development to the operations side as well. DevOps allows IT to more quickly release code and fix issues compared to traditional development cycles.

In the absence of an agreed-upon definition, Clutch recommends that IT leaders seeking to take advantage of the DevOps philosophy at their organisation take some time to define DevOps for their own team’s goals.

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