Here is how you can effectively manage your Cloud System with CloudOps.

CloudOps is a developing term and a rising trend that endeavours to make sure that the advantage of a system based on the cloud can be managed without IT operations having to lose their control. Similar to DevOps, which attempts to facilitate persistent revolution and provision of software upgrade by development with operations, CloudOps endeavours to facilitate uninterrupted operations and enhancement of cloud settings. Most of the organisations have made use of shifting to the cloud as the chance to leverage modern security models, structures and technologies. 

Considering that public clouds usually deal with the management of the infrastructure hardware and service accessibility, enterprises can further concentrate on setting up and managing software to accomplish the financial, security, and performance objectives. Effective CloudOps usually entail a platform for cloud management which can reliably install software and manage changes in the configuration in accordance with business performance, control, and security guidelines throughout multisource clouds. 

Infrastructure Management

IT operations are focused on machine instances and the way in which security, networking, storage, and management strategies are applied to those machine instances. A machine instance could be a part of a tiered application or even a whole application. The tools for the management of the cloud platform can support the incorporation of management of all kinds of machine instances and dependent resources with the help of a single control panel despite their running location. With a consolidated control panel and the correct procedures, cloud managers can follow CloudOps practices comprehensively throughout multisource cloud settings. 

Governing Strategies

CloudOps is associated with the provision of uninterrupted change and enhancement of tasks within the cloud. This usually establishes itself with the implementation of strategies, which assist in managing different features of the cloud services. For instance, one of the strategies could be to restrict a user to set up only a limited number of machines simultaneously or to restrict the quantity of hardware a single application is allowed to consume. 

Strategies can be in favour of business or technology. For instance, technological strategies can limit the primary technique, which is utilised for specific kinds of application in order to reinforce alignment with core architectural rules. On the other hand, business-oriented strategy could restrict the personnel within the organisation who have the authority to set up the cloud services, choose the kind of cloud service that is allowed to be implemented, or the sanctioned targets for private or public cloud. 

Adjusting Procedures to Latest Technologies

Open source software are swiftly evolving and having an influence on how organisations perform software development and provision. With the adoption and leveraging latest technologies by the development companies, the strategies and procedures for CloudOps need to be adequately flexible to adjust. Some of the tools for cloud are hardwired to the technologies they support, which makes the adoption or shifting to latest technology more complex.

Taking Full Advantage of Cloud with CloudOps 

With the burden of the movement of enterprises to private and public clouds, IT operations are required to deal with more challenges of managing control and at the same time empowering speed and flexibility. For the best outcome, there is an initial need to comprehend the needs of cloud applications as well as the requirement of users. After that, it is required to contemplate the tools and procedures, which will deliver the appropriate speed and accessibility and empower better visibility and control to facilitate supervision and management of main technological and business concerns. 

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By now, most enterprises have heard of DevSecOps, and most of them have begun to adopt or at least learn about DevSecOps practices. Keeping this in mind, a set of best practices have been developed to help you manage security at speed and scale.

DevSecOps Best Practices

The major goal of DevSecOps is to make sure security and DevOps engineers are engaged and collaborating with development from the start. The best practices for implementing DevSecOps include:

1. People Management

Irrespective of how many advanced technologies you choose to implement, the fragile link of that chain will constantly be the human factor. This needs to be the initial point for any DevSecOps application. One of the challenges in DevSecOps implementation is the way old-fashioned teams assimilate with the broader business. Shifting the culture and raising awareness is not an easy task and it will need a top-down method if attitudes are to modify.

1. Staff Training

For successful DevSecOps, you need to invest in staff training and professional development. Training and education on security best practices needs to be entrenched in the company’s aims, policies, and software security standards. For developing a worthy security staff, you should offer new employees with the proper training and tools they need to perform their job. Engage in expert security and DevOps training to increase staff skills and awareness. Also, empower DevOps engineers with security-specific coding training by sending them to industry conferences or engaging security consultants. 

1. Manage Processes

Development and delivery processes are implemented in any organisation irrespective of its size. Though these processes have been traditionally managed per team and often stay isolated from others, thus they are not productive. DevSecOps will allow you to implement a common development process across an enterprise and will facilitate cooperation to achieve safer outcomes collectively. For streamlining processes, it’s vital to create agreed methods of working that are well-documented and familiar to all. Consider engaging an external DevOps consultant to help identify how to improve and secure your development processes, as an un-biased third party may identify security gaps better than those who are part of the process already. 

1. Embrace Automation

Without automatic tools for compliance scanning, code analysis, configuration management, patching, and vulnerability management, organisations will fail to scale security of DevSecOps. Teams need to leverage automation and make use of orchestration, which is the key to DevSecOps success. Both automation and orchestration will make audits easier by using metadata, which makes decisions easier to accomplish as they are based on the data points and repeatable methods. Managing security using tools such as HashiCorp, AWS and tools like CodeClimate and XebiaLabs are essential elements of DevSecOps. 

1. Incident Management

With all the will and automation in the world, security incidents do still occur, and it is critical to be able to respond quickly and efficiently to security events. Incident management plans and workflows need to be created beforehand to ensure that the response to an incident is reliable, repeatable and quantifiable.  In the complex world of DevSecOps, active and preventive threat hunting, as well as constant detection and response to threats, means that there are fewer incidents and more mitigations.  

1. Culture

The correct implementation of DevSecOps processes and technologies won’t be able to achieve anything if a company‘s culture does not allow the people to properly utilise it. When organisations implement DevSecOps, there is no longer just one security team, but a continually improved security mind-set across all business departments. 

In the technology realm, the only constant is ‘change’. Obsolete security measures can deteriorate even the most active DevOps practices. This is the reason why security is at the heart of DevSecOps. For successful implementation, all sides need to work collectively so that applications and future updates are safe and released rapidly. While it does take time, effort and open mindsets to implement an effective DevSecOps culture, with the right people and attitude, it can be achieved. 

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Agile and DevSecOps both address different aspects of the delivery method. 

Agile

Agile is a time thumped, repetitive method to software delivery which builds software essentially from the beginning, instead of trying to provide it all at once towards the end. It works through project breakdown into smaller bits of user functionality named user stories, ranking them, and then send in a short two week series called repetitions. Agile also improves the processes and motivates changes in functions and activities of business and development teams to better produce the project imagined by the end user.  Agile methodology can be implemented in different ways such as Scrum, Kanban, XP etc. 

DevSecOps

DevSecOps recovers the lead time and frequency of delivery results over enhanced engineering practices, supporting a more unified relationship among development, security and operation teams as they work towards continuous integration and delivery. DevSecOps movements, just like DevOps itself, are concerned with generating a new solution for difficult software development processes within an agile framework. 

Understanding the Difference

Both DevSecOps and Agile could be implemented for promoting change and teamwork within their particular domain, ensuing a cultural shift in practices. In a perfect environment, an enterprise would use both practices, though it is vital to note that DevSecOps can be implemented in any environment, agile or otherwise. 

Agile is a kind of mind-set and its incorporated value promotes a cultural shift, departmental functions, product development, and project management practices. Likewise, DevSecOps also requires a cultural shift. It also focuses on delivery frequency, pushing departmental lines and call for collaboration among development and operation for more effective planning, design, and project release. Moreover, by incorporating security into the coding process (DevSecOps), weaknesses and gaps are exposed early so that remedial actions can be implemented. 

With agile frameworks, DevSecOps integrates lean, synergistic practices such as continuous integration and continuous delivery, which motivate and reinforce frequent code check-in, version control, sensible test automation, low risk releases, and feedback. In a DevSecOps environment, a business can take advantage of such practices by saving money and resources through reduced re-work, better operations, automatic testing, better quality and project delivered earlier with less cycle time.

With DevSecOps supporting a “Shift Left” method to software security, DevOps engineers have started to scout for feasible prospect to tie in application security through automation. A major factor which drives the teams to adopt security automation is the requirement for adherence with regulations. 

Important Component of DevSecOps

Given below are some of the most important components of DevSecOps.

Code Analysis – it delivers codes in minor bits so vulnerability can be identified rapidly.

Change Management – it increases the efficiency and speed by allowing anyone to submit changes that determine whether it is good or bad. 

Compliance Monitoring – get ready for an audit at any time. This means that being in a state of compliance, with collection evidence of GDPR and PCI etc. 

Investigating Threats – classify potential threats whenever a code is updated and be able to react quickly. 

Assessing Vulnerabilities – recognise new susceptibilities with code analysis and then assess how rapidly they are being responded to and patched. 

Security Training – train IT and software engineers with a guideline for fixed routine

Support DevSecOps Culture

Irrespective of their differences in central points regarding cycle delivery, both agile and DevSecOps share related objectives of removing silos, supporting teamwork and offering better and faster delivery. However, DevSecOps is more driven by the engineering function of Development, Security and Operations. Furthermore, by integrating agile practices, firms can better confirm that ordered work is fed into DevSecOps constant release phases. They can plan even better and reflect the engagement of development team in coordinated efforts further ensuring transparency and visibility of the entire delivery cycle. 

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In order to actually comprehend the link between cloud computing and DevOps, there is a need to consider the bigger context of both occurrences.

The Evolution

Cloud computing and DevOps have developed in response to a basic social revolution. The world is in the middle of a transition from a product market to a service market. The consumer is getting more concerned about the experience as compared to the objects. In the past, development businesses created software products and offered them to the consumers who then managed the responsibility of operating the product. With the rise of cloud computing, most of the organisations that develop software tend to operate it on their consumers’ behalf. 

The Connection

DevOps and cloud computing are connected at the core as the vast majority of cloud development projects employ DevOps practises. The advantages of making use of DevOps within cloud projects are being determined in a better way. It entails application development ‘speed-to-delivery’ to quickly address the requirement of production units, consumer demands that rapidly fold back into the software, and decreases expenditure in all the phases ranging from development to operations.  

How Is Cloud Development Shifting?

Fundamentally, DevOps automates the agile approach. The concept is to authorize the developers to address the requirement of change on real-time basis.  Precisely, DevOps must eliminate dormancy to a maximum level, which has been associated with the development of software for a substantial time. The integrated functioning of cloud offers DevOps the required automation and an integrated platform for production, testing, and deployment. The use of cloud computing resolves a number of problems associated with scattered complications.

The automation of DevOps is turning cloud-centric. DevOps has been systemically supported by a large number of providers of private and public cloud on their platform along with constant development tools and constant integration. The close integration reduces the expenditure related to in-house technology for the automation of DevOps and offers integrated control and authority for a comprehensive DevOps procedure. Most of the developers who get involved with the procedure discover that control allows them to mitigate errors and it is convenient to have a centralized control through the cloud as compared to making an effort to bring the different department under control. The most interesting fact is that cloud is not actually motivating DevOps, instead, DevOps is motivating the awareness and the development of cloud. 

Software as a Service

Software as a service (SaaS) is occurring at every level of IT stack. At the bottom level, Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provides with the on-demand simulated machines, storage, and networks. Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offers on-demand databases, application containers, workflow engines, and caches. SaaS offers on-demand functionality for the business.  At each level, providers empower consumers to avail demand-based services, pay as per the consumption, and unload the burden of their administration from the provider. 

Empowering Agility

Cloud is the straight response to the requirements of agility. Most of the organisation do not categorise data centre operations as the part of fundamental value proposition. Cloud services allow the IT department to move their focus away from commodity operations such as patching operating systems or delivering hardware and rather use their time to add business specific value. Cloud empowers more business agility by allowing IT infrastructure to become more flexible. It allows businesses to establish a business service relationship with their consumers. However, IT organisations are still required to align themselves with the requirements of the business whether they run an application of the company on a public or private cloud or on data centre hardware. 

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Here is how CloudOps empowers unified Cloud operations for improved business productivities

What is CloudOps?

Cloud operations – CloudOps is the reinforcement of the best practices and procedures, which empowers platforms based on cloud, applications, and data that is stored in the cloud to perform effectively over a prolonged time period. This has been a significant idea as successful cloud computing is not based on the capability to transfer assignments to the cloud but based on the capability to resolve a practical business issue with the passage of time.  

Although most of the functions of the cloud platform are not something new, this augmentation of the cloud brings along a large number of its extra innovative characteristics to the platform based on the public cloud. This means that those charged with operations or CloudOps are required to determine the correct operational practices and procedures around the capabilities of the cloud instead of altering the conventional tactics for cloud operations. 

In other words, at a time when switching to the cloud right now has become an imperative idea, the capability to stay there and remain effective is mainly dependent on the operational practices and procedures and their excellence.  

Uninterrupted Operations

CloudOps also depends on uninterrupted operations. It is an approach to operations, which is evolving from the best practices around DevOps. Uninterrupted operations own the capability to run a system based on a cloud in such a manner that there is no further requirement of taking an application out of service, either partially or fully, in order to support the accomplishment of the objective of absolutely no interruption.

In order to accomplish this goal, there is a need to update and set up the software into production without causing any disturbance to the service. Therefore, uninterrupted operations as associated with the CloudOps actually translate into setting up a mechanism that supports the occurrence of absolutely no interruption. 

Uninterrupted operations are all about never halting the processes. Therefore, it is about no interruption and total automation of most of the aspects of the operations. This makes redundancy the best exercise at the cloud provider layer that offers a specific volume of resiliency as well as at the application layer that is controlled by cloud consumer and not the cloud provider. 

In addition to that, uninterrupted operations are the automation of failover, provisioning, backup, recovery, etc., in order to make sure that the applications never cease to deliver services and the end user never experience service outages. 

How Does Cloud Makes Operations Different?

Redundancy appears to be essential to all effective cloud operations. Previously, when the utilization of redundant structures was expensive, many of those charged with operating systems used to make use of a single server. At the time of server up gradation with fixes and new patches, operations need to be stopped. Improving the utilization of the cloud is a matter of setting forth the prospects of absolutely no interruption, which has never been established. If the cloud is going to resolve this issue, there is a need to obtain complete operational benefit and similarly the requirement for new ideas such as CloudOps to establish that foundation. 

Referring to the CloudOps as the popular best practice and discipline would not be appropriate as it is still in the developing phase. However, it is imperative to get better at CloudOps if an application based on a cloud platform is required to deliver the assured business value. The worst step one can take in this regard is to force the existing on-premises operations model against the cloud operations. CloudOps is about adjusting the operations to cloud computing along with altering the tools and talent as well as expectations during the process. 

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Mainly, a DevOps engineer is concentrated on establishing a particular design structure within already defined DevOps processes while a DevOps consultant provides direction to teams and shares knowledge regarding the best techniques for solving an issue at hand. 

Here is how a business owner can determine the difference between a DevOps engineer and DevOps consultant, in order to decide which one they need most. 

DevOps Engineer

DevOps transformation is undertaken by all kinds of organisations who want a more efficient way to administer their IT operations, including tech start-ups and enterprises of varying sizes. A DevOps engineer is a separate DevOps role established within the IT department of a company and is invigorated by the requirement of the company for a downright overhaul of the practices and procedures associated with software delivery and operations. A DevOps engineer is responsible for the day to day implementation and improvement of DevOps practises and tools.

DevOps Consultant

In the meantime, businesses which have a particular concern to address such as to accomplish swift and high-quality updates for an application, may consider hiring a DevOps consultant. The role of a DevOps consultant is to evaluate the organisation’s current DevOps culture, practises, and tools, and offer practical tips and a plan of action to achieve the desired business outcome. Once the required changes are determined, the business owner may decide if they wish to further work together with the DevOps consultant for the implementation of the proposed change. 

DevOps Engineer vs DevOps Consultant

The main obstacle is that finding a DevOps engineer is not an easy task, mainly due to two major reasons. Firstly, DevOps engineers are the second-most required talent in major developed countries at the moment and secondly the ambiguity about the line of work makes it harder to define the job responsibilities for a DevOps engineer. Many organisations know they need the functions a DevOps engineer fulfils, but are unable to properly define the role and therefore find the right person for the job. 

There has been a contradiction among different DevOps engineers as at some places they tend to administer the entire DevOps transformation along with its cultural aspect, while at other places DevOps engineers can actually administer only particular phases of the lifecycle of DevOps or tend to work with particular tools only. 

Business owners need to consider that the majority of the current DevOps engineers previously used to be either system administrators or developers, which have a considerable impact on their capabilities as a DevOps engineer. This requires the organisations to be extremely precise about what capabilities a DevOps engineer should have. Otherwise, there is a major risk of hiring an individual who may not have the capabilities to deliver what the organisation requires. 

Even if the business owner is determined to bring a DevOps engineer on-board to assist the development and operation teams of the organisation, they should almost always consider hiring a DevOps consultant for the development of a strategy to be followed by the DevOps engineer. Having an engineer jumping in and just ‘doing things’ almost always ends up being costlier. Hiring a DevOps consultant to create a plan of action that considers the organisation as a whole and aligns with its goals, could be a more cost-effective decision for many organisations, particularly enterprises, as it would help them achieve their desired outcomes both in the short and long term.  

Both experienced DevOps engineering and DevOps consultancy are rare services and it is completely up to a business owner to decide which role would be most beneficial for their organisation. Consultancy helps in providing a business with an overview of the situation. It contemplates the advantages and the drawbacks, offers guidance, and educates existing teams. Most of the time consultants assist companies by supporting their development and operational teams to streamline the practice and procedures throughout the organisation, and ensure that the tools they are using are the best ones for the job. On the other hand, DevOps engineers are mainly focused on performing assigned responsibilities in a cost-effective manner. Mainly, DevOps engineers implement and support a viable DevOps environment as per the company policy. 

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Many IT organisations are willing to adopt DevOps methodologies in order to accelerate their software development. However, there are no shortcuts to accomplishing DevOps. 

The following are an example list of roles that may be filled in a DevOps organisation. Every business is different, and in some smaller organisations, these roles may be combined. But regardless, the responsibilities they have should be filled. 

DevOps Evangelist

A DevOps evangelist is required to endorse the advantages of DevOps by identifying and communicating the business advantages, which are obtained from the increased agility achieved through implementing DevOps practises. A DevOps evangelist reports as a change agent, gaining buy-in from development and operational teams, identifies the essential roles to manage DevOps delivery technique and makes sure that IT professionals are trained and authorised to deliver those changes.

Software Developer/Tester

The role of a software developer/tester lies at the core of DevOps. With DevOps, although the title of the software remains unchanged; however, the role of software developer/tester gradually gains importance in term of the scope of duties. The software developer/tester in DevOps is not only accountable for transforming the latest requirements into code but also for deploying, unit testing, and handling ongoing monitoring. 

Automation Engineer

The role of automation engineer becomes critical in DevOps due to the fact that DevOps mainly relies on programmed structures. Automation experts are accountable for planning, evaluating, and implementing the strategies for continuous assimilation along with addressing the needs for high accessibility of production systems.

Code Release Manager

The code release manager is accountable for assuring coordination and taking care of the administration of the product throughout the course of development and production. Basically, a code release manager is mainly associated with the technical specifications and complications in which project managers are not involved. They oversee the incorporation, direction, progress, testing, and implementation to assure uninterrupted delivery. 

Experience Assurance Professional

Although the feature of quality control is a common part of the process of software development, an innovative form of control turns out to be essential when DevOps is implemented. The requirement for quality assurance testers is being switched by a requirement for experience assurance professionals charged with ensuring that modern functions are launched while considering the end user experience. 

Security Engineer

Pertinent to the traditional waterfall progress, system security becomes a great addition.  Similar to quality assurance, security is also a non-functional condition that is often attached to the end of the development structure. Stores based on DevOps employ security engineers to work along with the programmers while integrating their suggestions relatively sooner during the course of development. 

Utility Technology Player

Conventional IT processes or structure administration experts focus on keeping the servers active. The basic reason behind disturbance to service is mainly because the applications run on the same servers. Therefore, the system administrators announced extremely strict controls on what is allowed to run on their servers. There is a requirement of wide quality assurance within the staging area, massive transmission and procedures documentation and extremely unusual complications. Conventional programmers have remained to be the heads down-coders without any participation in the post-production structure. 

In order to commence your journey towards DevOps accomplishment, there is a requirement to establish an appropriate DevOps organisation that entails every crucial member of the team, with clear roles and responsibilities defined. 

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The central objective of DevSecOps is to make sure Security and Operation teams are collaborating with Development teams from the start of the project development phase. With the cultural shift, it also demands technological tools to enable collaborative change. DevSecOps implementations require generating a single group of engineers (testers, developers, and admins and security engineers) which have end-to-end responsibility of application from deployment to monitoring and implementing change.  This entire process forms a set of phases which can be carried out in a constant loop until the expected product is achieved.

Implementation Steps

DevSecOps implementation isn’t a piece of cake. Logically, there are numerous challenges which lie ahead before DevSecOps implementation. There are some steps to follow to effectively implement DevSecOps. These include:

1. Planning

Just like any other project requires planning, DevSecOps also need a comprehensive plan. The project must plan user stories with more than feature descriptions. They must include both functional and non-functional requirements such as performance and security, acceptance, test criteria threat models and UI/UX designs. Security starts here at the planning phase before a single code line is developed.

2. Developing

Typically it isn’t much costly to develop secure software than to make corrections of security issues. The development teams need to begin this by evaluating practice maturity, acquiring resources to offer essential guidance and implementing code reviews to software design and implementation.

3. Build Automation

The primary motivational factor behind DevOps is automation. The aim of automatic analysis is to streamline as much as the testing efforts with the least possible set of scripts. Tools for automatic analysis are able to execute a repeatable test, report results and compare them with immediate response to the rest of the group members.

4. Testing

Automation testing in DevSecOps is more than just UI-focused Selenium tests. Robust testing practices need to be included comprising the unit, front-end, back-end API, database and passive security testing. Passive tests can be done with no exertion by using a strong testing framework just like Selenified with a security scanner in proxy mode.

5. Change Management

For DevSecOps implementation, it is important to transform the process for managing change into a more effective one by enabling the software developers through tools and know-how to react to threats and neutralise them. Also, let them propose transformations within the security crucial to the project without any limitations of time and also define anticipations, that if approved, the transformations should be implemented in less than a day.

6. Monitor Compliance

With increasing regulations such as SOC 2, GDPR and HIPPA, maintaining the leading position in compliance could be a difficult task. Whenever the latest code is generated or modifications are done to present source code, collect proof of adherence immediately in order to stay prepared for reviews and reporting.

7. Security Training

Empower DevOps engineers with security-specific coding training by sending them to industry conferences or by investing in security certifications. There are several training and certification programs which can increase the entire team’s knowledge of an investment in security.

8. Adapt

Improving continuously is a trademark of any robust agile practice. DevSecOps practices also need to continuously develop and adjust as problems such as security, performance, and usability are identified. It will inform decision-making, planning and how teams improve the entire software development lifecycle.

9. Threat Investigation

Determine, examine and remediate the susceptibilities which have occurred on the basis of modifications you have made with newly provided code. Subsequent to the release, the newly provided code and running vulnerability checks, constant periodic scans are vital to identify any latest errors. Conduct regular code reviews, scans and penetration to be certain that you are prepared for any mishap.

Robust IT firms are setting the constructing units for DevSecOps from day one, but security should offer guardrails to the structure development lifecycle. These steps are necessary to follow to sustain the pace, agility, and improvement meanwhile meeting all the regulations and staying alert for spiteful cyber-attacks. Eventually, the challenge with security—mainly in the cloud—is to deal with forthcoming cloud-based spells while at the same time endlessly observing everyday practices, meanwhile guaranteeing end users about the accurate holding of their data.

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