DevOps is pushing Quality of Service to the forefront

DevOps is helping us to build beautiful applications in shorter time slots than ever before, but in this hurry quality of service can easily become an afterthought. We are focusing too much on the what’s and are neglecting the how’s. The former is critical for our quickly changing business demands, but the latter draws massive risks on our IT landscape.

Continuous build, integration, and deployment are the pillars of our fast-forward development approach called DevOps. The central idea is to break down silos and realize new requirements in a more collaborative way. When developers are in direct contact with business and operations, the communications is highly efficient, and all parties work on a common goal. This approach is the most efficient way how to realize software in the 21st century.

Based on my experience, this hurry to push the next big thing into production draws a not neglectable risk on IT decision makers agenda because low service quality can quickly result in massive rework and frustrated customers.

What is Quality of Service

According to Wikipedia, quality of service is related to conditions under which the solution must remain effective, qualities that the solution must have, or constraints within which it must operate.

Widely known quality of service elements are: • Availability • Reliability • Testability • Maintainability

The well known term for quality of service is non-functional requirements. I prefer the former because it reflects the importance in a much better way. Talk about quality of service more often, and you will learn that it’s very well received.

In my next post, I will give you insights on how to make quality of service a fundamental part of your DevOps chain.

Keep doing the good things!