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DevOps Outsourcing Best Practices in 2023

DevOps is a collection of tools, technologies, personnel, practices, and philosophies that combines software development and operations. The reason for combining these two critical activities is to enhance time-to-market and streamline the deployment of products and services. Many businesses decide to outsource their DevOps. This is because numerous benefits can be unlocked by choosing to outsource DevOps.

DevOps is growing all over the world. The projection for the global DevOps market shows a value of $30 billion in 2030, at a compound annual growth rate of 20% since 2022. The primary drivers for this growth are a global need for accelerated deployment to stay competitive, adopting AI-powered automation tools and technologies, shifting from a monolithic architecture to microservices, and optimizing IT budgets.

DevOps outsourcing, like any significant business decision, has challenges and risks. However, companies can navigate these risks with careful planning and expert solution providers.

In this article, we’ll explore DevOps outsourcing best practices in 2023.

Contents

When Does It Make Sense to Outsource DevOps?

Lack of In-House Expertise

Not all businesses have large IT teams who can fulfill their every need. Most companies also need more money to hire new full-time personnel, especially considering the global IT skills shortage.

Cost-Savings

DevOps is an excellent solution for companies whose IT budgets and resources are already being spread thin. The quicker development cycles that DevOps offers result in fewer resources being spent. DevOps also ensures minimal disruptions and downtime, both of which can cause severe financial damage.

Legacy infrastructure and processes can be expensive and high maintenance. DevOps is a great fix for those problems. Furthermore, automation is a vital component of DevOps. It offers a cost-effective way of keeping up with the demands of the modern world.

Scalability

Scalability is one of the most important attributes modern businesses need to succeed. In most sectors, demand is only going to keep rising. Companies with highly rigid infrastructures and processes won’t be able to keep up with growing demand. For those businesses with an eye on the future, DevOps offers high degrees of scalability. 

Access to New Tools and Technologies

Businesses must keep a keen eye on new tools and technologies arising at unprecedented speeds. Companies stifled due to legacy or suboptimal tools and technologies could use DevOps as an entryway to access these exciting new technologies.

By utilizing new technologies via DevOps, businesses can also enter the world of DevSecOps, which stands for “development, security, and operations.”

DevSecOps is an extension of DevOps, where highly advanced security tools and technologies are integrated into every step of a development cycle. Security must be a priority, and that’s something DevSecOps can provide.

24/7 Support

A company needs to serve its clients and customers around the clock. However, realistically, most in-house IT teams and engineers can offer around 40 hours a week, most of which are restricted to a typical 9 to 5 schedule.

Outsourcing DevOps is a great option for companies that need development and operations to run 24/7. DevOps can result in an environment that is self-healing. Powerful automated monitoring, reporting, deployment, and optimization are just some of the many around-the-clock offerings that an expert service provider can provide.

Short-Term Projects

Sometimes, short-term projects don’t warrant the commissioning of full-time resources. Onboarding full-time employees for short-term projects can be a laborious process. Moreover, those resources might not be required once their project concludes. Outsourcing DevOps is a great way to serve short-term projects without hemorrhaging money.

The best service providers will ensure that companies don’t suffer from a contractual lock-in. With world-class solutions providers and services quickly commissioned and decommissioned on demand, companies don’t have to pay for what they don’t use.

Factors to Consider When Choosing a DevOps Outsourcing Provider

Expertise

No matter what frills a DevOps service provider might offer, expertise is the fundamental factor that should drive decisions. The best DevOps providers worldwide are true experts for whom DevOps isn’t an afterthought or a supplementary offering. Expertise in DevOps means that a service provider has world-class automation, coding, and security skills, innovative capabilities with AI technologies, and ultimate professionalism.

Robust Delivery Ecosystem

The COVID-19 pandemic blurred geographical boundaries, forcing the world to embrace remote work and online collaboration. DevOps providers must offer a robust delivery ecosystem and the ability to deliver services from multiple locations. That’s why rinf.tech has offices and delivery centers worldwide, including Mexico, the United States, Romania, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Turkey, Poland, and Germany.   

Cost and Budgets

While DevOps is integral to a business, it can’t eat into the entire budget of an organization. Companies must carefully consider their resources and choose service providers that fit their budgets. The best service providers are the rare ones that offer the quality of a multinational company at a price affordable for SMEs.

Delivery Models

Businesses need to study the delivery models that service providers offer. This is because even excellent services can be stifled by suboptimal delivery models. At rinf.tech, we provide delivery models that are incredibly beneficial to a diverse range of companies. They include team extension, which involves finding DevOps talent for custom software development projects. rinf.tech’s team outsourcing framework involves project setup, team setup, project management, and delivery.

We also offer managed services, which include receiving initial inputs, followed by service management, transition, and delivery, and managed team services, which involve a project setup, team setup, project team management, and project delivery. These collaborative delivery models are some of the most important factors to consider when outsourcing a service provider.

Communication and Collaboration

Nothing is more frustrating for companies than outsourcing to a service provider and receiving impersonal and generic support. The best DevOps providers offer highly personalized services and support via extended DevOps teams every step of the way. DevOps solutions need to be tailored to the intricate needs of a company. Therefore, companies should only choose service providers who offer close collaborative relationships.

Culture and Values

While the quality of service should be the primary factor when choosing a DevOps provider, companies should also look into a provider’s culture and core values.

Often, the culture and values of a provider seep into their offerings. Providers with a strong culture offer meaningful services, and providers who lack culture or strong values often offer suboptimal services. 

Security and Compliance

Security and compliance shouldn’t be overlooked under any circumstances. This is because security breaches and compliance failures can potentially bankrupt a business. Therefore, a service provider must provide bulletproof security and robust compliance protocols. Reviewing case studies and testimonials from past clients is an excellent way to vet service providers and check their security and compliance track record.

Are you looking to outsource your DevOps project to a specialist provider?

Challenges and Risks of DevOps Outsourcing and How to Mitigate Them

As mentioned above, DevOps outsourcing has a few challenges that companies must tackle. One of the main challenges of DevOps outsourcing is a lack of control and oversight.

Businesses that are used to in-house teams and complete visibility might find a move to outsourced DevOps services a bit jarring. That being said, the best service providers work closely with businesses to ensure that visibility isn’t a problem.

Outsourcing involves professionals from all corners of the world. Therefore, language differences and cultural barriers are issues that companies might face. Providers like rinf.tech, with their robust delivery ecosystem, are a perfect solution to these challenges. We offer options across continents so businesses can choose locations in the same time zone and with closer cultural proximity to their home base.

When companies outsource DevOps projects, there’s always the risk of poor quality and performance, especially if they work with the wrong vendor.

The simple fix to that problem is committing time and researching to find the vendor with the most impressive credentials and performance history. Poor quality and performance often include security and compliance failures. Security and compliance will be taken care of by choosing the best vendors.

Emerging Trends and Technologies in DevOps Outsourcing

One of the most ominous and frequently cited statistics is the cost of a data breach in 2022. The global average was $4.35 million. For certain industries like healthcare, that amount rose to $10.10 million. Security is the most important pillar of a business, and that’s why DevSecOps is one of the foremost emerging trends in DevOps outsourcing. A company’s success will increase multifold if security can be folded into every aspect of development and operations.

AI and automation technologies are taking over the world. DevOps is an excellent example of AI technologies being used most effectively. Adopting automation is the best way a company can future-proof itself and dominate its industry.

Cloud computing and cloud-native infrastructure is becoming the norm for many companies. Traditional data centers aren’t providing the cost-savings, efficiency, and security that businesses in the modern world require. Thousands of major companies are permanently settling in cloud-native infrastructure. Cloud-native DevOps via Kubernetes and other containerized orchestrations are among DevOps’s major evolving technologies.

In the world of cloud computing are those companies who adopt multi-cloud or hybrid cloud architectures. Therefore, multi-cloud and hybrid cloud DevOps tools, technologies, and strategies are also set to dominate this next chapter of the DevOps saga. The future of DevOps is vibrant and full of limitless possibilities.

Conclusion

DevOps is a methodology that can help companies from different backgrounds rise above competitors and make a difference in their respective sectors. For many, outsourcing their DevOps is a great way to reap its benefits without sacrificing significant portions of IT budgets.

Outsourcing DevOps is perfect for companies that lack in-house DevOps experience and that seek cost-savings and scalability. In addition, any company that wants to leverage exciting new technologies, furnish short-term projects, or require 24/7 support should outsource its DevOps.

However, companies should factor in expertise, delivery ecosystems, budgets, delivery models, communication and collaboration services, security and compliance track records, and company values to choose the best solution provider. Together, those attributes form the ultimate DevOps solution provider.

Experts like rinf.tech can help businesses tackle the challenges of DevOps outsourcing. This includes poor performance, lack of visibility, security and compliance collapse, and cultural barriers. With the rise of DevSecOps, AI tools, cloud-native infrastructures, and hybrid and multi-cloud models, DevOps is booming. To ensure success, enterprises must follow the best practices listed above when outsourcing their DevOps operations.

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