GETTING THE MOST Out of. YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE Best Practices for Dev & Test Agility

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1 GETTING THE MOST Out of YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE Best Practices for Dev & Test Agility

2 In today s world of application development, teams are beginning to use scrum methodologies to support their software development activities. According to a 2015 report published by the Scrum Alliance, 87 percent of development professionals believe scrum improves teams quality of work life, and 95 percent of respondents will continue to use scrum as they develop new applications. The benefits of using scrum methodologies abound not only does it foster teamwork and help operations teams push code live more quickly and accurately, but there are significant financial advantages as well. Better-quality products lead to more sales, which translates to higher bottom lines. Despite all of these advantages, organizations may not have the agility built into their infrastructure, processes or test environments to keep up with the stringent requirements of scrum. As release cycles become shorter in terms of daily or weekly releases instead of monthly or quarterly infrastructure can become the limiting factor. 1. MAINTAIN AGILE INFRASTRUCTURE As the development process becomes more agile, there is a need for IT infrastructure to become more agile. By creating more flexibility in the software development process, teams can push code live more quickly and with fewer errors increasing release velocity and the bottom line. That being said, there are several best practices that software development shops can follow when it comes to development and testing. In this white paper, we ll take a look at some of these best practices and see what s required for an organization to effectively support agile development and testing. As agile development increases in popularity, the days of maintaining fully dedicated test environments and multiple copies of the database are over. Development and test infrastructure should be available on demand, provisioned via automated processes. In a traditional QA environment, teams may be stifled by the rigors of the process, but having agile, on-demand infrastructure allows developers and testers to perform tasks more effectively and get their products to market more quickly. GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE // WHITE PAPER 01

3 2. IMPLEMENT SHIFT LEFT OR CONTINUOUS TESTING Testing is arguably the most important part of the software development process. Test teams work out bugs in the code in order to deliver the cleanest, most effective product possible. However, for teams that use traditional waterfall methods, sometimes errors aren t found until late in production requiring rework and wasted time. It s critical for developers to remember: The earlier a bug is found in the code, the earlier it can be fixed, thus the solution will be less expensive. The term shift left came about when software development teams started to implement testing throughout the development cycle, instead of just at the end or during production. By including testing in the entire process, teams have more opportunities to discover bad code and solve issues before the product is ever delivered. 72 PERCENT OF RESPONDENTS BELIEVED THAT COLLABORATION BETWEEN DEVELOPERS IS THE NUMBER-ONE DRIVER FOR CLOUD ADOPTION. 3. USE A HYBRID CLOUD PLATFORM Continuous testing and infrastructure on demand requires a malleable computing environment that can effectively support more agile practices. The hybrid cloud consisting of both public and private cloud environments - offers organizations a cost-effective way to scale their development projects and maintain flexibility within their computing environments, while at the same time giving geographically dispersed teams a single platform for collaboration. Why is the cloud an important factor when considering a geographically dispersed team? In a 2015 survey of IT professionals, the Harvard Business Review Analytic Services found that 72 percent of respondents believed that collaboration between developers is the numberone driver for cloud adoption most notably because the cloud allows developers to work as one on a single secure platform. Being able to share data and collaborate across the world brings developers together to work on both on-site and off-site projects alike. In addition, organizations don t have to spend money on collaboration tools instead, the hybrid cloud is a built-in collaborative system. GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE // WHITE PAPER 02

4 The hybrid cloud also offers a solution to another key challenge that software development teams face: What happens when a developer who has been writing certain scripts leaves the team? By ensuring that everyone has access to the project at hand via a single collaborative platform, organizations can avoid the issues that may arise in this situation. From development to production, the hybrid cloud offers a secure environment that fosters communication and scalability. HYBRID CLOUD + MANAGED SERVICES In addition to leveraging a hybrid cloud platform, the most effective way to get the most out of agile infrastructure is to partner with a managed services provider (MSP). By putting critical functions such as patching, OS management and even application management in the hands of cloud experts like the ones at Hostway, organizations can focus more on app development and less on everyday upgrades and system admin tasks. When utilizing the services of an MSP, organizations don t have to worry about the headcount burden sometimes associated with keeping a dedicated IT department there s no need to hire full-time staff with MSP experts around to manage the agile and hybrid cloud infrastructure. GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE // WHITE PAPER 03

5 4. DEVOPS TOOLSETS Having flexible dev and test infrastructure is as important to the software development cycle as using the right tools and strategies to facilitate application testing and delivery. DevOps methodologies, by which teams work as one to create products instead of remaining siloed and non-collaborative, allow organizations to deploy code 30 times more frequently and with 60 times fewer failures. Most of all, DevOps emphasizes the importance of team members working as a whole to produce applications that are effective and bug-free. BY THE END OF 2016, 25 PERCENT OF GLOBAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATIONS WOULD BE USING DEVOPS PRACTICES. The advantage of DevOps is clear, and development teams are beginning to recognize its usefulness. According to Gartner, by the end of 2016, 25 percent of global software development organizations would be using DevOps practices. In order to support these new strategies, however, the proper tools are necessary. DevOps tools like apporbit allow software development teams to develop, test and deploy applications at a faster rate and with fewer errors. With apporbit, developers can provision efficient clones of databases and application stacks that can run across the entire environment. This gives a key advantage to these teams. GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE // WHITE PAPER 04

6 THE BOTTOM LINE By maintaining an agile infrastructure, implementing continuous testing practices, investing in an effective hybrid cloud platform and using the right DevOps toolsets, organizations can improve their software development practices and ensure that their dedicated testing infrastructure is working to their greatest advantage. For more information about how Hostway can help you deploy a Microsoft Azure-powered hybrid cloud environment and how DevOps toolsets like the ones from apporbit can improve application delivery, contact Hostway today. GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE // WHITE PAPER 05

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