DevOps is a way of software development where there is a constant collaboration of IT professionals to enable rapid product development and deployment. It is a culture that promotes collaboration among the professionals of the development and operation team. On the other hand, Agile is a methodology in which there is a constant iteration of development of testing. Therefore, it promotes incremental and evolutionary development. The development becomes easier as the project is divided into multiple pieces, and all the pieces are integrated at the end. There are various fundamental differences between DevOps and Agile.

Differences Between DevOps and Agile –

In any IT company, there are multiple blocks or divisions. One block handles the operations and infrastructure, one block handles development and testing, and then there is customer and his requirements. With Agile methodology, this gap between the customer and developer is breached. On the other hand, the DevOps methodology focuses on breaching the gap between the operation and development teams.

What Is It – DevOps is all about bringing development and operation team together. Agile is iteration where customer requirement, development, testing, customer feedback, and small releases are involved. DevOps focuses on faster delivery, while Agile focuses on better delivery.

Application – Since the Agile method is all about breaking a big project into small modules and developing as per requirement and getting feedback, it is best for big and complex projects. DevOps is suitable for all as it is more about project handling than actual development. The main focus is on constant development and delivery.

Implementation – To implement DevOps method, there needs to be a constant collaboration of the operation team and the developer team as well as the testers. There is no fixed framework though different companies have a different set of rules and standards to follow. On the other hand, Agile method can be implemented with fixed frameworks, and there are many such popular in the industry. This is because the process is iterative and incremental.

Skills Required – In DevOps method, the skill set is divided between the development team and the operation team. The team size is generally large due to different member possessing different skills. In Agile development, the process is iterative and therefore, all the team members need to have similar and equal skills of all varieties. The team is relatively small as all the members have equal skills.

Emphasis – DevOps emphasizes development and deployment in a reliable manner within the deadline. Agile emphasizes on faster development and getting constant feedback from the customer and make modifications along with development. Once it is deployed, the team moves on to the next as feedback is already taken beforehand. Automation is one of the primary goals of DevOps while Agile discourages it through automation can be useful.

Communication – In DevOps, the development and operational teams are separate, and hence, there could be some communication gap after all. In Agile, all members can do anybody’s work, and therefore, it can increase the understanding as well as the bonding. In DevOps, communication involves specs and designs, and it also includes software and hardware specifications. In Agile, a proper framework is involved, and daily meetings are done for on a daily basis.

Miscellaneous – The tools used in DevOps are Chef, Puppet, TeamCity, OpenStack, AWS while Agile uses JIRA, Bugzilla, and Kanboard. The biggest challenge of DevOps is to streamline work for development, testing, and production teams. For the Agile method, the members need to be equally productive, and it is difficult to achieve at times. But Agile development produces better application suites as per requirements while DevOps development creates innovative and better quality applications with the best standards in the industry.

Furthermore, the feedback in the DevOps method comes from an internal team and testers while that of the Agile method comes directly from the customers. Besides, documentation gets a priority in DevOps while the working system gets the priority in Agile. In fact, DevOps supports Agile release cycle. Agile improves defect detection and shortens the development cycle.

Kitty Gupta
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