Revenue uptick, T2M and customer exp pushing DevOps as much as App Perf

INDIA: DevOps has been creating a lot of buzz in the recent IT past and here's a glimpse of how Asia-Pacific side of the globe in particular, is anchoring this new trend.

To measure the success of their DevOps implementation, 48 per cent of APJ enterprises looks primarily at external business factors such as increased revenue, faster time-to-market, and improved competitive positioning. On the other hand, 42 per cent measures success by looking primarily at internal factors such as lower costs, fewer application defects, improved application performance, and better collaboration across departments. But the leaders of the application economy are tending to use external factors, with a rate of 68 per cent, compared to 28 per cent among the laggards.

There are some more drivers like pressures to release applications more quickly to meet customer demand or enter new markets (32 per cent); the need to improve end user experience (32 per cent); and a greater need for simultaneous deployment across different platforms (28 per cent).

A new study released by CA Technologies titled, “DevOps: The Worst-Kept Secret to Winning in the Application Economy” also reveals that 82 per cent of enterprises in Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) already have or plan to adopt a DevOps strategy, a 12 point increase from last year’s figure of 70 per cent.

DevOps is a methodology which helps foster collaboration between the teams that create and test applications (Dev) with those that maintain them in production environments (Ops). Vanson Bourne conducted the survey with 1,425 senior IT and business leaders worldwide, including 650 respondents from six APJ countries: Australia, China, India, Japan, Singapore and South Korea.

According to the study, 78 per cent to 90 per cent of respondents, who have already deployed or are planning to deploy DevOps, report that they have either seen or expect to see business benefits from their DevOps efforts.

These benefits include the ability to expand software availability across more platforms (cited by 90 per cent of respondents), increased collaboration between departments (88 per cent), a reduction in time spent fixing and maintaining applications (88 per cent), an increase in the number of customers (87 per cent) and revenue (78 per cent).

“DevOps is as a critical methodology for organizations in today’s application economy. It is encouraging to see the majority of APJ businesses taking heed and reaping tangible business benefits,” said Ashok Vasan, vice president, application delivery, Asia Pacific & Japan, CA Technologies.

Also, in APJ, 30 per cent of enterprises in the Telecoms industry have already adopted DevOps, while 49 per cent aim to do so within the next two years. This is the highest figure in the region and globally.

While the majority of APJ business and IT leaders are no longer questioning the need for DevOps, some still report various obstacles to implementing DevOps, including organizational complexity (31 per cent) and the difficulty in justifying its implementation from an ROI standpoint (28 per cent).

To overcome these challenges, and as part of their implementation of a DevOps methodology, APJ enterprises are expected to make several savvy investments over the next year, including more training for development and operations personnel (64 per cent) and redesigning processes to drive DevOps approach (59 per cent).

Furthermore, 59 per cent of respondents revealed that they will be investing in a consulting firm with a DevOps practice to assist them with their implementation. This underscores the pressure businesses are feeling to deliver better software faster than ever before. About 45 per cent of respondents indicate Performance Testing to be the most critical tool for enabling DevOps, followed by Application Performance Monitoring (39 per cent) and Functional Testing (34 per cent).