Dive Brief:

• IT agility is gradually extending beyond software development to help businesses provide applications to the end user. To better overall agility, DevOps is implemented to bring "end-to-end flexibility" to allow for more digital advancements, according to a CA Technologies survey of nearly 1,300 of senior staff globally. However, only one-fourth of respondents have already implemented DevOps in their organization.

• Still, 75% of respondents agree that a combination of agile and DevOps is more impactful than either methodology is individually. Both functions offer insights into where improvements lie. For example, by using the "responsiveness" of the cloud, DevOps teams can view "finer granularity of iteration across the whole of the software delivery and ops cycle," according to the report.

• About one-third of respondents agree that it is difficult to find candidates familiar with either agile methods, DevOps or the ability to collaborate across teams. But finding the right skills to support the software lifecycle is just as important as encouraging a collaborative culture across departments.

Dive Insight:

In the age of digital transformation, software and companies running DevOps are king. The foundational agile practices, which promote collaboration across department lines, are directly integrated in a company's overall prosperity, according to the report.

By 2019, 80% of international Fortune 1000 companies will have integrated DevOps into company functions because it lessens the burden of keeping up with the changing pace of technology.

But to extract the full advantage of DevOps, "necessary controls need to be baked into all development and operations processes," according to the report. 

Respondents agree that DevOps takes precedence in the importance of developing web-based customer apps, cloud-based apps and customer support systems. But finding the "full-stack developer" is not a sustainable trend. Instead, soliciting jobs that appeal to either the front or backend preference of developers is key to finding the right candidates. 

It is simply more efficient for companies to bridge the gap between software and infrastructure processes while keeping the rate of computing downtime to a minimum. But this progress has to be met with a companywide belief that DevOps needs to be seen as an asset to overall company practice.