DevOps, The Key To Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is often misunderstood as the implementation of digital devices and applications. However, it’s all about ‘cultural transformation’ driven by the collaborative thought-process and change in mindset. DevOps helps organizations achieve digital transformation by changing the social mindset of the market, cutting off silos, and covering the way for continuous innovation and agile experimentation. All these factors help organizations satisfy evolving consumers. In conversation with Ms. Kavita Viswanath, GM JFrog India helps uncover the world of DevOps in India.

 Tell us about the journey of JFrog in India, how did it all start, and where is it today?

Our India office opened in 2018 shortly after a couple of back-to-back acquisitions, and we’ve been expanding our footprint and rapidly delivering DevOps innovations to the market ever since. Over the past year, we have managed to achieve some incredible milestones such as going public, growing our team, and engaging with several market-leading companies. I’m excited to continue that momentum as we march towards the end of the year and into 2021. India is an important market for JFrog, and we’re continuing to invest here so we can deliver increased value to our growing customer base, employees, developer community, and partners in the region. So for anyone passionate about being part of the future of software, check out our careers page.  

What does JFrog offer that is different from competitors?

The JFrog DevOps platform is the manifestation of our Liquid Software vision. We see a world without versions where software updates flow seamlessly and securely from development to any device, without bottlenecks, update pains, hassles, downtime, or risk – like water flows from faucets. Our unique, end-to-end platform solves challenges found in critical pieces of the DevOps supply chain, such as safely storing, managing, securing, and distributing all types of code-sets (or artefacts), such as collecting key metrics, correlating them across diverse systems, and providing actionable information to improve software updates and release cycles. Our complete platform, with its unmatched capabilities, sets us apart from our competitors.

Why has DevOps become so famous? Why is continuous integration needed?

There’s no question the pandemic accelerated DevOps and digital transformation in the last year. Every company is now a software company, and the rapid pace of digital transformation makes releasing software increasingly painful for all companies. In the last year, we saw a greater shift towards the cloud, increased use of collaboration tools, a growing number of devices being used remotely – all of this puts increased pressure to ensure software applications are always secure and up-to-date. Banks, healthcare providers, restaurants, even some car manufacturers –they’re moving their customer-facing processes to apps. In this type of environment, continuous integration – DevOps and DevSecOps – become imperative to ensure software development and delivery is easier to manage and more secure.

How do you gauge the success of DevOps? 

DevOps isn’t just about technology; it’s about a culture. A culture of collaboration, transparency, and commitment to excellence so a company can deploy software updates faster, safer, and with higher levels of quality than ever before. The organizational aspects of DevOps are critical for achieving success. If you can get your LOB, developer, and IT operations teams aligned around the shared goal of practising agile software development with a heavy focus on policy, self-service, testing, automation, and security – then you’ve achieved DevOps Nirvana. 

What does a DevOps Engineer Do? What skills are essential to be a successful DevOps Engineer?

That is a great question. Development teams and IT operations teams can have different skills and different goals. DevOps engineers help ensure the correct processes, tools, and methodologies are applied to balance the needs of both IT and Developers throughout the software development life cycle, from coding and deployment to maintenance and updates. They are “the Transformers.” They are intelligent soldiers battling for the common good, and there’s definitely more to them than meets the eye. 

Let’s recall that DevOps is not just about tools but also about culture. So while a DevOps engineer should have a general understanding of coding basics and how to support application development and deliver in dedicated, Multi-tenant or hybrid cloud environments, that individual will also need ‘softer skills like strong leadership, project management, and robust interpersonal skills to be successful. 

What is DevSecOps, and how important is it to the industry?

Much like the name implies, DevSecOps is all about guaranteeing security is prioritized and infused to every aspect of the DevOps delivery pipeline to ensure only the most ‘hardened’ code gets deployed. And in today’s age of increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks both at home and from abroad that threaten both our personal data and critical infrastructure, making security a top priority is essential. Much like DevOps, DevSecOps also includes an important cultural aspect. You need to have the security and DevOps teams working together toward a common goal and constant communication since threat levels change quickly. 

What are the key trends in DevOps to watch out for?

We’ve seen a greater shift towards the cloud, increased use of collaboration tools, a growing number of devices being used remotely – all of this puts increased pressure to ensure software applications are always secure and up-to-date. While our society is beginning to emerge from the throws of the virus, I’d say we’ll continue to see cybersecurity, IoT, and cloud have a dramatic impact on DevOps. So I’d keep an eye on these.