5 Potential Targets for Over-Automation in DevOps

5 Potential Targets for Over-Automation in DevOps

Automation is a thrilling word to say. It has a contemporary, realistic, and occasionally dramatic feel. If it were a color, it would be a vivid shade of red, representing energy, vitality, bravery, and velocity. Any business, regardless of size, will experience the same emotions while introducing DevOps Automation. I mean, why not? Automation is beneficial to businesses in many ways, including reducing expenses, increasing productivity, enhancing customer service, and boosting morale.

​​What if, though, some aspects of DevOps are wrongly automated, or automated too much? While the correct kind of automation might boost productivity, too much of it can stifle the DevOps team’s creative juices. This post will show you how to escape the traps that DevOps Over-Automation might put your company in. A full DevOps Automation strategy will be proposed at the conclusion of our proposal.

Complete DevOps Automation Test

It’s a huge win for DevOps teams when they’ve automated their tests. Test automation is a valuable contributor to DevOps automation because it improves the quality of your functioning product and helps you transfer it more quickly from one phase to the next. However, Test Automation is not a simple tale.

There are many examples of successful Test Automation implementations, and the landscape of available technologies is always evolving, leading some businesses to assume they have finally found the holy grail. So they are in a hurry to automate the entire testing process. What they get instead is choked CI-CD pipelines, delayed feedback, bug slippages, increased testing inefficiencies, and a casual approach from testers due to over-reliance on automation, when those things are what they expect to see.

Test automation was a major barrier for the largest quick-service restaurant chain in the world, which was using a vintage monolithic POS program built on Windows. One testing cycle took between six and eight weeks, and the application was rolled out to fifteen thousand or more stores around the world. Their attempts at automatization were fruitless because of the wide variety of supported languages, currencies, and other settings.

Usability and exploratory testing were among the many processes they attempted to automate. Inevitably, the quick release cycles and constant UI/UX modifications led to disappointing automation outcomes. Because of the need for human intuition and analysis, automating usability and exploratory testing is not a good idea.

The appropriate equilibrium in Test Automation is achieved by streamlined testing procedures, shorter iterations, a collaborative approach, and a Quality Engineering frame of mind.

Computer source code is compiled into binary code, packaged, and tested automatically in a properly automated build. Thereafter, the build is integrated into the master codebase. How close is that to be the ideal CI tale? Wait!

When the team added more tests to the already extensive set of build routines, things started to go south. Every check-in triggers a new flurry of alerts and notifications, turning what should have been a straightforward process into one that is both time-consuming and tedious.

Teams that are completely enamored with automation will add     all of the tests and notifications to the build processes. They fail to realize that tack-on testing takes extra time during build compilation and execution. In addition, developers become overwhelmed by a flood of alerts when numerous methods are configured, and they eventually stop paying attention to any of them. Just compare a build time of 10 hours to one of 30 minutes. Poor developer productivity is exacerbated by the delays caused by such bloated builds. Using Automation when it’s not necessary is a practice that the Build Automation example highlights.

Overwhelming Infrastructural Automation

If DevOps Automation is already well-established, then Infrastructure Automation can only help it grow. However, unchecked automation leads to unmanaged settings and higher IT expenses and inefficiencies. Over-automation is a bad idea for businesses when they have to deal with things like Handling confidential or mission-critical information. For instance, data automation is handled in a way that is different from environment deployment. When employing automation tools, it is possible to lose a vital database if provisioning conditions are set up using a fresh slate. Similarly, if automation systems are not trained to recognize a particular data set, they may trash it without realizing what it is.

The deficit in the Available Technical Resources for Code Management – The More Automated a Process Is, The More Code Is Necessary to:

• Highly unpredictable and shifting settings (not everyone is Netflix or Amazon)
• The overarching takeaway is the importance of utilizing Infrastructure Automation in order to lessen the frequency of outages, improve self-service options, give more control to Operations, and keep up a rock-solid 99.9999% uptime.
• Acute dangers arise from excessive deployment automation

The arrival of Smooth Deployment is like a fairytale come true for DevOps groups. Connecting Value Created with Value Provided. However, if automation is overused, the entire release could go wrong, turning the optimistic scenario into a terrifying nightmare. Over-engineering, Deployment Automation can slow down releases, force operations into firefighting mode after each release, and make rollback processes laborious and time-consuming.

Teams with a regular release schedule, such as once a week or more often, can benefit greatly from automated deployment. Hybrid Deployment Automation (Manual + Automated) is the ideal option when weekly or daily releases are not feasible. The following scenarios call for its use: Pilot deployments with customers, internal deliveries, and other similar one-off projects

• A lack of regular updates in a project
• Appropriate technical knowledge for Hands-On Deployments
• In the end, security cannot be fully automated

With the proliferation of cyber-attacks, this is the single most terrifying component of DevOps automation. DevOps pipelines incorporate security measures, yet a misstep in automation could threaten the existence of the business. It’s a good idea to use automation to do regular security checks and spot any possible intrusion attempts. Though helpful in many ways, automation is often more of a security risk than it is a solution in a few specific scenarios.

Cybercriminals can easily penetrate a company’s network defenses when administrators fail to manually update and patch critical security software such as network firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, and patch management software. The same is true for Compliance as code, which heightens the possibility of introducing flaws into the software.

Human counterparts are highly recommended for crucial tasks in Security Automation. Validating each and every automated modification is another way to strengthen security.

The Pursuit of a Harmonious DevOps Automation

Over-automation in DevOps can lead to problems, and we at Enteros are aware of it. Clients who already use DevOps methods can benefit from our DevOps Automation procedures. We acknowledge that well-rounded DevOps automation is the key to achieving Agile Operations, Rapid Development, Superior Quality, and Uncompromised Security. If you want DevOps Automation to deliver the results you need, follow these five steps.

DevOps Vision 1 – DevOps success does not depend on tools and level of Automation, but on a clearly articulated vision and plan to deliver business value. Gather the relevant parties to discuss the DevOps business outcomes. Understanding the big picture makes it easier to decide how much automation to use and when to implement it.

In the second stage, you’ll assess your present DevOps skills and maturity level in light of your DevOps vision. Gather the relevant parties to discuss where DevOps is going and where the gaps are. The areas, strategy, and road plan for automating DevOps must also be established. At first, it’s best to limit Automation’s reach so it doesn’t stifle the DevOps initiative’s big-picture objectives.

Third, a pilot framework and tools are needed to determine whether or not the program will be a success. Constructing a DevOps pilot requires drawing up an Automation plan that specifies the software and hardware to be used, the problems to be solved, and the time frame in which each will be implemented. Start DevOps automation in these areas with a minimum of effort:

Performance tests, such as stress and load tests, require significant amounts of data, tests with a lot of it, and a lot of repetition, all of which can be automated with the help of test automation.

Deploying Infrastructure 

• Automate deployment for repeated infrastructure 
• Provide self-service options to a select group of developers
• Automated testing against builds; streamlined code integration and deployment; streamlined deployment
• Automation of Security Procedures 
• Vulnerabilities 
• Patching

With the success of the DevOps pilot, the next step is to implement DevOps across the entire company. Aligning standard practices, orchestrating workflows, and promoting cultural change are all made possible by the combination of DevOps implementation and Automation at every stage. Methods for effectively automating your DevOps processes are outlined below.

It’s important to:

Find the Easy Wins

• Outline a comprehensive DevOps Automation approach, including any necessary tools, knowledge gaps, and organizational goals. Choose one process to automate and demonstrate business results, whether it’s Build Automation, Infrastructure Automation, or Deployment.

Pilot Projects in Automation 

• Create successful pilots and record your findings. DevOps Automation capabilities can be scaled up with the help of the documented Automation use cases, which serve as both a source of truth and a set of tools for learning and improvement.
• DevOps Automation should be used methodically, so it’s important to establish a center of excellence as part of the DevOps program.
• Initiate a cultural shift by regularly updating your staff on the benefits and drawbacks of automation, as well as the dangers of becoming too reliant on DevOps automation.
• Improved speed and quality of outcomes and the ability to learn on the fly are essential to the DevOps process, which has evolved over the past five years. Even once you’ve perfected your DevOps Automation procedures, there’s always more you can do. DevOps Evolution relies heavily on culture and communication.

What can Enteros do for you on your DevOps Automation Journey?

Clients may implement consistent and well-thought-out Automation with the help of our DevOps Assessments, Automation coaching, and bespoke Implementation services, all of which are assessed on a regular basis. Is your DevOps automation strategy met with skepticism? Help is at hand! Reach out at info@enteros.com

Conclusion

While automation has many benefits, it needs to be applied to the right processes. If you over-automate, a lot of time can be wasted on repetitive tasks, which can be a waste of time and money. In this post, we will discuss five potential targets for over-automation in DevOps.

About Enteros

​Enteros offers a patented database performance management SaaS platform. It proactively identifies root causes of complex business-impacting database scalability and performance issues across a growing number of clouds, RDBMS, NoSQL, and machine learning database platforms.