A lesson we have also learned thanks to technological evolution is that modern operational culture must be an integral part of the baggage of all corporate stakeholders. Each at his level, each with his continuous updating, all must be able to make an active contribution. This is the basic concept that must be proactively followed in an organization that wants to compete at the highest levels for a long period.
With this in mind, in particular, the lessons learned from Agile and DevOps methodologies, artificial intelligence technologies, monitoring and management tools for the development and life cycle of applications, today among the reference resources for accelerating the digital transformation of businesses, become essential.
The ultimate goal of transformation is business independence from technology. The solution lies in event-based architectures, tools to manage security, application risk, SLAs. Architectures of this type make it easy to manage a heterogeneous information system that makes the most of each of the individual IT assets in the company, integrating them into a unique vision that is continuously updated without interrupting the activity.
Technological and process innovation
There are some general considerations that must be evaluated in the transformation process. Business and organizational dimensions are so variable that they require responses that as complexity increases, response accuracy increases.
The agile method is often used today, which is particularly suitable where the technological and functional aspects cannot be determined exactly.
Paradigm shifts such as smart working or sustainability, the introduction of technologies such as artificial intelligence – already today – and quantum computing – in perspective – are partly predictable and partly unpredictable, but must be placed in a homogeneous context independent of the specific technology.
IT Automation unleashes business potential
Compared to the recent past, another approach is now available for all the new phases of the development cycle, and is based on the automation of ICT. This new approach is the only choice for companies that are born today, and it is also essential for historic companies that have to get there according to advice on how to integrate the pre-existing heritage (including ICT personnel) with that of a new modality over time for the application development and maintenance cycle.
IT automation is therefore the first objective, the one on which to build the final result.
The software development cycle takes place today in the cloud, which also houses much of the company’s software and data. Operating on the cloud is already a first level of automation of operations, since the cloud provider takes care of the infrastructural functions. Very large companies may have some of the software or data at home and will probably manage it with a private cloud, taking advantage of an overall highly automated model called hybrid cloud.
Other considerations intervene to push the need for automation forward. Security, ransomware, completion of the development cycle are points whose correct consideration avoids making simple scheduled maintenance operations catastrophes.
Automation finds the correct environment in the cloud, an ideal environment that guarantees a certain level of security and compliance. There are various cloud hybridization formulas, with one or more public and/or private services.
In some cases it may be necessary to implement a non-trivial cloud architecture, possibly partly on-premise. Certain components of the company’s data or software assets may remain on-premise in company systems. Any legacy components, appropriately analysed, can fall (at least in part) within an event architecture, intrinsically resilient to changing technological and market conditions.
The importance, for the development cycle, of the DevOps model
Great help came from dividing software development into small, continuously updated steps. Development teams are required to continuously update, if not introduce new staff members who bring new expertise, while learning the methodologies and skills of other staff members. This is the DevOps culture, which has acquired the necessities of secure development (SecDevOps) and now in various cases also that of artificial intelligence (AIOps).
The DevOps philosophy has gradually become a strategic approach at the level of the entire company, moving away from the purely IT field to become a reference for management too.