DevOps Outsourcing Guide : How It Works, Challenges & Strategy

DevOps is a collection of strategies and practices designed to accelerate the development of new products and simplify the management of existing ones. However, the essential contribution of this system is that it promotes open communication between development and operations teams.

According to a recent Harvard Business Analytics survey, up to 70% of respondents cited DevOps as the key to improving their time to market, productivity, creativity, client relevance, and quality of service. This highlights the importance of using this approach in software development.

However, creating a DevOps team from the start is a complex undertaking. It might impact software quality due to the complications of DevOps initiatives.

According to the DevOps Upskilling Report for 2023, 31% of respondents had trouble with the DevOps transformation process.

Outsourcing DevOps is an excellent option to address the complications mentioned above.

In this article, we’ll outline the benefits of DevOps outsourcing as a way to develop software in the continuous delivery era.

What is DevOps?

DevOps combines two different terms, “development” and “operations.” The basic principle behind DevOps is connecting the processes, people, and working products. Teams can guarantee continuous software integration and delivery by integrating these three elements.

In summary, DevOps facilitates the rapid delivery of software and application services. As a result, organizations can quickly adapt to the market. At the same time, it reduces risk by getting feedback from stakeholders and end users and through frequent testing.

When to use DevOps?

In conventional businesses, managers use many measures to assess the performance of operations and development teams. Software developers care about the caliber and quantity of updates given. In contrast, operations teams focus more on preserving the solution’s functionality.

These software teams are typically distinct and part of two different silos due to conflicting priorities and interests. In practice, businesses want their systems to supply new attributes and maintain consistency simultaneously. Here DevOps comes into the picture.

Teams in DevOps can use continuous integration, share code bases, and take advantage of automatic deploys to their maximum potential. The traditional software development method is not feasible because the operations team can only access the code once the coding phase is complete.

Why DevOps is necessary

The DevOps lifecycle relies on automation and agility. Many firms that need to operate faster and with greater agility implement DevOps as a competitive advantage.

It is now possible to bridge the gap between development and operations teams by utilizing DevOps methodology. Because of the best practices and tools allow it to automate operations, implement changes efficiently and on time, improve the delivery process, and enhance its reliability necessitating collaboration with DevOps.

The following are some of the things that a firm that has decided to use DevOps should expect:

• Increased delivery velocity
• Greater development flexibility while dealing with multiple applications
• Fewer security concerns
• The reduced change failure rate
• Better reporting of metrics

Implementing DevOps enables you to create a better product that is more suitable for your organization.

While some businesses profit from hiring in-house specialists, others do not consider it a valuable time and money investment. Is DevOps exclusively used in-house?

Is it possible to Outsource DevOps?

DevOps is a set of procedures and a mindset for getting a product to market promptly and efficiently. Compared to a standard software development lifecycle (SDLC), this approach enables faster creation, testing, and deployment of new products.

DevOps is the integration of Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipelines across the product delivery process. The purpose is to ensure that the project is running and that the updates are consistent, cumulative, and traceable. You can hire an internal team or outsource the work to a remote team. Let’s look at the ideas for selecting the second option.

What is DevOps as a Service?

Can we differentiate between the traditional DevOps practice and DevOps as a service? DevOps methods aim to remove barriers between engineers who handle various stages of program development and developers. It strives to streamline the SDLC, closely match with business objectives, and eliminate any potential time wastage across the workflow.

DevOps as a service, or DaaS, is a new phrase that refers to shifting all engineering tools and infrastructure to the cloud. A DaaS provider can integrate workable testing and development techniques for continuous integration operations.

The service provider offers DevOps services as a technological partner, allowing you to concentrate on business objectives and procedures.

With DevOps as a Service, you get:

• Achieving a considerably quicker SDLC
• Increasing the number of deployments
• Higher deployment standards
• Better adherence to business objectives
• Reduction of all types of trash

DaaS prioritizes scalability, flexibility, process automation, and achieving business objectives.

How much does DevOps as a service Cost?

DevOps consulting rates varies depending on the type of work. We can think about a few options, such as subscribing to the upkeep of the current cloud solution, creating a new one from the start, or moving it to the cloud. 

The complexity of the project also impacts the DevOps consulting rates. You can hire a DevOps engineer and pay an average rate of $100 per hour. The number of DevOps engineers required for each activity and the degree of complexity also vary.

DevOps Outsourcing vs. an In-house team

When applying DevOps methods, you have two options: engage an internal team or use trusted provider outsourcing services. Both have pros and cons.

In-house DevOps team

Advantages

• While developing, you have complete control over every aspect of the product.
• Adding resources is a manageable expenditure.
• Build the infrastructure you require with the tools you prefer.

Disadvantages

• Office costs and other infrastructure expenses.
• Tough to recruit and manage specialists.
• It takes longer to construct the necessary infrastructure and processes from the ground up.
• The crew is frequently sidetracked by the company’s internal tasks, causing them to lose focus and efficiency.
• In-house professionals are used to similar jobs and working environments. They usually have fewer possibilities to improve themselves in other areas.

Remote DevOps team

Advantages

• Accessibility to the best talent at an affordable price.
• Experience working on various projects, allowing you to handle multiple challenges and unexpected scenarios.
• Rapid deployment without the need for additional resources. Project management is done on the vendor’s premises.
• Because of the provider’s extensive experience and mature DevOps culture, there is a lower chance of employee turnover and attrition.
• Scalable up and down with minimal administrative costs associated with recruiting extra employees.
• Motivated employees to provide excellent services that would entice you to return for more.
• An outsourced team is focused on attaining the outcome specified in the contract.

Disadvantages

• Complex deployments may be more expensive.
• Building communication mechanisms from the ground up and cultivating good working relationships is necessary.
• Inexperienced vendors may endanger application security.

How DevOps works?

Each process flow stage in DevOps is designed to bridge the gap between development and operations.

Continuous integration

Continuous Integration (CI) is the process of frequently submitting updated code to a shared hub together with automatic software builds. This technique encourages more frequent software releases while allowing for the early detection of potential integrations.

Continuous delivery

With the ability to release various updates, continuous delivery has grown due to continuous integration. This enables a quicker development pipeline that results in the deployment of changes in the shortest amount of time feasible. Such changes include new features, bug repairs, experiments, and configuration changes in production in a secure, timely, and sustainable manner.

Continuous deployment

Validated modifications can be released to users automatically due to continuous deployment. No release dates need to be planned. Developers can get quick customer feedback and tackle issues more quickly and precisely. The process is at its most efficient when an automated testing environment is rigorous and trustworthy.

What are the strategies in DevOps outsourcing?

The DevOps methodology for software development emphasizes the culture and procedures that enable the development and operations teams to function as a single unit. The two departments’ cooperation will improve to accelerate the software development lifecycle (SDLC).

Outsourcing DevOps may differ because every project is different and calls for a custom strategy. The DevOps as a Service provider will review the project’s scope of work and reach an individual case-by-case agreement on services.

The service provider can work with you as a partner and help with testing, delivery pipelines, continuous development, and integration in various ways. 

Below are a few strategies for outsourcing DevOps:

DevOps fully managed services

It features comprehensive DevOps services. The outsourcing provider collaborates with your in-house employees to continuously and automatically develop, test, and deploy cloud-based infrastructure and applications. 

The DevOps specialists assist your business in creating procedures from the beginning and even implementing the DevOps methodology to work with your current infrastructure and user needs.

DevOps consulting

Here, the DevOps professionals evaluate your present procedures, advise on how to improve them, and assist in putting the required changes into place so that you may achieve your business objectives the way they do.

DevOps operation management

You might only outsource operations management to a DevOps outsourcing company to free up your in-house teams. They can concentrate on higher-value activities like developing DevOps techniques, automation, and other things.

Hire DevOps developers

The provider also offers to hire DevOps developer for lengthy projects. Standard offshore and nearshore outsourcing companies provide services across a variety of fields. The specifications can adjust to the client’s organizational objectives, project requirements, application structure, team structure, and financial constraints.

DevOps is becoming a mainstream capacity for agility. However, businesses need help scaling the services, implementing DevOps, and optimizing product development.

The leading causes include a lack of DevOps talent, high hiring costs, expensive training programs, and managing skills gaps. 

These problems, however, can be resolved by outsourcing DevOps, particularly for start-ups wishing to use DevOps and Agile for speedy and secure development. 

Let’s talk about some more of its advantages below.

Benefits of DevOps Outsourcing

Access to a Talent Pool

Every business wants to employ top talent. The recruitment of domain experts is essential for tech companies. Expert minds are, nonetheless, priceless when it comes to DevOps services. DevOps professionals are conscious of their privileged position. Therefore, don’t anticipate finding DevOps experts to be simple.

The best of the finest candidates for your projects are easier to locate to outsource DevOps services. DevOps Outsourcing providers often have a well-established hiring and screening procedure to supply clients with highly qualified or experienced employees. Moreover, you have access to a fully global talent pool and are not restricted to the DevOps experts in your location. Additionally, outsourcing businesses pay special attention to their staff members’ technical abilities and ensure they stay current with emerging technology.

Maintaining a robust DevOps team

The fight is still ongoing even if you’ve identified and hired all the DevOps engineers you desire. Keeping them engaged and focused on getting the job done is difficult. DevOps teams must constantly be inspired and praised if they are to operate smoothly and fulfill their obligations.

Your business should be prepared to handle qualified DevOps engineers professionally. An Software Development Outsourcing company provides all the facilities for engineering “stars.” It encourages a robust DevOps culture so talented engineers can hone their craft and feel useful.

Reduced development cycles

The collaboration of teams is essential to DevOps. DevOps service providers go above and beyond when outsourcing to guarantee collaboration and efficient communication. 

They give clients access to helpful information and current best practices for software development, saving them from starting from scratch. Instead, they will have everything they need to use the DevOps model.

With greater flexibility and reduced development frameworks, it saves time and effort. In this approach, businesses can quickly launch new products and services as the market changes. Additionally, continuous testing, universal automation, and persistent monitoring significantly raise the caliber of the production code.

Flexibility to find the best

There is no issue if a vendor that outsources your work provides you with a DevOps engineer who doesn’t seem to match the criteria or lacks an essential ability. Request a different developer from the provider. 

You cannot exercise flexibility when working in an in-house team. Finding a new developer who is a better fit would require investing even more time and money in severance, legal proceedings, and termination, as well as starting the hiring process from scratch.

Also Read – Nearshore vs. In-house Software Development

Concentrate on core business

You can access a talent pool of DevOps specialists by outsourcing DevOps to a third-party vendor, which relieves you of the responsibility of building and managing an internal team. 

Additionally, the professionals handle all the labor-intensive tasks by enhancing the delivery and quality of your product using DevOps.Since they have particular industry expertise, it saves time and money in development compared to establishing the same with an internal team. 

Controlling the risk of technology

DevOps engineers and Solutions Architects must continuously experiment with making your design resilient and scalable and giving your organization technological and financial advantages. They must continue to learn and play to maintain their skills.

You would have to pay an internal staff to experiment with your product or conduct further research and development (R&D). You don’t pay for that time directly when you outsource so you can benefit from DevOps experimentation at a much lower price.

By working with the vendor’s other clients, the engineers are already receiving on-the-job training in areas unrelated to what you’re doing when you outsource DevOps. In other words, R&D is funded by other clients, reducing your expense and risk when installing new technologies.

Managed DevOps offers the knowledge you want for many businesses while removing the cost and hassle of building an internal team. You now have more time and resources to concentrate on growing your business.

Reduced Cost

Recruitment is made simpler and more affordable by outsourcing DevOps. This team provides the DevOps and cloud infrastructure expertise you want without consuming the time and resources of your company’s internal staff.

 As outsourcing businesses offer professional specialities with all the necessary credentials in one place, you can skip the drawn-out and expensive hiring procedure.

Additionally, there is no need to invest time or resources in training an internal workforce. Further, hiring a remote staff reduces some financial concerns because the outsourced company will pay for any taxes, software licenses, office rent, etc.

Additional Resources

Another benefit of outsourcing DevOps is access to experts like site reliability engineers and database managers. Hiring experts with rare or specialized skills may be more difficult when building an internal team.

The ability to choose from a variety of DevOps talent through outsourcing allows you to distribute your responsibilities more effectively and assign specialists to complex tasks.

Challenges of DevOps Outsourcing

DevOps implementation might be challenging for a variety of reasons. Here are some potential issues you may face while outsourcing DevOps.

Technical Challenges

There are a lot of technological challenges with DevOps outsourcing. One of the most important is the requirement to standardize and automate organizational tools and processes. This can be challenging, especially in companies with many platforms and apps. Integrating DevOps into a current system without sacrificing security or performance is another challenge.

Organizational Challenges

DevOps demands a fundamental transformation of the corporate culture and structure to be effective. This might be difficult for many organizations, especially those that are bigger and more conventional in their methods. DevOps also calls for good collaboration and communication between the development and operations teams, which can be challenging to establish.

Operational Challenges

Finally, from an operational standpoint, the DevOps strategy can be complicated. One of the most difficult tasks is controlling and securing deployments and rollbacks. It can be challenging, especially in a large and complicated production line. Furthermore, monitoring and logging are crucial for DevOps success but can take time to set up and manage.

How to start DevOps outsourcing?

The role of DevOps is crucial while developing applications for a competitive industry. This is why businesses must begin to outsource DevOps more efficiently. DevOps outsourcing may be different from conventional outsourcing. 

DevOps is a broad and confusing topic; therefore, no one solution works for everyone. Here is a step-by-step guide to beginning DevOps, picking the best partner, and making it successful for efficient DevOps outsourcing.

Define the requirement

Outsourcing DevOps is a strategy businesses use to cut costs while still gaining the advantages of higher productivity and agility. As a result, an external team-driven internal cultural shift is necessary. But in addition to establishing a DevOps culture, your company has other goals to accomplish.

You can get started by outlining the goals and issues that DevOps will help you achieve. Choose the best DevOps company to meet your business objectives by identifying critical areas for improvement.

To avoid any uncomfortable situations in the future, be sure to be clear about your expectations. You should also openly discuss timelines, deliverables, and other issues so that you and the provider are on the same side.

Create a management framework

DevOps lives on solid collaboration; thus, outsourcing needs a governance framework that identifies the crucial participants, processes, and technology. Ensure the client is familiar with the application and end goals. 

At the same time, the DevOps services provider offers an outside perspective on the business needs. Both may effectively collaborate to reduce differences and create teams with a single attitude.

You can implement a governance framework by utilizing interconnected elements like roles and responsibilities, tooling, skills, people, processes, management structure, and reviews. Additionally, you may choose the finest governance components and include them in the model for better DevOps outsourcing results.

Evaluate DevOps Outsourcing Provider’s Qualities

The selection of the appropriate outsourcing partner is crucial for successful outsourcing. Likewise, organizations must conduct thorough research. 

Consider using the below checklist to scout out possible outsourcing partners thoroughly.

• Conduct background check
• Ensure technical proficiency
• Demand recommendations
• Check reviews and rating
• View case studies
• Examine the service and industry experience
• Find authorizations and certificates

Analyse the mode of communication

 Communication is the secret to effective outsourcing, and DevOps is no different. You must confirm that your DevOps partner has an effective communication strategy in place as well as effective communication capabilities. You may evaluate their abilities by talking with them via various channels and observing how professional they are.

 Once you’ve chosen a vendor, collaborate with them to create a communication plan that outlines the work, timeframes, each party’s roles, and how required modifications or upgrades will be implemented.

Build a contract

Since a DevOps firm may provide a range of solutions, it boils down to cooperation and price models. Once you’ve chosen a vendor, it’s time to formalize your agreement with a contract.   

However, DevOps has a flexible scope when used with agile development. It takes a distinct tack when it comes to contracting and collaboration methods, as well as the outsourcing scoping process. The change from closed-scope contracting to open-scope contracting has had the most significant impact.

Performance tracking

The conclusion of a contract does not mark the end of a successful DevOps outsourcing. Your DevOps partner must adhere to and comprehend the appropriate metrics for measuring performance in your company.

Consider parameters like deployment rate, lead time for modifications, mean time to recovery, update failure rate, and more. If your outsourcing deal is successful, you should see an improvement in these indicators.

DevOps outsourcing models

A DevOps outsourced service will collaborate with the internal software development team to handle daily operations. Since each organization has its own culture and set of working procedures, there is no unique solution. Every project demands a specific strategy.

The DevOps service provider will go through the nature and scope of the project with you and make a case-by-case decision regarding implementation.

Once you’ve decided on a provider to outsource DevOps, you must define and select a collaboration model depending on your needs. Let’s go over the various models available for DevOps outsourcing:

Hire DevOps developers

Every business is aware that its software product requires a constant supply of updates and new features. This procedure ought to provide security and adherence to regulatory needs.

If you need to grow your team, you can recruit one or more DevOps developers from the services provider. You control the processes, technology, tools, and abilities here.

Through this, you can use the top DevOps services and techniques, cloud platform capabilities, creative design, development, implementation, and administration of cost-effective cloud infrastructure, as well as the seamless integration and workflow automation.

Hire DevOps consultants

You might hire one or more DevOps consultants to help you create a DevOps deployment plan. 

Here, the DevOps consultants evaluate your current processes, provide advice on how to enhance them, and assist with implementing the necessary adjustments to reach your business goals the DevOps way. To carry out particular tasks, the consultants offer their skills for a limited time.

Hire a dedicated team

The collection of DevOps trends, tools, and best practices is continuously expanded and improved. It takes a lot of time and effort to stay current with new developments; thus it is more cost-effective for businesses to hire outsourcing DevOps teams to integrate the latest cloud infrastructure management technologies.

You can employ a dedicated DevOps staff to focus solely on your project. Also, you can form a group of engineers with varying experience and seniority who can provide creative ideas and foster a long-lasting partnership.

Managed services model

A managed services engagement model involves the DevOps service provider proposing and managing the end-to-end DevOps implementation for your company.

It features comprehensive DevOps services. The outsourcing provider collaborates with your in-house team to continuously and automatically develop, test, and deploy cloud-based infrastructure and applications. 

The DevOps professionals assist your company in creating new procedures and even implementing the DevOps approach to work with your current infrastructure and user needs.

Harikrishna Kundariya

CEO, eSparkBiz

Harikrishna Kundariya, a marketer, developer, IoT, chatbot and blockchain savvy, designer, co-founder, Director of eSparkBiz @Software Development Company where you can Hire Software Developers. His 14+ experience enables him to provide digital solutions to new start-ups based on Web app development.