DevOps deals with the automation of tasks. It emphasizes the automation and monitoring all the steps of the software delivery process, ensuring that all tasks are conducted quickly and regularly. Although it does not disregard human responsibilities, it encourages enterprises to form repeatable processes that minimize variability and enhance efficiency. In this case, machine learning and AI are perfect fits for DevOps since they are able to process huge chunks of information and help conduct menial tasks, thus allowing the IT department to focus more on targeted work. AI can learn patterns, provide solutions, and anticipate impending problems. Since the objective of DevOps is to unify operations and development, machine learning and AI can help smoothen some of the tensions that exist in DevOps. In this article, I am going to highlight the reasons why I think DevOps is ready for AI/ML.
A Useful DevOps Model Requires a Machine and Human Intelligence
DevOps is meant to develop and deliver infrastructure faster than traditional development. Automating the processes that were manually handled can help engineers code and provision infrastructure without being assisted by other teams. This enables engineers to be more reliable and efficient when delivering services. Machine learning and AI technologies offer guidance on where developers should focus their strength on optimizing the workflow as well as offer some insights into the fluctuations in demand and performance. When combined with issue detection, the AI and ML will enable developers to optimize resources, enhance site reliability, and increase the speed of deployment.
Modern Infrastructure Requires an AI-driven Approach
Current DevOps teams tend to work like factory workers who are operating tools. The tools may be powerful and precise, bust still manual. However, the time has come for developers to end the mundane tasks, and get an advanced role of supervisors who supervise and train robots on how to handle the grunt tasks. It is evident that AI algorithm has become smarter each year, and they keep making life easier for DevOps teams that are working in the cloud. API-driven services help developers to incorporate machine learning into any application, while smart analytics provide process orchestration and data workflow with more precise insights. Soon, AI will be used in analyzing business goals and offer recommendations to infrastructure designs and policies.
Need to Enhance Feedback on Performance
One major tenet of DevOps is the usage of continuous feedback loops in each stage of the process. This entails employing monitoring tools to generate feedback on the operational performance of applications that are in use. This is one area where machine learning has a significant impact on DevOps today. Platforms used for monitoring gather vast chunks of data in the form of performance metrics and log files. The advanced monitoring platforms can employ machine learning to datasets to proactively identify arising issues early and offer recommendations on what should be done. The proposals will then be forwarded to the DevOps team so that it can ensure that the application service is still viable. I believe that the need to enhance feedback on performance makes DevOps ready for AI/ML.
Need to Promote Communication
When a company moves to a DevOps methodology, it may encounter issues related to communication and feedback. In this case, human interaction is essential, but with sufficient information flowing through the system, the groups are required to build a broader range of channels that will establish and review the workflows on the fly. Through the use of chatbots, automation technology, and other AI technologies, communication channels may be more efficient and more practical, whether you're working with your own internal DevOps team or outsourcing these tasks to DevOps-as-a-service firms. For more on this, visit: duplocloud.com/solutions/devops-as-a-service
Need to correlate Data across Platforms and Tools
To ensure that operations run efficiently, the DevOps teams should simplify the tasks. However, more complex environments make tasks more difficult. Different organizations tend to employ multiple tools to monitor the health and performance of applications in various ways. Through machine learning applications, the data streams can be absorbed, and correlations found, thus give a group a more holistic view of the overall health of the applications.
Need to Manage a Flurry of Alerts
DevOps usually encourages people to “fail but fail fast” since it is vital to have an alert system which can spot flaws quickly. This may create scenarios where the alerts come fast and furious, with all having the same level of severity, thus making it complicated for the operators to react. In this case, the machine learning applications may help organizations prioritize responses based on various factors such as the magnitude of the alert and the source that a particular alarm is originating from. Humans can establish rules, but machines can help in managing critical situations such as when lots of data overwhelm the system.
Need to Evaluate Past Performance
Machine Learning and AI can help developers in the process of application development. Machine learning algorithms can provide recommendations to developers proactively based on the code that is being used, or application is under development. This will be done after examining the success rate of past applications based on the build/compile success and testing the completion and operational performance. In this case, the AI engine can help the developer understand how to build a very efficient and high-quality application.
Need for Enhanced Software Testing
Machine Learning and AI can be used in certain stages of software development to enhance DevOps methodology or approaches. Software testing is one area that may benefit from the involvement of ML/AI in software development. Functional tests, regression tests, user acceptance tests, and unit tests produce large sets of data in the form of test results, thus applying ML or AI to them may help in the identification of patterns of poor coding practices which may lead to lots of errors that are captured by the tests. The development teams can then use the information in making amends so that they can be more efficient. With the many technological enhancements and requirements in the modern world, there is an increased need to step up testing methods so as to attain the demands of innovation. In this case, performance testing, UX, and reliability will be crucial. The increased security and accessibility requirements will demand that testers should guarantee that needs are met through security and accessibility testing. Moreover, more enhanced testing will be required to ensure that web and mobile applications are secure for their users.
Increased Need to Make Better Decisions
DevOps might be automated when it comes to pushing code, testing, and building, but decision making is still left to humans who are required to search in logs, error codes, and visualization tools such as Kubernetes Cluster Explorer. However, incorporating machine learning into DevOps tools can help in providing recommendations which can be used in making decisions.
Need to Reduce Noise in The Digital Exhaust of Software Development
This will enable platform, development, and SRE teams to put more emphasis on preventing issues and optimization of the environment rather than manually trying to comprehend the entire data that is coming into the system. In addition, the real-time insights AIOps potentials also fit well with the regular deployments.
Need to improve the runbook automation
AI/ML has the potential to enhance runbook automation. There is a considerable chunk of ultimately deterministic automation in the DevOps process, and due to its complexities and rigidity, it is prone to errors. There is a constant change in the environment, and the runbooks end up being out of date. In this case, AI/ML can help in analyzing the incoming telemetry and modify runbooks to make them aware of the context, thus removing the source of errors.
Higher storage capacity
The demand for high storage capacity makes DevOps require AI and Machine learning technologies. AI and ML have a data lake that helps in the storage of data and preparation of data for usage in modeling, training, and exploration. The data lake is a distributed file system that is used to keep multi-structured data in its original format so as to facilitate training, modeling, and exploration for the AI developers. Moreover, cloud providers have made it easy for users to run machine learning workloads on their platforms. This will enable continued enhancement of the DevOps since there will be no worries about data storage.
