DevOps has become an overloaded buzzword that means a lot of different things to a lot of people. That’s a challenge when you are trying to understand what DevOps is or define DevOps.

DevOps is the offspring of agile software development – born from the need to keep up with the increased software velocity and throughput agile methods have achieved. Advancements in agile culture and methods over the last decade exposed the need for a more holistic approach to the end-to-end software delivery lifecycle.

The DevOps ideals extend agile development practices by further streamlining the movement of software change thru the build, validate, and deploy and delivery stages, while empowering cross-functional teams with full ownership of software applications – from design thru production support.

DevOps teams focus on standardizing development environments and automating delivery processes to improve delivery predictability, efficiency, security and maintainability. The DevOps ideals provide developers more control of the production environment and a better understanding of the production infrastructure. DevOps encourages empowering teams with the autonomy to build, validate, deliver and support their own applications. With DevOps, nothing gets “thrown over the wall.”