In the modern digitalized world with rapid development processes, properly integrating development and operations is more important than ever. For this reason, specific practices like DevOps appeared, aiming to integrate software development and IT operations, ultimately leading to improved workflow, testing, and deployment.
Although DevOps has been serving a phenomenal role in development processes for many years, it's been lacking one small aspect - security. Therefore DevSecOps methodologies have come into the picture, aiming to integrate development, security, and operations. Although some variations of both of these methodologies are now a go-to for development teams, it's important to understand the differences between them to choose the right one.
What Is DevOps?
At its core, DevOps is focused on automation and collaboration between different teams. Namely, it provides a framework for development teams to work together, with the goal of improving performance, availability, stability, and security. To achieve this goal, DevOps incorporates tools such as containerization (e.g., Docker) and Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD).
Thus, the goal of DevOps is to ensure that software applications are developed quickly and efficiently. By automating processes like testing and deployment, the teams can reduce the amount of manual work needed to get an application from development to production. At the same time, by collaborating across teams (developers, operations personnel, testers), everyone can ensure that their code is meeting all the necessary standards and requirements.
Benefits of Using DevOps
The primary benefits of using DevOps are the following:
- More time to market - By automating processes and ensuring collaboration across teams, DevOps enables organizations to get their applications out faster. This leads to quicker product delivery and improved satisfaction on both the client & customer side.
- Increased quality - Automation tools in particular help to reduce manual errors, improving the overall quality of applications. With continuous integration, as is the case with DevOps, teams can also ensure that their code is meeting all the necessary standards and requirements.
- Better scalability - With automated deployment processes, organizations can easily scale up or down as needed. This makes it easier to scale an application as needed, without having to manually build and deploy new versions.
What Is DevSecOps?
DevSecOps is a combination of DevOps and security practices, aiming to combine the speed, agility, and efficiency of DevOps with development methodologies that make the end product secure. By utilizing tools such as automated testing and static analysis, it's possible to ensure that code is secure without sacrificing development speed.
In simpler terms, the goal of DevSecOps is ensuring that, at every stage of the software development lifecycle, security and compliance needs are addressed. This means making sure that code is secure before it's even written by sticking to relevant guidelines and then following them throughout the entire process. So, the biggest advantage of this approach is that development teams can build secure applications quickly and efficiently, without having to sacrifice speed.
Benefits of Using DevSecOps
The primary benefits of DevSecOps are:
- Higher level of security - By utilizing automated security testing and static analysis, organizations can ensure that their applications are secure from the first steps of the development process. So, instead of having security testing at the end of the SDLC, you'll be able to identify and fix potential issues early on.
- Increased compliance - Automated processes help organizations comply with industry standards and regulations more easily. Taking this secure-by-default approach helps teams ensure that their applications are compliant with industry standards and regulations from the beginning.
- More efficiency - With a DevSecOps approach, organizations can reduce manual work and increase the speed of development. Automation tools help to reduce the amount of manual work needed, while still ensuring that security and compliance requirements are met.
Choosing Between DevOps and DevSecOps
When it comes to deciding which methodology is best for your development team, it really depends on the type of applications you are building. If your application will be dealing with sensitive customer data or other sensitive information, then DevSecOps is the right choice as it will ensure that all security needs are met without sacrificing speed.
On the other hand, if your application does not need to be extra secure, then DevOps may be the better option. In this case, you will be able to develop and deploy applications quickly without having the additional overhead of ensuring that all security needs are met.
Conclusion
Ultimately, DevOps and DevSecOps are both great options for organizations looking to improve their development processes. Depending on the type of applications you are building and the security needs of your organization, you may find that one is a better fit than the other. In any case, both approaches will help you to speed up your development process while still maintaining the necessary security and compliance standards.
