DevOps Consulting Services: What Are They? & Why Need Them?

What Do DevOps Consultants Do?

Unlike in-house DevOps engineers, third-party consultants can bring in an element of unbiased objectivity, which is resourceful for the successful DevOps journey of a company or organization. They are experts in DevOps and can advise on the best processes to use, the tools that will help streamline operations, and how to optimize organizational resources for cost-effectiveness.

In brief, these advisors are responsible for designing and implementing customized DevOps solutions that align with the client’s business goals. Their duties encompass creating documentation for various aspects of the project, collaborating with development teams to create a conducive environment for rapid code iterations, monitoring application performance, and troubleshooting issues. Additionally, they provide recommendations for process improvements, support the implementation of new applications by conducting testing and quality assurance, identify and mitigate security threats, develop scripts or tools for automation, and maintain the integrity of an organization’s computing infrastructure through regular patching.

At the end of the day, a DevOps consulting company and its agents will do everything within their power to ensure you adopt DevOps practices in an efficient and expeditious manner.

DevOps consultants often provide on-site consulting services that can help you understand the basics of DevOps and determine whether it’s a good fit for your organization. Generally speaking, such DevOps services are separated into three different types:

• Technical Consulting
• Strategic Consulting
• Operational Consulting

Each type covers different areas of DevOps implementation.

Technical Consulting

As its name suggests, this service aims to provide technical expertise and guidance to assist organizations in designing and developing a consistent DevOps strategy. The ultimate goal is to implement DevOps principles and automation tools properly to create a more efficient, automated, and collaborative software development life cycle.

CI/CD Pipeline

Continuous Integration, or CI, is a development practice in which software developers merge their code changes into a shared repository in a frequent manner, usually multiple times a day. An automated build system verifies each integration by compiling the code and running tests. This approach helps to detect and fix integration issues early. Continuous Deployment (CD) is an extension of Continuous Integration that automates the software releases of new versions. It ensures that the code is always in a releasable state and reduces the time between development and deployment.

CI/CD pipeline consulting services are focused on helping organizations build automated pipelines for seamless software deployment and release. The DevOps experts give guidance to set up the CI/CD pipeline, configuring tools like Jenkins and Kubernetes, and working with other automation processes.

Cloud Computing Services

Cloud computing is a powerful enabler for DevOps teams to collaborate, build, and deploy applications at scale. The DevOps consulting firm helps the organization plan its cloud strategy, migrate its applications, servers, and databases from on-premises data centers to public cloud platforms such as AWS and Azure, and optimize costs. The consultants are also familiar with different cloud models, including Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

Infrastructure as Code or infrastructure automation is a practice where infrastructure management tasks are automated using code and version control systems. IaC allows for the provisioning, configuration, and management of infrastructure components, such as servers, networks, and storage, through code templates. This DevOps approach enables consistency, repeatability, and scalability of infrastructure deployments.

Monitoring & Logging

Monitoring and logging are essential components of the DevOps approach. They help ensure the performance, availability, and security of applications and infrastructure. As part of a DevOps consulting service, monitoring and logging involve the implementation and optimization of tools and processes to collect, analyze, and visualize data from various sources within an IT environment. This enables organizations to proactively identify and address issues, optimize system performance, and make data-driven decisions.

Strategic Consulting

This type of service is geared toward helping businesses to identify pain points in their existing processes and devise a DevOps assessment roadmap. At this point, consultants define their goals, objectives, and long-term plans for successful DevOps implementation. The consultant then makes sure that a suitable set of DevOps tools and methods are chosen to ensure that the organization can achieve the desired results.

DevOps Maturity Assessment

The DevOps maturity model is a systematic evaluation of an organization’s current DevOps practices, capabilities, and culture to determine their maturity level. In this assessment, experts will work with development and operation teams to audit the existing processes, identify weak points, and create an actionable plan to improve the organization’s overall DevOps maturity. The assessment also helps identify the areas where resources can be allocated to gain the most value.

DevOps Governance & Compliance

The adoption of DevOps principles and practices requires the establishment of a robust governance framework. This is what a DevOps consultant will aid you with. The consultants assist the organization in developing and implementing a set of processes, regulations, and policies that control how applications are developed, tested, deployed, and managed on their platform. This ensures a safe environment that complies with industry regulatory standards.

In addition, they also provide guidance on how to best manage changes and ensure compliance with industry standards. The goal is to help organizations achieve agility and scalability without compromising security or compliance. By incorporating these techniques, organizations can ensure that their DevOps environment meets the required standards for safe and secure operations.

Training & Coaching

In addition to consultancy services, consultants also offer DevOps training and skill development programs. These aim to educate business owners and their teams on the principles and practices of DevOps, helping them to understand how its technologies and approaches can benefit their businesses. The training may include topics such as software development life cycle (SDLC) best practices, DevOps tools and processes, configuration management, cloud architecture, and deployment automation.

Process Improvement & Workflow Design

Process improvement is another core service offered by DevOps consultants. This involves analyzing and optimizing existing workflows, identifying process bottlenecks, and providing highly effective solutions to streamline development processes. The consultant gives guidance on designing a workflow that integrates all the necessary components, such as tasks, control points, and feedback loops, for the successful implementation of DevOps practices.

Operational Consulting

In this area of service, DevOps experts work with an organization’s IT department, development team, and other stakeholders to monitor, optimize, and iterate their DevOps processes (such as performance monitoring, capacity planning, and incident response management) to ensure peak efficiency. Additionally, consultants provide guidance and insights on how to build a culture of collaboration between development and operations teams for successful DevOps projects.

Configuration Management

It is a critical aspect of managing and maintaining applications and infrastructure components in a consistent and reliable state. Configuration management involves the process of tracking, controlling, and managing changes to the configurations of software, hardware, and other system components. This helps ensure that all system elements are well-documented, versioned, and can be easily restored to a known state if needed.

DevOps Project Recovery

DevOps project recovery consulting is a specialized service to rescue and revitalize troubled or failing DevOps projects. These projects may be experiencing issues such as missed deadlines, budget overruns, poor performance, low-quality deliverables, or a lack of alignment with business goals. Consultants work closely with the organizations to identify the root causes of the problems, develop a plan to address them and guide the implementation of corrective actions.