The foundation of DevOps is continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD). However, some claim that this conflicts with the ITIL® structure. Does that imply that ITIL® is no longer applicable? Do businesses using DevOps have to entirely abandon ITIL®? Or can the two work together?
Let’s review a little bit about ITIL® and DevOps!
ITIL® Framework
The ITIL® framework is the most extensively used and approved in the world for ITSM. The latest version, ITIL 4®, continues to offer the direction organizations need to address new service management challenges. It also strongly emphasizes on customer experience and value, which also ensures that any improvement initiatives are in line with the organization's objectives.
DevOps
DevOps, unlike ITIL®, doesn’t consist of a framework for carrying out processes. DevOps is an entirely new way of thinking that requires a cultural change. You may develop a culture of collaboration and break down silos by bringing the Dev and Ops teams together, which will make it easier for you to produce high-quality software at scale.
After defining and comparing the ITIL® and DevOps, you might wonder: Can organizations use both together?
Yes, ITIL® and DevOps can work together!
From a DevOps perspective, ITIL® may appear like a large set of speed bumps that will only hinder the progress. However, DevOps have the ability to improve upon and reinforce the ITIL® framework for greater business outcomes. Additionally, ITIL® offers various advantages that can enhance the DevOps mindset. As DevOps continues to develop throughout the organization, ITIL® can offer a different set of approaches due to its well-understood processes and outlined principles.
The key for organizations to successfully combine ITIL® and DevOps s is to modify ITIL® to operate within the context of DevOps— without hindering it.
Breaking Down the Mutual Relationship between ITIL® and DevOps!
Successful IT implementation needs both ITIL® and DevOps. How do they work together that creates a beneficial relationship for business?
1. Speed up new releases with DevOps
The agile strategy used by DevOps benefits from both speed and risk management because small, frequent releases move through development more quickly and are simpler to roll back or fix in the event of an incident.
2. Prevent incidents with ITIL® and DevOps
You’ll get fewer and shorter incidents when you combine the incident management procedures contained in ITIL® with the DevOps emphasis on automating review processes, doing examination, and adopting a "you made it, you operate it" attitude.
3. Get to the bottom of incidents with DevOps
A culture of blamelessness is one of the most beneficial aspects of DevOps. This doesn’t mean that engineers don’t take responsibility for errors, but they can speak openly about them. Instead of only focusing on one individual as the issue in a series of events leading to an incident, this culture shift enables teams to investigate occurrences more quickly and concentrate on genuine repairs.
Conclusion
DevOps is so much more than automated development. It's a culture of collaboration and blamelessness. Likewise, ITIL is so much more than paperwork. Teams don’t have to work more slowly or experience needless bureaucracy problems.
Using ITIL® and DevOps together improves collaboration between IT and the business, and it also increases customer satisfaction due to better service delivery and issue management. ITIL offers a tried-and-true foundation, where DevOps offers improvement with the unbiased review, automation, and other collaborative ways that simplify every IT process.
The proven principles of ITIL®, when combined with the adaptability of DevOps, may produce speed and control, two concepts that practitioners have long desired to use in the same sentence.
Reference:
Atlassian. (n.d.). DevOps vs. ITIL - Which Matters for your Team? https://www.atlassian.com/itsm/itil/devops-vs-itil
GeeksforGeeks. (2022). Difference between DevOpS and ITIL. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/difference-between-devops-and-itil/
Shiff, L. (2021). ITIL vs DevOps: Can DevOps & ITIL Work Together? BMC Blogs. https://www.bmc.com/blogs/itil-vs-and-devops/
Smalley, M. (2019). ITIL 4 and DevOps: a cultural perspective Discussion Paper. https://www.axelos.com/resource-hub/white-paper/itil-4-and-devops-a-cultural-perspective
