Today, DevOps is integral to quickly releasing a high-quality digital product. It ensures developers and operations work hand in hand in a project from start to finish, ensuring faster and more reliable delivery.
DevOps tools are necessary to bring the principles of DevOps to life, making collaboration, automation, and continuous improvement more manageable and efficient. For DevOps professionals, knowing and effectively using DevOps tools is beneficial and crucial.
This article will spotlight the best DevOps tools for this year and share helpful tips for choosing the right ones. If you want to understand the top tools used for DevOps better, our DevOps program is ideal.
What are DevOps Tools?
A portmanteau of two words, ‘development’ and ‘operations,’ DevOps serves as the bridge between the development team and the operations team. As such, DevOps tools are applications such as utility programs, software, and platforms that are used by the software developers and the IT operations team to work on products and services collaboratively.
Here’s why they are critical for a streamlined software release:
- Better workflow automation
- Improved stability of software development and deployment
- Optimization of various business verticals
- Greater speed of software development, testing, and release
- Better quality of the application
- Enhanced code production quality
- Better collaboration between multiple teams
- Better allocation of time to infrastructure improvements
Types of DevOps Tools
DevOps life cycle is a multi-step process, from development and integration to operation and monitoring. Each stage has unique needs and requires diverse tools. These tools are categorized based on their function in the DevOps cycle, such as
- Continuous Development of the code and features
- Continuous Integration of features into the main framework
- Continuous Delivery of the code changes in the software
- Continuous Testing of the software for flaws and bugs
- Continuous Deployment of the software to the end user
- Continuous Feedback from the end user regarding the experience and issues
- Continuous Monitoring of the software for its operation in remote and diverse environments
- Continuous Operation to automate software releases, identify issues, and upgrade the software
Further, the tools are also distinguished based on their functions, such as:
- Automation, to automate repetitive tasks in the workflow such as iterative testing and code changes
- Performance monitoring for assessing software and infrastructure performance and reporting the status
- Version control to track the code and feature changes in software
- Container management for monitoring and managing the libraries, frameworks, codes, etc., in a container application
- Configuration management to supervise the configuration modifications of the system functions
The hallmark of a reputed DevOps bootcamp is a comprehensive curriculum that acquaints the participants with the intricacies of these tools.
Top DevOps Tools to Watch Out for in 2024
In this section, we will delve deeper into the top tools for each step of the DevOps process.
Tools for Continuous Development
Tools for continuous development possess great coding, code sharing, and code tracking capabilities to ensure an efficient team effort, such as the ones described below.
GitHub
GitHub is used for creating software code in a collaborative manner while continuously tracking the code changes made by different team members. Its key benefits are:
- Robust collaborative features
- Smooth automation of CI/CD steps, approvals, issue management, and onboarding.
- Simultaneous securing of code and identifying vulnerabilities.
Jira
Jira is a go-to software offered by the Atlassian platform for agile software development. It has functional flexibility and can quickly adjust without affecting the software quality. Its chief benefits are:
- Multiple templates for planning and visualizing tasks and timelines
- Allows connecting various tools without a hitch
- Customization and easy scaling of workflows
AWS Cloud9
AWS Cloud9 is offered by Amazon Web services as a cloud-based integrated development environment for writing, compiling, and testing code in a browser. It consists of code editor, debugger, and terminal. It has certain key advantages such as:
- Contains integration tools for common programming languages
- Can be used anywhere without a restriction on the location
- Real-time collaboration
Tools for Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD)
Continuous integration and continuous delivery require tools that can collate, automate, and release the code changes throughout the team. Here are some of the best DevOps tools for CI/CD.
Jenkins
Jenkins is an open-source server that enables easy collaboration, automation, and tracking software. It has multiple plugins that facilitate a streamlined CI/CD experience. Its key benefits are:
- Can be installed on any system supported by Java
- User-friendly and customizable
- Allows building and testing across the master-slave architecture
TeamCity
TeamCity is offered by JetBrains as a CI/CD tool for building CI/CD pipelines and flexible workflows. It can integrate with Visual Studio and IDEs and runs on Java. TeamCity has certain benefits given below:
- Enables parallel builds on multiple environments
- Offers option to reuse settings of parent project for subprojects
- CI server is stable, functional, and extendable
Concourse
Concourse is an open-source tool built on the Pivotal platform for a streamlined CI/CD process. It enables open collaboration using the RFC process and governance models. Its chief benefits include:
- Versatile, expressive, and safe environment
- Pipeline can be configured as a code and viewed in the web UI
- Capable of scaling as per complexity.
DevOps Tools for Continuous Testing
Continuous testing tools help verify the code, in part or in full, and communicate it efficiently without affecting other operations. Some of the popular tools are:
JUnit
JUnit is a testing framework in the Java language, and the current version is JUnit5. It promotes regular testing for small portions of the code so that the issues can be resolved during the coding rather than at the end. Some of its key benefits are:
- Simple, requires less time
- Testing and feedback reporting is automated
- Test methods can be identified by annotations
Travis
Travis is a popular testing tool that enables smooth integration of the CI/CD process. It can be connected to GitHub and Assembla and offers certain key benefits given below:
- Enable simultaneous testing on multiple environments and several coding languages
- Highlights bugs and flaws in the code for easy identification
- Controlled project building and testing
Selenium
Selenium is an open-source tool for an automated testing procedure across platforms. It enables testing for the operational efficiency of the software in diverse environments. Some of its chief benefits include:
- Can be integrated with other tools easily
- Enables parallel testing
- Is independent of the platform and can be used for all operating systems
Tools for Continuous Deployment
Continuous deployment is an immensely critical step where the tools smoothly transfer the application with all the features and libraries. Here are some well-known tools:
Kubernetes
Kubernetes is a popular open-source tool capable of containerizing applications for streamlined deployment and management. It is also referred to as K8s. Its primary benefits include:
- Automated releases of code modifications
- Can be upscaled without a change in the team
- Good flexibility for a local as well as global application
Docker
Docker is a tool that enables a smooth deployment with the help of container development in multiple environments such as AWS, Azure, etc. It can further be integrated with popular tools like GitHub, CircleCI, and BitBucket. Here are a few of its key benefits:
- High speed of deployment
- Efficient and continuous maintenance
- Can be used across systems
Ansible
Ansible is a well-known platform based on Python for continuous deployment, offering both platform-managed and self-managed options. It has great automation capabilities that facilitate system configuration, workflow management, and advanced software deployment. Its key benefits include:
- User-friendly and simple
- Highly secure and reliable
- Capable of iterative and batch deployment of updates
DevOps Tools for Continuous Feedback
Continuous feedback is crucial as only then can an application be deployed in an error-free form. While almost all tools have this capability, some stand out, such as:
Buddy
Buddy is a commercial platform primarily used to work with codes from GitHub and BitBucket. It assists in automation in continuous integration, deployment, and feedback. Here are some key benefits:
- Enables modification to developed codes
- Minimalistic and user-friendly design
- Provides hints and presets
JFrog
JFrog is a platform that helps build, automate, and distribute software. It is primarily a supply chain platform capable of maximum release security and visibility. Its benefits for continuous feedback are as follows:
- Efficient feedback loops for continuous learning
- Early and quick feedback
- Easily integrable with existing systems
Tools for Continuous Monitoring
Tools for continuous monitoring are required to collect log data, analyze it, and present metrics efficiently. Some of the popular tools in this category are:
Prometheus
Prometheus is an open-source system that enables the monitoring of applications, servers, and containers. The metrics are monitored by the feature called Alert Manager. Its chief benefits are:
- Uses autonomous single server nodes
- Enables multi-dimensional data model with time series collection via a pull model
- Supports several graphing and dashboarding modes
New Relic
New Relic is a tool that enables the monitoring of applications such as PHP, Java, and NOdeJX. It is a SaaS-based application providing real-time performance monitoring. It has certain vital benefits such as:
- Capable of retrieving monitoring data from diverse tools
- Can monitor the performance of SQL and NOSQL databases
- Efficient incident management and timely alerts
DataDog
DataDog is a SaaS-based tool that enables comprehensive monitoring of data from multiple sources. It can be used for monitoring the performance of networks, software, cloud, infrastructure, and containers. Its main benefits are:
- Capable of tracking requests across various systems
- Automatically gathers log data and sends alerts based on the analysis
- Efficient dashboards to visualize errors, load times, and other metrics
Tools for Continuous Operation
Continuous operation is the collaborative manner in which the team follows all the steps of DevOps. Some unique tools helpful for this function are:
Puppet
Puppet is an open-source tool for automated configuration and operation throughout the application lifecycle. It can examine, rework, and deliver the software with interactive feedback. Some of its key benefits are:
- Improves efficiency by reducing siloes and response times
- Applies task-based configuration management
- Ensures continuous compliance by repetitive verification
GitLab
GitLab is a platform with comprehensive libraries and frameworks to assist in continuous operation. It has AI capabilities for workflow and code management. Here are its chief benefits:
- Workflow management for all team sizes
- Smooth organization and planning of the project
- Automation of iterations with iteration cadences at the group level
Tips to Choose the Right Tools for DevOps in 2024
Here are some tips for choosing the right DevOps tool:
- The collaboration capability of the tool must be high
- Note the integrating capability of the tools with other tools
- Check if the tool can customize the workflow
- The tool must be able to note all the change requests
- Verify what metrics the tool can log
- Confirm that the tool can test all the features you develop
- The dashboards must be legible and detailed
Learn DevOps Tools and Other Basics
For any aspiring DevOps professional, there is no time like the present to join the massive workforce predicted to grow by 25 percent by 2032. A deep understanding of the fundamentals of development and operations is necessary for pursuing this career.
A future-ready DevOps bootcamp will equip you with knowledge about the DevOps methodology and information about configuration management, CI/CD, and deployment automation.
