As technology advances, so do the trends associated with it. DevOps is no exception. Now more than ever, organizations are recognizing the value of DevOps and its power to optimize development and operations. As we move through 2022 and into 2023, it’s important to stay ahead of the curve and understand the trends that will be driving DevOps in the years to come.
2022 was an exciting year for DevOps technology, as organizations increasingly recognized the importance of automation and collaboration to achieve success. Companies that took an agile approach to DevOps saw considerable improvements in efficiency and productivity. This was underpinned by the continued adoption of cloud computing and the rise of containerization. Furthermore, the increasing popularity of DevOps-as-a-Service (DaaS) solutions meant that organizations of all sizes were able to benefit from DevOps practices without the need for a dedicated DevOps team.
Cloud-native architectures, serverless computing, and containers were widely adopted, with more organizations embracing them as the way of the future. This allowed teams to quickly deploy, scale, and manage applications in an agile and efficient manner. AI/ML tools became a staple in the DevOps toolbox, allowing teams to more quickly and efficiently deliver software updates and features and to detect anomalies in code, making it easier to identify potential problems before they become serious issues. Security continued to be a major priority, with organizations investing heavily in the latest technologies and best practices to ensure their systems were secure and reliable.
At the same time, DevOps teams also began to focus on improving their collaboration and communication allowing teams to move faster and be more responsive to customer needs and feedback.
We have seen a lot of exciting developments in the DevOps space in the past year, but what do the trends in 2023 have in store? Let’s take a look at the major trends that we can expect to see in the DevOps space this year.
Increase in Kubernetes adoption and deployments
2022 saw a significant increase in the adoption of Kubernetes, making it the de facto container orchestration platform. This is due to its flexibility and scalability, allowing organizations to quickly spin up and tear down applications in the cloud. Furthermore, the rise of DevOps has allowed the platform to become a key component of the cloud infrastructure.
The popularity of Kubernetes has been further bolstered by its integration with the cloud-native stack. It supports a variety of applications, including microservices, serverless, and databases, making it a go-to choice for organizations looking to leverage the cloud. As a result, the number of Kubernetes deployments increased dramatically in 2022. This trend is expected to continue into 2023, with more companies adopting Kubernetes for their cloud-native solutions.
It is expected that Kubernetes will soon dominate the market, with every organization turning to this platform for deployment. The level of support from the community and the impressive growth rate of the platform shows no sign of slowing down, allowing Kubernetes to remain the go-to choice for deployment needs.
Serverless Computing Will Become Widespread
Serverless computing has emerged as a major trend in the tech industry and is expected to become even more popular in 2023. This approach to computing allows organizations to develop and run services and applications without the need to manage servers, making it a highly innovative and efficient method of software deployment. According to Gartner, by 2025, over 85% of organizations will be using a cloud computing strategy, with 95% of new digital workloads taking place on cloud platforms. This means that any organization that does not adopt serverless computing may struggle to keep up with the competition.
The serverless market is projected to reach $30 billion by 2030, and already, more than 50% of enterprises with cloud-based courses have integrated serverless computing into their systems. The DevOps process has particularly benefited from this trend, as it has helped bridge the gap between development and operations and streamline the code for the DevOps pipeline. One example of the successful implementation of serverless computing is Autodesk, a company that specializes in designing software for architecture, engineering, construction, and manufacturing. By expanding its AWS footprint and implementing AWS Dynamodb and AWS Lambda, Autodesk was able to significantly reduce the time required for account creation from two weeks to just ten minutes.
Serverless computing offers numerous benefits to engineers, including the ability to reduce workload by eliminating server management, lower costs by only paying for server space as needed, and easily scale and deploy while decreasing latency. As such, it’s a trend worth paying attention to in 2023.
Microservices architecture adoption will continue to grow
Microservices architecture is an increasingly popular structure for designing, building and managing applications. This approach helps DevOps professionals develop applications that are more modular, decoupled from other components, and easier to maintain and scale. By separating a complex application into smaller, more manageable services, DevOps professionals have more control over individual parts of the application. This makes it easier to update and troubleshoot bugs. Additionally, microservices allow DevOps professionals to quickly respond to customer requirements by creating new services or updating existing ones.
The ability to develop and deploy services in a way that offers scalability, flexibility, and agility is a major reason why DevOps professionals have come to embrace microservices. In an ever-evolving IT landscape, companies need to be able to quickly and easily adapt to changes in the industry. Microservices are a great way to do this, as they allow for the development and deployment of services in small, easily manageable pieces. As such, DevOps professionals should be keeping an eye out for the continued development of microservices in the coming years.
Security automation will gain momentum
Security automation involves automating security processes and tasks to ensure the security and protection of applications and systems from potential threats. In 2023, DevOps professionals should keep an eye on the growth of security automation and the adoption of the security-as-code methodology.
One way that organizations are implementing security automation is by using tools like Harness Security Testing Automation (STO), which allows for the automation of unit, integration, and load testing within the CI/CD pipeline. This can save valuable engineering time and reduce overall cloud costs. Security automation integrated into your CI/CD pipeline guarantees that code is subjected to rigorous security testing prior to deployment to production. This ensures that only code that has been verified as secure is allowed to progress. Additionally, the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in the software development lifecycle (SDLC) is becoming more common as these technologies can be trained to identify irregularities in code and provide suggestions for improvement.
Security-as-code solutions, on the other hand, integrate security testing into the CI/CD pipeline, allowing organizations to enforce security policies throughout the development process. This helps to ensure that security is considered at every stage of the development process, rather than being an afterthought. Both security automation and security-as-code solutions can save valuable engineering time and reduce overall cloud costs while maintaining a high level of security.
In 2023, security automation will gain even more momentum as organizations look to streamline and automate their security processes. Security automation tools will become increasingly sophisticated, with features such as automated security testing, vulnerability scans, and continuous security monitoring. This will allow organizations to quickly and efficiently identify and address security risks before they become major issues.
An increase in chaos engineering experiments:
Chaos engineering is a relatively new field that has gained popularity in recent years, and it is expected to continue growing in the coming years.
Chaos engineering is a strategic approach that involves testing the resilience and reliability of products, services, and systems by subjecting them to extreme conditions. This helps organizations to understand the behavior of their systems and applications under such conditions and ensure that they are able to withstand them. The goal of chaos engineering is to identify “imperfections” in the deployment process, such as long cycle times, and prevent failures. Rather than trying to eliminate failures, chaos engineers aim to mitigate them, by pinpointing where imperfections occur and automating fixes.
We believe that the use of chaos engineering and chaos principles will become more widespread in 2023 as organizations recognize the importance of ensuring the high availability and resilience of their products and services. As the adoption of chaos engineering grows, it is also likely that new tools and best practices will be developed to help organizations better understand and manage the complexity of their systems.
Docker will continue to enhance the developer experience
Docker is a popular tool among developers that simplifies the development lifecycle by allowing them to quickly build, package and deploy applications in the cloud. The appeal of Docker is its simplicity and the way it quickly brings containerized apps into the production environment.
Despite initial assumptions that Docker would be rendered obsolete when Kubernetes deprecated its support, this is not the case. It is important to note that Docker was not designed with Kubernetes in mind from the outset. Docker has managed to maintain its popularity due to the large community of developers that use it and the ease of use it offers.
The community surrounding Docker is impressive and unparalleled, its wide adoption and strong community support make it a reliable choice for developers looking to streamline their workflow and increase productivity. As a result, Docker is expected to remain a key player in the DevOps space in the coming years fueling a trend toward more collaborative development workflows.
A DevOps trend to watch for in 2023 is the continued enhancement of the developer experience by Docker. The company is already developing new tools and features to make the deployment process simpler, faster, and more efficient. Its focus is on streamlining operations while also providing an intuitive user experience. As such, companies that adopt Docker can expect to experience a greater level of agility and scalability.
GitOps will gain more trust
In GitOps, developers store their code in a Git repository and then deploy it to a Kubernetes cluster. The advantage of this approach is that developers can keep their code in source control and not have to worry about managing the Kubernetes cluster.
In the past few years, GitOps has gained significant traction among DevOps professionals as a way to increase the speed, reliability, and security of software delivery. In 2023, we expect to see GitOps gain even more trust and adoption among organizations looking to improve their software delivery processes.
There are several reasons why we believe GitOps will continue to grow in popularity in 2023. First, GitOps enables organizations to adopt a more declarative approach to managing their applications and infrastructure. This means that rather than manually configuring and deploying resources, developers can simply commit their desired state to Git and let automation tools handle the rest. This can help reduce the risk of errors and improve the speed and reliability of software delivery.
GitOps promotes collaboration and transparency within development teams. By using Git as the central source of truth, everyone on the team can see the changes that are being made and the current state of the system. This can help reduce conflicts and improve communication among team members.
GitOps can help organizations improve the security of their software delivery process. By using Git as the single source of truth and automating the deployment process, organizations can reduce the risk of unauthorized changes and ensure that only approved changes are deployed to production.
As GitOps continues to gain traction in the DevOps world, it is expected that it will only continue to grow in the coming years. This is due to its ability to simplify the DevOps process and make it easier for developers to deploy their code. As a result, GitOps is sure to become one of the leading DevOps trends to watch for in 2023. Specifically, trust in GitOps will continue to increase as developers become more aware of its benefits. GitOps gains even more trust as more organizations adopt it and it becomes a standard part of the DevOps process.
AIOps will become prominent
MLOps and AIOps are two of the most prominent DevOps tools that are expected to become a major players in the industry, with a projected value of $40.91 billion by 2026. These tools are essential for optimizing DevOps operations and enabling high-quality, quick releases. MLOps helps to strengthen the development system of machine learning, while AIOps automates IT processes and operations.
AIOps is a powerful tool that can automate complex DevOps processes and enable teams to quickly detect and address any potential issues. It can also provide insight into the performance of DevOps processes and identify any potential issues before they can cause any disruption. AIOps is often used as part of the DevOps toolchain to monitor and manage these systems in real-time, providing automated feedback to integrated tools and DevOps engineers. AIOps can also be used to automate certain tasks, such as application testing and deployment, which can significantly reduce the time and effort needed to complete DevOps tasks.
In 2023, AIOps is expected to continue to grow in popularity as organizations seek to increase their IT performance and reduce the manual labor involved in managing complex digital systems.
Internal developer platforms will become more important
By 2022, the DevOps trend that upended how companies built software has evolved into a software delivery approach that links development and operations by breaking down silos.
An internal developer platform is a set of tools and services that are specifically designed for use by an organization’s developers and are typically hosted within the organization’s own infrastructure.
Internal developer platforms provide engineering teams with a centralized hub to collaborate and share resources. This can help with the learning and development of in-house developers, enabling them to increase their technical knowledge, and allowing them to easily work on projects with other engineering teams. Such platforms can also help to reduce errors and improve code quality, as resources are shared and reviewed more easily. In 2023, we expect to see a trend toward increased adoption of internal developer platforms within organizations.
DevOps Collaboration will go mainstream
DevOps’ philosophy involves breaking down the walls between software developers and development operations teams and allowing them to collaborate on building, testing and deploying software. As more organizations pursue agile development, they also are raising barriers between developers and systems. Organizations such as Amazon, Google and Stripe all rely on DevOps collaboration to foster speed and innovation.
Collaborative work is changing, and executives are using new software tools to help them monitor workflows. DevOps teams using tools from Slack, Microsoft Teams, GitHub and Atlassian have greater visibility into their workflows. In the next two years, DevOps leadership will continue to see DevOps collaboration go mainstream and new ways to manage it will emerge.
Bottomline
As IT organizations implement DevOps initiatives, they will undoubtedly face a number of challenges that will test their ability to manage change, collaborate across teams and work effectively under constant pressure. Most IT organizations will realize it’s necessary to engage all stakeholders in DevOps, including the business, so they all understand the reasoning behind the approaches being implemented.
In 2023, DevOps teams will continue to advance their adoption rate as their buy-in from business executives increases. DevOps teams will continue their focus on automation, migrating applications to cloud platforms, rolling out Docker containers, and building container orchestration tools, as well as extending their focus to security. more companies will embed DevOps into the fabric of their operations. This development will entail major changes to the way organizations develop, deploy, and run applications, as well as to the ways they support their teams. In addition to adopting DevOps practices, organizations will adapt digital practices to achieve greater value and quality from the software they develop and deploy and manage the digital transformation of their enterprises.
