Technical debt-related problems cannot all be solved via DevOps. However, it can monitor code quality, decrease bugs, and discover debt early, reducing the buildup of debt and aiding in keeping it below a manageable threshold.
Technical debt is inevitable. The development process and the quality of the final product may suffer if it is not addressed. Technical debt must be paid off eventually, but preventing it is preferable to pay it off later. According to Gartner’s “How to Assess Infrastructure Technical Debt to Prioritize Legacy Modernization Investments,” and operations professionals who can actively manage and minimize technical debt can achieve 50% faster delivery times.
In the IT sector, DevOps has become the answer to many problems. It can also deal with the problem of technical debt. Here are four methods for how DevOps can assist companies in managing and lowering technical debt.
Energize DevOps teams
Motivating DevOps teams, which oversee the complete software development lifecycle from “development to deployment,” is one of the best ways to address technical debt. The management must proactively encourage and reward this team for eliminating technical debt because these teams deal with it on a daily basis.
The first and most significant thing the DevOps teams must do is determine the degree of technological debt. Managers must schedule sprints to rework the debt-induced cruft after the team determines the debt. To help firms analyze their initiatives and obtain an assessment of the total technical debt, it is advisable to consult an outside expert.
Leaders must also refrain from taking on additional debt when developing new products. They can prevent incurring additional debt by using a SaaS or pay-as-you-go model and ensuring that the project is completed within budget.
Analyze and fix serious issues first
Due to improved team collaboration, the DevOps lifecycle has lean, brief feedback cycles and quicker iterations. As a result, fixes for bugs, usability problems, and security vulnerabilities can be applied immediately. Major issues that could affect users or operations are also swiftly resolved.
Organizations can further improve the process by classifying or ranking problems as per priority, in order to decide which ones to address first.
Container deployment
The code and all of its dependencies are packaged into lightweight entities called containers, which make it possible for them to execute in any environment. The entire development life cycle is expedited by portability and platform independence.
Micro services and big applications can both be executed efficiently in containers. This allows the team the freedom to restructure the development life cycle while enabling them to concentrate on the development process.
Use the API-first approach
Technical debt is frequently brought on by various systems requesting services and data in ways that other teams may not anticipate. Therefore, how application elements communicate is also crucial in resolving technical debt.
Application Programming Interface (API) implementation boosts the visibility of interfaces and the longevity of communications. Teams can make changes fast in an API-based architecture without affecting current structures, thanks to the loose connectivity between applications.
Any team that later engages with the service in question has a set of expectations that are very well established. As a result, rolling out features and modifications is more straightforward and involves less technical debt.
