Choosing An Ideal DevOps Tool to Accelerate Development

The amalgamation of the development and operations (DevOps) team has enabled businesses to improve their software development life cycle(SDLC). Selecting the right DevOps tool maximizes the collaboration and communication between the development and operations teams. 

Here are some best DevOps tools we use to support automation and collaboration between development and operations team. 

1. Gradel: Introduced in 2009, Gradel enables a software developer to write code in Java, Python, C++, and other languages. 

Popular Features: 

• Popular IDEs like Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, and Netbeans support Gradel 

• Google chose Gradel as an official build tool for Android Studio

• Uses Groovy-based DSL to describe builds

• Availability of Kotlin-based DSL enables mobile app developers to write build scripts in Kotlin

• Uses Maven’s repository format, so dependency management is similar for developers with prior Maven experience

• Supports import of Ant builds

• Gradle’s incremental builds save compilation time

• 100 times faster than Maven 

2. Git: The next on the popularity list is Git, used widely across the software development industry. 

Popular Features

• Distributed SCM(Source Code Management) Tool suitable for open source contributors and remote teams

• Enables tracking of mobile app development work

• Facilitates switching from one source code to the other

To Integrate Git with DevOps workflow, businesses have to host repositories to enable the teams to accelerate software development. GitHub and Bitbucket are the two best GiT repositories available with easy integrations. 

GitHub- Access available for public repositories for free. Suitable to accomplish Git projects. 

Bitbucket- Available with free unlimited private repositories for small teams 

3. Jenkins- A leading DevOps automation tool designed to accelerate SDLC. 

Popular features

• CI/CD server enables developers to automate different stages of the delivery pipeline. 

• Availability of more than 1000 plugins support integration with different DevOps tools including Docker and Puppet

• Easy to customize and set up CI/CD pipeline based on business-specific requirements

• Easy to get started with and performs exceptionally great on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux

• Easy to install with Docker

• Easy to set and configure through a web interface

• Iterates and deploys new codes quickly

• Facilitates measurement of each step of the development pipeline

4. Bamboo- The Choice of professional teams for continuous integration, deployment, and delivery and works similar to Jenkins.  

Popular Features:

• An open-source tool facilitates developers to automate different stages of the delivery pipeline including builds and deployment 

• Easy to use pre-built functionalities and 100+ plugins support integration with different DevOps tools 

• Facilitates seamless integration with Jira and Bitbucket

• Available with intuitive UI, tooltips, auto-completion, and other handy features.

• Provides access to built-in Git and Mercurial branching workflows and test environments.

5. Docker- Launched in 2013, Docker has made containerization popular in the tech world. 

Popular Features

• Operating System and Platform Independent

• Automates deployment of apps and makes distributed development possible 

• Isolates apps into separate containers, making them secure and portable

• Docker containers can be used instead of virtual machines like VirtualBox.

• Dependencies can be packed within the app’s container and shipped as an independent unit to run apps on different platforms 

• Integrated seamlessly with Bamboo and Jenkins to improve delivery workflows

• Ideal for cloud computing- Added by AWS and Google Cloud 

6. Kubernetes- Released in 2015 by Google Engineers, Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration platform to automate deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.  

Popular Features

• Facilitates grouping of containers into logical units

• A logical step towards finding a solution to development complexities and scaling resources

• Enables developers to automate the process of managing hundreds of containers.

• Deployed to a cluster of computers to eliminate tying with containerized apps 

• Automates the distribution and scheduling of containers across the whole cluster

• Kubernetes cluster has a master and several worker nodes. The master node executes developers' pre-defined rules and deploys containers to the worker nodes. 

• Evenly Redistributes the containers when the worker node is down. 

7. Puppet Enterprise- A cross-platform configuration management platform.

Popular Features 

• Automates infrastructure management to accelerate the delivery of software 
• Facilitates the management of infrastructure as code. 
• Provides an additional open-source tool to accomplish small projects
• Puppet Enterprise extra features like Real-time reports, Role-based access control, and Node management support large enterprises 
• Manages multiple teams and thousands of resources
• With more than 5000 modules, Puppet integrates flawlessly with other DevOps tools

8. Ansible- a Configuration management tool that works similar to Chef and Puppet. 

Popular Features 

• Simple and easy to use

• Configures infrastructure and automates deployment

• Infrastructure as Code approach is same as Puppet

• Uses the super simple YAML syntax to define tasks 

• Agentless architecture since no daemons or agents run in the background

• secure and lightweight solution for configuration management automation

• several modules integrate flawlessly with other DevOps tools 

Choosing a right DevOps tool requires testing and experimentation. It usually takes more time to set up and configure open-source tools. Commercial DevOps tools come with free trials to enable developers test and evaluate the right one.

Planning to deploy a DevOps tool that supports automation and collaboration between teams? We are an established DevOps consulting service company. Click this link to talk to our experts today!