During my time at Forbytes as a DevOps, I’ve handled numerous client development requests. As a rule, they come to Forbytes to either build e-commerce platforms from scratch or to enhance and modernize existing ones. This isn’t a problem for our engineering team with their skills and expertise.
Frankly speaking, for me, the biggest challenge isn’t just promising top-notch software to our clients. It’s about understanding their needs and requirements and then turning them into an advanced and profitable solution. I think that most DevOps know what I mean.
What do we usually hear from our customers? “I don’t need a DevOps expert for my project. This is costly, and I see no rationale to involve them”. Okay, sure. At Forbytes, we respect our clients and follow their requirements.
Starting a project without DevOps may seem to be a cost-effective decision. But indeed, this is only on the surface. In large and complex projects, the lack of DevOps can lead to poor collaboration with a team and delays.
Then, suppose a client has a promising business idea but doesn’t know how to implement it technically. In that case, there is a high probability that the development process won’t be as smooth and planned as if it were with DevOps.
That’s why I want to debunk this claim and prove that DevOps plays a vital role in your e-commerce project. So, let’s embark on my DevOps e-commerce journey together with you to arm you with some helpful tips and best practices.
How DevOps Expertise Can Fuel Your E-commerce Project
Often, the first question that comes to a client’s mind when they hear DevOps is which tools a company uses. Another thought that emerges in our customers is that hiring DevOps will be costly for their project. Some clients request the development team without DevOps because they believe they won’t add much value to their solution.
But I want to debunk all these myths and show how DevOps expertise can fuel your e-commerce project and handle all emerging pain points.
Getting your product out faster
At Forbytes, we often have clients who express this to us: “Could you speed up the development process? I need this solution ASAP”. Of course, it’s possible to deliver a product faster. Here’s how we can accelerate time to market with DevOps practices.
First, I encourage the use of continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) to implement and deploy new features and fix bugs. This step is needed to automate software development workflows and ensure high-speed software release.
Second, we focus on automating repetitive tasks such as code integration, testing, and deployment to reduce the probability of human errors and speed up the development cycle.
Finally, I encourage collaboration between all stakeholders involved in the software delivery process. I believe that they should team up to ensure that they pursue the same goal and can deliver value to our clients.
Better stability and performance
We all know at least one company facing performance drops after the platform’s release. Why does this happen? First, the focus on the app delivery time may shift the attention from its quality. Second, the absence of DevOps on the project can play a bad joke.
When loads of people are hitting your online store during big shopping days like Black Friday or Christmas, you need your e-commerce system to handle all that traffic without crashing. That’s where DevOps steps in and makes sure everything flows smoothly.
With DevOps, you’ll be more armed against undesirable scenarios and drop-offs. So see how I can guarantee better stability and performance through such vital components like continuous testing and monitoring.
With continuous testing and monitoring, together with my team, we can catch bugs early and prevent post-release failures. This approach not only minimizes risks but also fosters a culture of quality.
What’s more, by continuously testing and monitoring our client’s software, we can identify and address emerging issues and optimize its work and scalability.
As a result, DevOps can guarantee better stability and performance of your e-commerce solution, leading you to happier customers and greater business excellence.
Smooth scaling
Scaling up is a must for your e-commerce project and a seamless pathway to growth. But did you know that scaling up and DevOps go hand in hand? See how it works.
DevOps fosters collaboration and communication between development and operations teams by creating conditions to scale up the system. The more tasks are automated, the better organizations handle increased workloads without sacrificing speed or quality.
Moreover, DevOps focuses on continued improvements, providing feedback that allows teams to adapt and develop as they scale. This approach ensures that as the company is growing, its system and processes will remain responsive to changing demands.
All in all, scaling up with DevOps is more efficient for growth management and faster delivery of value to customers. Plus, this is a good way to resist fierce competition in e-commerce.
Improving productivity while cutting expenses
If you have financial limits and still think that DevOps services are costly, let us prove the opposite. With DevOps on your project, you’ll boost productivity while cutting expenses. But if cost reduction is your top priority, you can adopt FinOps. With FinOps, you’ll be able to use your resources more effectively and make the most out of your expenditure.
DevOps will ensure that your app will get more frequent updates without affecting production. As a result, you’ll receive a high-quality solution, more satisfied customers, and more market opportunities.
You know that customers are not eager to wait for store updates, especially if there are so many online stores to choose from. If your platform is slow to load, your business may deal with financial losses. With DevOps, you’re insured against unexpected system crashes and performance drops.
Finally, more automated processes mean reduced production prices. With DevOps, there is no need to change code manually – you’ll get a code that will automate many processes.
Ready to boost your e-commerce project? Let our DevOps examine your goals and streamline your processes. Contact us to optimize your system today.
Guide on How to Implement DevOps in E-commerce
After you’ve figured out how DevOps can supercharge your e-commerce project, you should carefully plan out the implementation process. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you get started:
Step 1: Assess the current state of your system and your needs
The first thing you should do is to define your project’s size and evaluate your current development, deployment, and operations processes. If you have a middle-sized or big project, you may need two DevOps to get you covered.
Identify your pain points and bottlenecks as they should become your starting points to build an effective implementation plan. If you do get stuck, ask for customer feedback to find out what improvements you may need.
Step 2: Build a culture of teamwork
If you intend to involve DevOps in your e-commerce project, you might be tempted to just hire a specialist without preparing your team for this. But don’t skip the process of creating and fostering a culture of teamwork because this will affect how you’ll team up with DevOps.
The philosophy of a culture of teamwork is based on collaborative technical support and finding common ground between various stakeholders.
I recommend you also establish open communication channels between development, operations, and other relevant teams. All team members should feel comfortable, sharing ideas, feedback, and concerns.
Step 3: Choose the right tools
At Forbytes, we’re client-oriented, we listen to our customer’s wishes, and we’re open to their proposals. Of course, my duty as a DevOps is to evaluate the chosen tools to share all their pluses and minuses with the client. Then, it’s up to the customer to opt for these tools or find better alternatives with our expert help.
The wrong choice of tools can lead to problems and difficulties throughout the project development journey. That’s why I recommend applying CI/CD tools to automate and ensure faster delivery of high-quality updates.
Step 4: Measure DevOps impact on your e-commerce
If you want to track the effectiveness of DevOps practices for your online store, choose key performance indicators like customer satisfaction or revenue. Plus, you can employ tools to monitor infrastructure, app performance, and user experience in real time. Finally, collect feedback from teams, customers, and leaders to pinpoint areas for improvement.
Measuring success within a company is vital for scaling and better understanding the state of a system. Plus, this point is good to have to see how it works and what improvements it requires.
Insights From My DevOps Experience
There are some important points I’ve tried to make throughout this story, but I want to recap them now to make my insights more clear.
Key principles and values in my DevOps work
From my DevOps experience at Forbytes, I’ve highlighted the following principles and values to which I stay committed in my work:
- Collaboration: I promote communication and teamwork among different teams involved in software development. Such practices as regular meetings, stand-ups, shared responsibility, and cross-functional teams assist me in ensuring e-commerce project success.
- Automation: I encourage automating repetitive tasks and processes to speed up product delivery.
- Continuous improvement: I promote regularly assessing and enhancing processes, tools, and workflows.
- Customer-centricity: The customer is at the center of development efforts. I regularly monitor customer feedback to track their satisfaction level and understand what changes should be made.
- Flexibility and agility: I promote the ability to adapt to transformations and respond to challenges as opportunities for further growth.
These principles and values assist me in supporting teams, ensuring quality work, and delivering a top-notch solution. So, I serve as a mediator between the developers building software and the clients who use it, making sure the final product meets the client’s needs.
By focusing on automation, collaboration, and monitoring, I strive to keep a system up and running smoothly, reducing downtime to a minimum.
My DevOps best practices
I hope that these best practices will be helpful for your collaboration with DevOps. Consider them if you want to benefit from DevOps on your e-commerce project.
- Prioritize communication: Maintain open dialogue among all stakeholders to ensure they are staying on the same wavelength and avoid misunderstandings.
- Focus on visibility: Use monitoring and logging tools to keep your system visible and track its performance effectively. These can be Nagios and Prometheus. Monit, and Sematext.
- Ensure predictability: Plan ahead to avoid unpleasant surprises and prevent performance drops, especially during high-traffic events like Black Friday.
- Consider key mechanisms: Underline the parallel between product demand, product value, cost reduction, and cost efficiency to make more informed decisions.
- Prioritize reproducibility: Ensure your system is reproducible, allowing you to revert to a backup if needed.
- Emphasize security: Make security a top priority to safeguard your system and sensitive data.
- Integrate AI: Implement AI to optimize the work of your system and perform routine tasks.
Final Thoughts
All in all, DevOps engineers play a vital role in providing high-quality online services and ensuring continued improvements. DevOps best practices allow you to respond swiftly to market demands and client’s needs and establish a flexible and scalable architecture for quick updates.
Forbytes offers DevOps as a service and can help you keep all team members on the right track, cut costs, and speed up the development of high-quality solutions. Need a DevOps expert for your e-commerce project? Feel free to email us; we’ll help you instantly deliver a product and update it.
