Database Devops - Need Of It And How To Do ItTechnology Research & DevelopmentUpdated on Apr 16, 2019 View more like this | Visit India, UN | Contact Vijay Chauhan |

DevOps has automated most of the modules of development and operations till now but still, some of the things are remaining. Unless each and every task would be automated, we can’t achieve a speedy toolchain. If you will integrate the database with development and make it automated then it can increase efficiency and customer would be highly satisfied with the upfront delivery of the product. We need to integrate the database team with the DevOps solutions India team and have to create a single team which can deliver very good results and a better product. It will lead to a faster development process which would increase the efficiency of SDLC.
Database DevOps Importance
Till now database operations are not integrated with the DevOps operations. So, the DevOps team need to wait for the DBAs to complete their operations so that they can actually complete their work. This wait time involved in this process adds to the cost of the project and in turn makes the delivery pipeline very slow.
By using Database DevOps you will be following a strategy where database changes will also be automated just like other operations in DevOps. It will no doubt accelerate the delivery of the product but on the other hand, it will make the process more agile. So, you will have a faster development process and your practices will become more streamlined.
Bottlenecks In Integrating The Database With Devops
In this process of integrating the database with DevOps, you will encounter a lot number of challenges which will make your integration cumbersome. Let’s have a detailed look at them.
• Tightly coupled architecture: If you are having a tightly coupled architecture and you are having database integrated with it then you may face challenges. You should have a microservicess architecture which follows loose coupling. You can have individual deployment units and each micro service can have its own database associated to it. These services will then interact with each other with the help of interfaces and In this, all micro services are not sharing a common database. So, loose coupling paves advantage in faster delivery and reducing chaos in Database DevOps.
• No versioning : Earlier DBAs used to do the changes in the database and then used to maintain the changes they have made in SQL scripts. Whenever a bug used to come in production or if they want to roll back to the previous version, they used to just roll back the commands which they stored in SQL scripts. This process is very time taking and it increases the headache of the DBA. If your database changes will be there in source control, versioning controlling tool will track the changes and you can easily roll back to a previous stable state without any hiccups.
• No continuous delivery involved: Whenever new code is made to the code in source repository then automated unit tests should run and check whether there are some errors involved or not. In the case of the database also, continuous tests can run whenever new database changes are pushed so that no vulnerabilities are seen at the time of production. If the build will fail, the errors can be tracked and changes can be made before they reach production.
• No use of staging environment: Making changes to the development environment is easy but you won’t get the real time errors unless changes are pushed to production and if some errors gets pushed to production then you may face a lot of issues. It’s better to use a staging environment before production where the database would be exactly the same replica of the production and you can observe the errors which can be correct before deploying them in production.
Benefits of using Database DevOps
Database DevOps is definitely a very good field of the area where DevOps can make advancement and streamline the processes. Let’s look at some advantages of it which will help us in adopting this as soon as possible.
• Manageable Database changes: Instead of asking DBA team to do all the changes at a time and then deploying the changes in the delivery pipeline, it is easy to adopt small chunk of database code changes in Database DevOps. These changes are manageable and the database team can track these changes in a shorter period of time and in this way, we can have faster releases.
• Less chances of errors: Versioning control is very important as I reduces chances of errors and outages. Maintaining SQL scripts is very cumbersome and it increases the cost of the project. You can have these changes in the source repository and you can have a versioning controlling system to track the changes been made like GIT/SVN. You can easily roll back to the stable state whenever there are errors found in the system. It decreases the time of the DBAs and it will automate build, deploy and release operations relates to the database.
• Faster Deployment: When database will be integrated with CI/CD cycle then changes would be automatically build, tested and released to production if no errors are found. With the help of CI/CD cycle errors will be found faster and you can fastly resolve the issues and in this way, you can faster deployment and it will hence improve the productivity of the team.
• Perfect release management: When you will have database integrated with DevOps, you will be having a staging environment where the database will be an exact replica of the database in production. You can track all your changes before pushing them to production so in this way, you will get to know the errors before hand and they won’t affect your product in a bad way.
• Less DBA workload: DBAs can now get rid of their task of maintaining SQL scripts and then reverting them in case of adversaries. They can now save their time when these things will be taken care of by Database DevOps.
Conclusion
So, in this way, you can integrate database to your DevOps and make your builds more stables and have frequent releases which will fasten your delivery pipeline. All the best!!
Database DevOps Importance
Till now database operations are not integrated with the DevOps operations. So, the DevOps team need to wait for the DBAs to complete their operations so that they can actually complete their work. This wait time involved in this process adds to the cost of the project and in turn makes the delivery pipeline very slow.
By using Database DevOps you will be following a strategy where database changes will also be automated just like other operations in DevOps. It will no doubt accelerate the delivery of the product but on the other hand, it will make the process more agile. So, you will have a faster development process and your practices will become more streamlined.
Bottlenecks In Integrating The Database With Devops
In this process of integrating the database with DevOps, you will encounter a lot number of challenges which will make your integration cumbersome. Let’s have a detailed look at them.
• Tightly coupled architecture: If you are having a tightly coupled architecture and you are having database integrated with it then you may face challenges. You should have a microservicess architecture which follows loose coupling. You can have individual deployment units and each micro service can have its own database associated to it. These services will then interact with each other with the help of interfaces and In this, all micro services are not sharing a common database. So, loose coupling paves advantage in faster delivery and reducing chaos in Database DevOps.
• No versioning : Earlier DBAs used to do the changes in the database and then used to maintain the changes they have made in SQL scripts. Whenever a bug used to come in production or if they want to roll back to the previous version, they used to just roll back the commands which they stored in SQL scripts. This process is very time taking and it increases the headache of the DBA. If your database changes will be there in source control, versioning controlling tool will track the changes and you can easily roll back to a previous stable state without any hiccups.
• No continuous delivery involved: Whenever new code is made to the code in source repository then automated unit tests should run and check whether there are some errors involved or not. In the case of the database also, continuous tests can run whenever new database changes are pushed so that no vulnerabilities are seen at the time of production. If the build will fail, the errors can be tracked and changes can be made before they reach production.
• No use of staging environment: Making changes to the development environment is easy but you won’t get the real time errors unless changes are pushed to production and if some errors gets pushed to production then you may face a lot of issues. It’s better to use a staging environment before production where the database would be exactly the same replica of the production and you can observe the errors which can be correct before deploying them in production.
Benefits of using Database DevOps
Database DevOps is definitely a very good field of the area where DevOps can make advancement and streamline the processes. Let’s look at some advantages of it which will help us in adopting this as soon as possible.
• Manageable Database changes: Instead of asking DBA team to do all the changes at a time and then deploying the changes in the delivery pipeline, it is easy to adopt small chunk of database code changes in Database DevOps. These changes are manageable and the database team can track these changes in a shorter period of time and in this way, we can have faster releases.
• Less chances of errors: Versioning control is very important as I reduces chances of errors and outages. Maintaining SQL scripts is very cumbersome and it increases the cost of the project. You can have these changes in the source repository and you can have a versioning controlling system to track the changes been made like GIT/SVN. You can easily roll back to the stable state whenever there are errors found in the system. It decreases the time of the DBAs and it will automate build, deploy and release operations relates to the database.
• Faster Deployment: When database will be integrated with CI/CD cycle then changes would be automatically build, tested and released to production if no errors are found. With the help of CI/CD cycle errors will be found faster and you can fastly resolve the issues and in this way, you can faster deployment and it will hence improve the productivity of the team.
• Perfect release management: When you will have database integrated with DevOps, you will be having a staging environment where the database will be an exact replica of the database in production. You can track all your changes before pushing them to production so in this way, you will get to know the errors before hand and they won’t affect your product in a bad way.
• Less DBA workload: DBAs can now get rid of their task of maintaining SQL scripts and then reverting them in case of adversaries. They can now save their time when these things will be taken care of by Database DevOps.
Conclusion
So, in this way, you can integrate database to your DevOps and make your builds more stables and have frequent releases which will fasten your delivery pipeline. All the best!!