The Future of DevOps: Top 25 DevOps Trends to Watch For in 2024

When it comes to modern software development practices, DevOps is one of the names gaining the most recognition in the recent few years.

As per a Harvard Business Review, 86% of companies worldwide have acknowledged the essential value of DevOps culture, and 80% of businesses, including tech companies and large enterprises have already adopted it.

At the current pace, according to the DevOps Global Market Report 2022, the global DevOps market is forecasted to grow from $10.84 billion in 2023 to $24.71 billion in the next four years.

Hence, understanding the DevOps trends is crucial because they help businesses become more agile, efficient, and competitive in the digital age.

By looking at the latest stats and adopting the recent trends in DevOps or DevOps tools, businesses can enhance their software development process, eliminate time-to-market, and deliver high-quality apps that meet the needs of their customers.

What is DevOps?

In the last few years, many of us have constantly heard about DevOps but are are a good amount of people who are still confused about what DevOps exactly is.

In simple terms, DevOps can be explained as people working together to conceive, build, and deliver secure software at maximum speed.

DevOps combines development and operations practices to increase the efficiency, and security of software development and delivery compared to traditional processes.

A more agile software development lifecycle results in a competitive advantage for businesses and their customers.

More formally, DevOps practices allow software development (dev) and operations (ops) teams to accelerate delivery through automation, collaboration, fast feedback, and iterative improvement.

There are many benefits of DevOps adoption including it improves the flow and value delivery of their application by encouraging a more collaborative environment at all stages of the development cycle.

What is the Goal of DevOps?

DevOps is changing the mindset of IT culture. By implementing the Agile practices in the software development cycle, DevOps focuses on incremental development and rapid delivery of software.

It shows that success relies on the ability to create a culture of accountability, improved collaboration, empathy, and joint responsibility for business outcomes.

Adopting a DevOps implementation strategy allows businesses to increase operational efficiencies, deliver better products faster, and reduce security and compliance risks.

DevOps Adoption Statistics For 2024

DevOps adoption is rapidly growing, according to research conducted by Global Newswire, at a CAGR of 18.95%, it is estimated to reach USD 12,215.54 million by 2026.

The growth stats are undoubtedly intriguing, here are a few more to understand better:

• DevOps helps organizations reduce the time spent on handling support cases by 60% - this is a great outlook for organizations seeking to adopt DevOps in 2024.
• Businesses can invest 33% more time in infrastructure improvements with DevOps.
• 86% of the businesses report that their company must develop and begin production of new software quickly, so they see value in DevOps, according to data collected by Google.
• Data collected and research conducted by Google also shows that 77% of the organizations currently rely on DevOps to deploy software or to plan to shortly.

25 Top DevOps Trends to Watch For in 2024

Today, with the rise of businesses considering software development, the popularity of the DevOps approach is rapidly increasing.

Devops practices are also constantly evolving and as an organization, you need to keep an eye on the latest DevOps trends that you’ll have to focus on in 2024.

So without any further ado, let us dive into the top 25 DevOps trends you shouldn’t miss.

1. AIOps

AIOps stands for Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations and it is a platform for IT operations that utilizes artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate several labor-intensive processes that IT professionals used to do manually.

The platform helps professionals detect and remediate IT issues faster, allowing businesses to run more efficiently and cost-effectively.

2. Low-Code Applications

Another one in this list of DevOps trends is low-code applications refers to the applications that are created and maintained with minimal coding. This allows developers and companies to develop apps quickly and efficiently.

Low-code applications not only just reduce the time and cost associated with traditional application development but also make it possible to quickly create, deploy, and update applications with minimal effort.

3. GitOps

GitOps is a technique for software development and deployment that combines the version control system Git with technologies like Kubernetes.

It concentrates on automating the deployment and management of applications and infrastructure using a Git-centric workflow.

4. DevSecOps

DevSecOps, which is a short form for development, security, and operations is an approach to software development that integrates security into the development process as early as possible to reduce the risk associated with security vulnerabilities.

It focuses on collaboration between development, operations, and security teams to automate processes and speed deployment.

5. Serverless Computing

It is a cloud computing execution model in which the cloud provider dynamically handles the allocation of machine resources.

This removes the need for customers to have their servers, resulting in cost savings, improved scalability, and faster development cycles.

6. Microservice Architecture

Microservices - also known as microservice architecture - is an architectural style that designs an application as a collection of loosely coupled services.

This reduces complexity, increases scalability, and makes it easier for developers to develop applications.

 

Kubernetes is a portable, extensible open-source platform for automating containerized application deployment, scaling, and management.

Professionals use this platform to manage multi-cloud environments, automate deployments, and streamline processes.

8. Docker

Docker is an open platform that packages applications into isolated units. The platform allows developers to create and deploy applications in a consistent form quickly.

Containerization is a software deployment process packaging an application and its dependencies into a container unit.

These dependencies allow developers to deploy and manage applications across different environments with ease.

10. Infrastructure as Code

When it comes to DevOps trends, Infrastructure as code (IaC) is one of them that comes first. It is a DevOps practice in which infrastructure is managed and provisioned through configuration files rather than manual processes.

These configuration files can configure computing resources such as networks, storage, and virtual machines.

By adopting IaC, companies can reduce the time needed to provision and maintain infrastructure and improve the accuracy and consistency of the infrastructure configurations.

11. Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)

Site reliability engineering (SRE) is the practice that combines software engineering and operat ions to create reliable, high-quality software services and systems.

SRE focuses on building, measuring, and operating resilient systems that can manage high-traffic workloads and give the best user experience.

12. Vulnerability Management

Vulnerability Management is a risk-based approach that manages and mitigates security vulnerabilities' risks.

The practice involves identifying, classifying, prioritizing, and remediating potential security vulnerabilities before attackers can exploit them.

13. Analytical DevOps

Analytical DevOps uses analytics to measure, track, and optimize software development processes.

It includes collecting and analyzing data from various sources to provide real-time feedback and insights into the development process.

14. AIOps/MLOps

AIOps/MLOps is another one of the essential Devops trends in 2024. It can be explained as a set of practices for using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to automate IT operations' monitoring, management, and analysis.

It usually involves automated real-time analysis of large datasets to detect anomalies and identify trends and automated remediation of incidents. By using AIOps/MLOps, businesses can reduce manual tasks and improve the accuracy of their operations.

15. Cloud Platforms

Cloud-based platforms are becoming increasingly important and popular in DevOps. They offer organizations a platform to deploy applications and services that can scale and be managed from anywhere.

This allows teams to focus on developing and delivering their products and services rather than the infrastructure.

16. Application Performance Analysis

Application performance analysis is the method of analyzing the performance of an application.

It uses tools and techniques to identify performance issues, such as latency and resource utilization, and to identify and fix bottlenecks. This process ultimately can improve the user experience and reduce application costs.

17. Hybrid Deployment

It is a DevOps model that combines both on-premises and cloud-based applications to provide a more flexible and agile way of software development and deployment.

Hybrid deployment allows organizations to harness the cloud's scalability, agility, and cost savings while maintaining control over their data and applications.

18. Edge Computing

Another 2024 DevOps trend, Edge computing is an emerging computing model that moves computing resources, data, and applications closer to where they are needed most—at the network's edge.

19. Data Observability

Data observability is a trend driven by an increased focus on understanding and analyzing application performance and improving application reliability, scalability, and availability.

By leveraging these solutions, DevOps teams have access to comprehensive insights into their applications, allowing them to identify and diagnose problems faster and make better decisions.

20. Platform Engineering

Platform engineering is one of the critical DevOps trends, as it allows organizations to build and operate applications on cloud-native platforms.

This enables teams to quickly build, deploy, and troubleshoot applications, while also allowing them to take advantage of the latest technology innovations.

21. Cloud Native Infrastructure

Cloud-native infrastructure is becoming more critical as teams look to optimize their DevOps processes.

Cloud-native platforms like Kubernetes as discussed above, make deploying, managing, and scaling applications easier with minimal effort.

22. Adoption in the Enterprise

Businesses adopting DevOps is one of the biggest 2024 trends in IT itself. A few years ago, there was a radical thought process in IT: "What if we do things differently and embrace DevOps methodology?"

And now the number of enterprises using DevOps is constantly growing, offering more freedom, flexibility, agility, and transparency.

There has also been a complete shift in how business application development is done, from teams targeting smaller, short-term projects to those targeting long-term revenue.

With DevOps, these opportunities have been extended in the sense that teams are not restricted to one specific part of the business; they can work on a wide variety of projects that have the potential to increase the bottom line.

23. Cloud Services

Cloud-managed service providers have become the driving force behind the DevOps concept. There are several ways that DevOps is continually changing to accommodate cloud-based applications better.

DevOps has become very important for cloud providers. As cloud adoption continues to grow, DevOps is only becoming more necessary for modern-day businesses.

Cloud providers offer DevOps tools to provide a more professional and seamless experience for their cloud users.

The cloud providers that offer DevOps tools often provide advanced capabilities as well, such as support for containers, multi-cloud deployments, and more.

24. Tools

DevOps tools play a vital role in the overall DevOps approach. The DevOps teams frequently rely on tools that make their lives easier while not as central to DevOps as dedicated automation tools.

25. Training

The last one in this DevOps trends guide is the training of DevOps workers as it’s only growing. According to the State of DevOps Report, which surveyed 4,700 IT professionals from businesses that have deployed at least one DevOps-based software release in the past year, respondents expect the need for professionals with DevOps skills to increase by 56 percent from 2017 to 2022.

Future of DevOps

After looking into the DevOps stats, the future of DevOps looks promising. There is a growing demand for DevOps specialists due to the increasing number of organizations adopting DevOps trends and strategies.

We can also say that as businesses become more reliant on technology, DevOps will undoubtedly become an essential part of their business strategy.

Whether you’re convinced or not, one thing is certain DevOps is here to stay. As this shift continues, we will see more and more businesses embracing DevOps practices to help scale their businesses and enhance their digital transformation efforts.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Is DevOps still in demand in 2024?

Ans. Yes, DevOps is still in demand in 2024, It is a skill that has grown and shown its worth in Software Development. With DevOps trends like infrastructure as code and DevSecOps, and the high demand for DevOps experts in the job market, it is evident that this field is here.

Q. Why are businesses increasingly adopting DevOps?

Ans. The biggest reason why businesses are increasingly adopting DevOps is time-saving. DevOps practices shorten the development cycle by enhancing collaboration and communication between the development and operations teams.

Q. What is the next big thing in DevOps?

Ans. As per the recent reports, the next big thing is DevOps is a microservices architecture. It offers DevOps engineers the ability to deploy minor features and functionalities without disturbing the whole code base.

Q. What's new with DevOps?

Ans. While there are many trends are constantly emerging, the increased adoption of AI and ML  in DevOps is considered a new practice. The involvement of artificial intelligence and machine learning in DevOps processes for predictive analysis and enhanced automation.