What is DevOps and what DevOps departments do?

Configuration Management and DevOps do figure into many of the development and software engineering services of First Line Software.

Both are best practices of modern software development, and the process of our teams applies them in many types of projects including Software Development, Web Development, Mobile Application Development, Wearable Technology, and more.

A best practice that is relatively recent, it is nonetheless a part of the process of many software development organizations, especially those employing Agile methodologies. Basically, it involves coordination between the development and the delivery of software to eliminate release bottlenecks.

One important concept is that of "continuous delivery" - and where practical, our teams adopt this practice. The ultimate goals include the frequency of deployment of new functionality, lower defect rates, and shorter time between fixes, maximized efficiency, security, predictability, and maintainability of the development process. Automation is applied whenever feasible to achieve efficiency.

In short, First Line Software development teams are conversant with the principles, tools, systems, and best practices of modern software engineering, and employ practices like configuration management and DevOps to achieve optimum end results for our clients.

The primary goal of any DevOps effort within an organization is to improve the delivery of value for customers and the business, to reduce costs, increase automation, or drive everything from configuration management. Different organizations or projects might need different team structures in order for effective Dev and Ops collaboration to take place.

DevOps department expertise

DevOps department at First Line Software is able to join the IT project at any stage and provide the following set of services:

Setup the environment and the required software;
Continuous integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD);
Provide technical support and monitoring;
Troubleshooting;
Review and analyze the existing environments and infrastructures, search for bottlenecks;
Provide complex recommendations on performance increase;
Technologies review and professional recommendations;
DevOps best-practices:
- Infrastructure As A Code;
- Gitflow.

Supported technological stack:

OS: Unix-like systems (Debian, Ubuntu, Centos, RHEL, SuSE)
Containerization: Docker
Virtualization: Xen, KVM, VMWare, oVirt, Proxmox
Monitoring: Zabbix, Prometheus + Grafana, Nagios
CI/CD: Jenkins (Very complex pipelines on groovy), GitlabCI, Teamcity
Log Collection: ELK, EFK, Syslog, Rsyslog
Databases: Oracle (ver. 9 – 18), Portgresql (ver. 9 – 12), MySQL (MariaDB, Galera Cluster), Clickhouse, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, HBase, Redis
Load Balancers: HAProxy, Nginx
Application Servers: IBM WebSphere, Oracle WebLogic, servlet-containers (Tomcat, Jetty, Netty, Undertow)
Service Discovery: Hashicorp Consul, Apache Zookeeper
Message Queue: Apache Kafka, Rabbit MQ
Kubernetes: setup and maintain, but without severe troubleshooting
VCS: git (we use gitflow), SVN
Configuration Management Systems: Ansible
Build: Java, Docker, NodeJS, Python, C++.

On-hands infrastructure experience:

Number of servers per project (physical and VMs) – up to 300;
Number of services per projects (separate instances) – more than 500.

If you have questions or would like to know more about how First Line Software works with these particular concepts, don't hesitate to contact us.

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Client References

I want to express my gratitude for all of your team’s hard work, support and extra help. We are very grateful for all that you have done for us.
Senior Project Manager, a U.S. specialty digital design and web development agency

Your quality of work is exceptional, and your flexible approach has allowed us to build and deploy a large amount of complex functionality in a very short space of time. Kudos to everyone for their professionalism and for delivering results that exceeded our expectations.
CEO, leading social media analytics provider

We have never had a better release that we can think of. And that is all because of your hard and dedicated work. So here is a big THANK YOU to everyone from all of us!
Editor, leading Scandinavian newspaper

For a software vendor like ourselves, picking the right development partner is crucial. First Line’s technical expertise and solid project management, coupled with their proficiency in Agile methodologies, have made them an integral part of our product development group.
VP Product Development, leading enterprise software vendor

Our First Line Team has been doing a great job. All of the guys check in great code, and they have a forward thinking mindset, not a feature-to-feature approach. They are also very open in terms of sharing knowledge, which is critical to running productive distributed teams.
Application Development Director, global marketing company

We've all learned a lot from you, and it is great working with you.
Application Development Director, global marketing company

The First Line team has an excellent process and we can learn from your team and improve.
Product Owner, Strategic Software Consultancy

I would like to thank the First Line development team for their dedication and high level of quality in their work. Despite being thousands of miles apart, we have been able to work quickly, effectively, and intelligently. Your team has been a major part of why we have been successful thus far.
VP Engineering, e-learning startup

First Line is a great technology partner capable of delivering complex, ‘industrial grade’ projects. They have demonstrated strong technical competence and solid understanding of the media and publishing domain. We have also been very impressed by the management team's attention to our needs and commitment to our success.
CEO, leading European digital media company

Your effort is the #1 reason that this project is going so well. I've worked with a lot of teams over the years and there are very few teams that I trust and respect. When you are given a task or feature, I never have to worry whether or not it will be accomplished on time and I never worry about the quality - you always deliver.
Architect, Strategic Software Consultancy

The team we put together in the last half of this year is one of the most productive, skilled and enjoyable I’ve ever worked on. It’s great to see the product brought to life, and I’m proud to work with all you folks.
Senior Architect, Fortune 100 company

The First Line Software team is professional, results driven, and proactive. I know that when we provide requirements for new functionality, they will not only deliver on the scope of what has been asked but will look beyond and give insight into how we can make our product even better. It has been a privilege to work with First Line Software, and I look forward to continuing our partnership in future.
VP, global marketing company

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Development process

We discuss: project and business objectives
We provide: business analysts who assess current business processes and systems to identify specific gaps and areas for improvement
You provide: critical knowledge of your tasks and objectives

We discuss: general requirements of IT solution
We apply: proven methodologies and expertise for collecting requirements
You provide: subject matter experts on key issues

We present: potential solutions for your IT project
We provide: expertise in available technologies and recommendations for solutions and define implementation costs
You decide: which solution First Line will build and deliver

We explore: cooperation models most suitable for you
We offer: proposals for various options
You choose: the most comfortable model for your company

We discuss: detailed requirements for implementation
We activate: a team of exceptional developers and testers who use best-in-class methodologies
You receive: process transparency, regular demo versions, solution that meets your business objectives

We review: whether the end deliverable meets the business objectives
We provide: solution release version, installation and configuration management services, staff training
You receive: IT-solution that achieves your business objective