Tools need to be a DevOps team's eyes and ears
The DevOps approach to software delivery requires that people, and the tools they use, fit the mission. The tools in a DevOps pipeline need to be right for everyone on the team, and that means that simple is probably better.
Tools that give developers a view into how their code builds affect IT operations and the user, for example, can be hugely important. But if the DevOps tools are complicated to use, their benefit gets diminished -- or lost entirely. Similar frustrations can arise when IT operations specialists struggle with the tools that let them look back into the DevOps pipeline to see what developers have been up to.
As IT writer George Lawton and other experts explain in this handbook, these glimpses at development, test and deployment need to be understandable for all involved. An overly complicated set of products in the DevOps pipeline isn't helpful. After all, a small number of people in an organization have the expertise to understand all facets of the DevOps pipeline -- and that number may well be zero. That reality makes a toolchain's usability vital to project success.
To assemble a series of DevOps tools is one thing, but to make those products effective is everything.