As the Chief Solutions Architect at enreap, I help companies successfully design and implement robust DevOps, DevSecOps, ITIL, and ITSM strategies. I am here to share my views on how to design and build agile delivery platforms, identify improvement areas in existing processes and pipelines, and optimize Release, Configuration & IT Service Management.

What Makes DevSecOps a Must-have for Cloud

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Cloud adoption is at an all-time high, with analysts expecting the global cloud market to grow from $371.4 billion in 2020 to $832.1 billion by 2025. Most of this growth is driven by the pace of digital business transformation, especially due to the ongoing pandemic, which has brought in a sense of fear and urgency – compelling organizations to opt for cloud-based solutions and services to stay relevant. 

But despite the growing pace of cloud adoption, security concerns are rife, which makes a concept like DevSecOps much sought-after. 

Why DevSecOps

DevOps has long enabled organizations to bring high-quality applications into the market on time and cost-effectively. Through frequent and deeper collaboration between various team members, it helps bridge the gaps that have traditionally existed in software delivery organizations, so everyone can work together to achieve shared goals and objectives.

However, one area that DevOps struggles to deliver on is security, which has led to the evolution of DevSecOps.

DevSecOps brings development, operations, and security teams together, improving visibility, transparency, communication, and collaboration between different team members, so security can be integrated into the development lifecycle – from the very beginning.

Listed below are some reasons why DevSecOps is becoming so popular today:

  • Security is a natural evolution in DevOps; by shifting security to the left, DevSecOps allows teams to detect and resolve issues and bugs – sooner and more efficiently – strengthening the security foundation of the product being developed.
  • Most development teams also want to move away from the reactive security mindset to DevSecOps and embrace a more proactive approach where issues are identified even before they happen. Such proactive issue detection helps in building better quality products while also ensuring the user experience is seamless and uninterrupted.
  • The pace of intensifying competition is also compelling organizations to embrace the world of DevSecOps and use it as a USP to stand out in the market. Since today’s customers place high demands on product security, DevSecOps ensures organizations meet those demands effectively.
  • Constantly evolving regulatory requirements, especially in highly regulated industries like Finance and Healthcare, have also put DevSecOps into the spotlight. Since organizations in these industries have to constantly comply with existing and upcoming stringent regulations, DevSecOps helps in meeting these compliance requirements with increased precision.
  • Increasing customer demands have also put immense pressure on software delivery organizations to focus on the security aspects of the application being developed – in addition to cost and quality. Since today’s customers take security very seriously, DevSecOps allows for these demands to be met far more easily.

DevSecOps and the Cloud

When it comes to cloud, DevSecOps and Cloud are a match made in heaven. Despite the constant efforts cloud vendors are driving towards fortifying cloud security, today’s customers demand higher levels of security for applications that are developed in the cloud.

Here’s what makes DevSecOps a must-have for Cloud:

  • Improves security in the cloud: DevSecOps offers a great mechanism to improve the security of the cloud.
    • Through constant security testing, it reduces the risk of data leakage, thus protecting the security and confidentiality of business and customer data.
    • For companies looking to eliminate API vulnerabilities, DevSecOps paves the way for automated API testing. Using DevSecOps, teams can test against every vulnerability, detect vulnerable code, and prevent it from reaching production.
    • DevSecOps also makes compliance monitoring in the cloud a breeze – especially in sectors where data privacy takes precedence over everything else. By integrating compliance features into the cloud development process, DevSecOps ensures compliance with regulations like HIPAA, GDPR, and SOC quickly and easily.
  • Security is everyone’s responsibility: DevSecOps makes security not just the responsibility of the security team, but of every member involved in the software delivery process. By shifting security left, it makes sure everyone in the team works towards improving the security of the product under development.
  • Builds a culture of secure coding: DevSecOps ensures developers embrace secure coding practices to build the products of tomorrow – and not resort to security testing practices at the far end of the development process.
  • Automates the process of security testing: DevSecOps also automates the process of security testing, thus eliminating the need for manual approaches to testing which are not only time-consuming but also prone to error.
  • Accelerates time to market: When code is secure from the very beginning, teams can save substantial amounts of time in continuous testing of products – thus bringing products to the market at an accelerated pace.
  • Improves traceability: Since DevSecOps improves coordination between different teams, it also improves traceability. All members involved are always aware of where the project is, what issues are currently being faced, and upcoming milestones and deadlines –  this helps in avoiding unnecessary deviation.

Best Practices

If you’re looking to make the best of DevSecOps and the cloud, here are some best practices to embrace for guaranteed success:

  • Carry out detailed code analysis to identify common coding patterns that lead to issues in performance, reliability, security, and scalability and take steps to overcome them from the very beginning.
  • Embrace automated testing tools to quicken up the process of testing as well as to improve the accuracy of issue identification and resolution – thus improving the overall quality of code.
  • Up your change management game to ensure any change that is suggested and implemented passes through a standard change process, so they are implemented with ease and offer a clear and comprehensive audit trail.
  • Enable compliance monitoring to ensure the code you develop is compliant with necessary regulations while saving time, reducing errors, and achieving consistency in your operations.
  • Train and educate your teams on the different tools, processes, and approaches they need to embrace to improve the accuracy and quality of the software being developed
  • Engage with experts to get timely, exert know-how of common challenges and implementation best practices for the long-term success of your DevSecOps products.

As cloud security becomes an important topic of discussion, DevSecOps has become the only way to develop software – especially for today’s remote working distributed teams. Is your organization ready for this change?u

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