In 2021, DevOps automation will be a necessity to keep organizations ahead of the competition. Companies that make it through this turbulent period will find themselves with more time and resources for innovation than ever before.
The “top 10 devops tools 2021” is a list of the best DevOps tools for automation in 2021. The list includes tools like Jenkins, AWS CLI, and Terraform.
These days, DevOps is all the rage. Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) are buzzwords that are often used. How do you go about automating DevOps and implementing CI and CD? DevOps software.
DevOps tools may be classified in a variety of ways, which is what this article will demonstrate. In this post, you’ll get a quick overview of DevOps automation before learning about some of the most popular DevOps technologies that can help you and your company flourish!
Let’s get going!
Continuous Integration —> Delivery —> Deployment
To comprehend DevOps technologies, you must first comprehend the notion of providing continuous value to clients. Typically, there are three stages to delivering a solution to clients. When new code is submitted to a source control repository, organizations must compile it. It must then be readied for deployment to an environment (deliver) before being released for customers to consume.
You’re continually completing each activity when you complete each of these steps in an automatic manner. In DevOps jargon, this is:
Depending on the version control method used, software engineers must merge changes and updates often into the main codebase when working code collaboratively. When a developer checks code into the repository, an operation called CI is immediately launched.
Developers use CI to submit tiny code changes into a common codebase, which are then validated via automated testing.
The goal of continuous integration is to provide an automated way to creating, packaging, and testing software while maintaining a stable development environment.
After developers have committed work to a common codebase, the system must package that code in order to distribute it to a delivery environment.
Continuous Supply. Continuous Delivery enables companies to have a ready-to-deploy codebase in which the DevOps team may release software to the production environment at any time.
The developed program must be sent to a production environment called Continuous Deployment to complete the build/release process. Continuous Deployment is the last step in the delivery process, when software is automatically deployed to a production environment.
Automation is a key component of DevOps. DevOps is an important part of getting value to consumers quicker. As a result, having an automated platform that enables enterprises to complete all processes related with software delivery is critical.
Organizations must compile code or, at the very least, conduct a few jobs to prepare the code for distribution in a normal software delivery process. They must write the code themselves. After you’ve finished developing the code, you must either deploy it to one or more environments or release it.
Build/release tools are a typical type of DevOps technologies that exemplify the ‘continuous’ philosophy of DevOps.
DevOps in Azure
Starting off the DevOps tools list, let’s first check out the Microsoft service, DevOps in Azure, more specifically, Pipelines in Azure.
DevOps in Azure is a Software as a Service (SaaS) tool that enables collaboration on code, build/release practices, and effective work-tracking to deliver quality software products. For CI/CD, Pipelines in Azure is the DevOps in Azure feature of choice.
Features
- Any ecosystem may be properly integrated.
Pipelines in Azure build agents operate on all main platforms (Linux, macOS, Windows) and support a variety of programming languages, allowing developers to work in whatever language they choose.
- Cloud and container services are supported.
Pipelines in Azure supports all cloud environments, not only Azure, including AWS and Google Cloud. Native tasks are available to work with Kubernetes services such as Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS).
Deploy Octopus
Unlike DevOps in Azure, which supports all phases of the software development lifecycle, Deploy Octopus focuses on deployment. Deploy Octopus is a Continuous Deployment tool responsible for release management and automated deployments.
Using Deploy Octopus, DevOps engineers can create development, staging, and production environments with all the permissions and rights to deploy in each stage. In addition, it’s a handy tool for automatically initiating a release process deploying packages to test and production environments.
Features
- All cloud development platforms are supported.
- Tentacle, their smart agent, is assisting on-premises development with tools.
- .NET developers are treated as first-class citizens.
- Integrating well with other tools like Jenkins and DevOps in Azure.
Jenkins
Jenkins must be mentioned when discussing build/release tools. Jenkins has been around for a long time as a Continuous Integration automation solution. Organizations may use Jenkins in conjunction with other Continuous Delivery solutions to provide software products in a seamless manner.
Jenkins provides a large plugin ecosystem that enables developers to automate builds, tests, and releases.
Features
- Being open-source software with a large user community.
- Being liberated! Jenkins allows you to accomplish almost everything without spending anything.
- Using a series of plugins, provide an expandable architecture.
Comparison of Build/Release Tools
| Name | Source Code | Optional Hosting | Support for Programming Languages | Support for Containers | Extensibility |
| Pipelines in Azure | No | On-premises or in Azure | Python, Ruby,.NET, Java, C#, JavaScript, and PHP are examples of programming languages. | DockerHub, Azure Container Registry, and Kubernetes | It works nicely with other software programs. Slack, SonarCloud, etc. |
| Deploy Octopus | No | On-premises or Octopus Cloud | ASP.NET, Java, Node.js, Ruby, and PHP are examples of programming languages. | Kubernetes | Jenkins and other CI/CD technologies work nicely together. |
| Jenkins | Yes | On-premises or cloud | Ruby, Python,.NET, Java, Go, JavaScript | Docker | Many tools and plugins are readily integrated. Jira, Slack, etc. |
Comparison of Build/Release Tools
Managing infrastructure configurations such as VMs, storage, networking, and so on may quickly become a burden. You can automate almost every aspect of ensuring your infrastructure is set appropriately using configuration management solutions.
Ansible, Puppet, and Chef are three of the most popular configuration management technologies in the DevOps automation sector.
Ansible
Ansible, being one of the most widely used configuration management solutions, automates almost every aspect of your essential infrastructure. Ansible can handle file changes, install apps, and supply cloud resources, among other things.
Ansible uses playbooks to automate tasks. Playbooks are YAML files that specify the current status of your infrastructure. These playbooks are then read, and commands are issued to distant nodes to achieve the desired state.
Features
- Ansible offers a dashboard for visualizing tasks executing in Ansible called Ansible Tower.
- Role-based access control (RBAC) is used by Ansible Tower to simply scope out different user rights and specify environments they are authorized to interact with.
- Provisioning of on-premises and cloud infrastructure setup is supported.
Puppet
Puppet is a popular configuration management framework for managing infrastructure and configuration. Puppet controls configurations using Puppet modules, which are subsequently used to specify tasks in a Puppet manifest file.
Teams may find and mitigate security problems in an infrastructure environment using a software called Puppet Remediate.
Features
- All operating systems and cloud technologies are supported by Puppet.
- Puppet enables users to enhance module functionality by writing their own custom functions.
- Container technologies like Kubernetes and Docker are supported by Puppet.
Chef
Chef is a DevOps tool that aims to turn your infrastructure into code so that it may be automated continuously. Chef’s infrastructure management strategy relies on agents such as Chef Infra to automate infrastructure setup.
Whether you’re dealing with cloud or physical infrastructure, Chef can automate just about anything by describing the essential settings as scalable and proven code.
Chef needs DevOps teams to create recipes that specify which tasks should be completed. The resources and software packages required to automate and manage infrastructure as code are described in recipes.
Features
- An agent-based automation platform that executes recipe instructions.
- All operating systems, multi-cloud, and hybrid settings are supported.
- Chef offers a tool called Chef analytics that allows you to track changes on the Chef server.
Comparison of Configuration Management Tools
| Name | Source Code | The Developmental Language | Optional Hosting |
| Ansible | Yes | Python | On-premises or cloud |
| Puppet | Yes | Ruby | On-premises or cloud |
| Chef | Yes | Ruby | On-premises or cloud |
Comparison of Configuration Management Tools
After the code has been written, it must be thoroughly tested. DevOps requires enterprises to test code and the changes that it makes on a continual basis. Continuous testing is critical for detecting flaws and unanticipated changes in software releases.
Selenium, Worksoft, and Kobiton are three popular test DevOps automation technologies.
Selenium
selenium.dev provided this image.
Selenium is an open-source web application test automation tool. Selenium supports a broad number of browsers for test automation. Selenium enables testers to simulate user interactions with web applications and log the results for further use.
Selenium offers an ecosystem of technologies to assist develop and run online tests via products like Selenium WebDriver, Selenium IDE, Selenium Grid, and various add-ons.
Selenium scripts may be written in Java, Python, Ruby, C#, JavaScript, PHP, and Perl.
Selenium also includes a plugin ecosystem that expands its capabilities, giving testers additional choices for authoring and running tests.
Features
- Plugin ecosystem to enhance functionality
- Many languages are supported for writing tests.
- Selenium Grid allows you to run scripts on distant machines.
Worksoft
Worksoft is another DevOps test automation technology that offers a continuous test automation platform without the need for coding. To ensure end-to-end application quality, Worksoft evaluates every process in both pre- and post-production settings.
For corporate applications, interfaces, systems, and technologies, Worksoft enables automated unit testing, regression testing, functional and performance testing.
Features
- There are no coding skills required. Worksoft is a platform without any coding.
- Worksoft Certify allows it to integrate with other DevOps technologies.
- Supports business systems like SAP as well as mobile apps.
- Has a simple user interface that allows even non-technical business people to run tests.
Kobiton
Kobiton is a mobile app continuous testing automation solution. You may develop functional, visual, and performance tests for your apps using Kobiton. Tests are done on actual devices rather than emulators using Kobiton.
DevOps teams may speed up the deployment of mobile apps while retaining the quality of the program by using regression testing in Kobiton.
Features
- Supports real-time Android and iOS application testing.
- Uses the NOVA AI engine, an AI testing framework that allows for intelligent and rapid testing without the need of scripts.
- Kobiton Device Lab Management software supports both local and cloud mobile testing.
Comparison of Test Automation Tools
| Name | Source Code | Test Objectives |
| Selenium | Yes | Web-based |
| Worksoft | No | Web-based and mobile enterprise apps |
| Kobiton | No | Mobile Phones |
Comparison of Test Automation Tools
Through logs and other performance indicators, DevOps monitoring tools verify infrastructure health, application performance, user activity, and possible system vulnerabilities.
Nagios, Elastic Stack, and Splunk are some of the most prominent DevOps monitoring technologies.
Nagios
Many firms use Nagios for infrastructure monitoring in a DevOps environment. Nagios is an open-source infrastructure monitoring program that keeps track of things like running applications, system metrics, network status, and log data.
Nagios XI, Nagios Log Server, and Nagios Fusion are all part of the Nagios ecosystem. All of these technologies work together to cover all aspects of monitoring.
The Nagios Log Server is where Nagios handles application and system log data. Based on an examination of log files such as network traffic, server load, and more, this software offers DevOps teams with essential information about the condition of infrastructures.
Nagios utilizes Nagios Fusion to display monitoring data and provide meaningful representations of the condition of the environment that DevOps Engineers can analyze.
Features
The ELK Framework
The ELK Framework is made up of three open-source projects- Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana. This software suite can collect, transform, and visualize log data in a DevOps environment.
Logstash gathers log data and transmits it to Elasticsearch, which then visualizes the data using Kibana for inspection.
Kibana allows organizations to create stunning visualizations to better understand operating apps and systems.
Features
Splunk
Splunk is a unified security operations platform that provides both infrastructure and application monitoring. Splunk is thus excellent for both IT and DevOps activities since it can monitor and debug a whole environment from a single platform, whether on-premises, hybrid, or multi-cloud.
Splunk gives DevOps teams real-time insight into their application environments while also directing issue notifications to trained responders, cutting down on troubleshooting time.
Features
Comparisons of Monitoring Tools
| Name | Source Code | Visualization Assistance |
| Nagios | No | Yes |
| ELK Stack | Yes | Yes |
| Splunk | No | Yes |
Comparisons of Monitoring Tools
Conclusion
In the DevOps automation ecosystem, there are several tools to select from. Organizations and businesses provide a wide variety of tools to guarantee that developers deliver high-quality apps to clients.
Given the abundance of tools available to developers, the important choice is to choose the best tool for you. That is the difficult part. Unfortunately, this information will not be of assistance.
DevOps tool selection is based on your company’s objectives and strategy. But, now that you’ve seen an overview of several of the most common tools, you’re well on your way to making a tool selection!
The “devops tools chart” is a visual representation of the most popular DevOps tools in 2021. The graph shows the amount of time each tool has been used, and also includes a list of top 10 DevOps automation tools.
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