What is DevOps?
DevOps is a set of practices, tools, and cultural philosophies that combines software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) to shorten the development lifecycle and deliver high-quality software continuously.
DevOps practices include: continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD), infrastructure as code, automated testing, monitoring and observability, incident management, and blameless postmortems.
In 2026, DevOps has evolved into Platform Engineering — building internal developer platforms that abstract away infrastructure complexity. Related disciplines include DevSecOps (security integrated into the pipeline), MLOps (ML model lifecycle management), and LLMOps (LLM-specific operations).
Why It Matters
DevOps directly impacts the DORA metrics that predict engineering team performance. Teams with mature DevOps practices deploy faster, fail less, and recover quicker — translating to better business outcomes.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is DevOps?
DevOps combines software development and IT operations to deliver software faster and more reliably through automation, continuous integration, and collaborative practices.
What is the difference between DevOps and Platform Engineering?
Platform Engineering is the evolution of DevOps. Instead of every team managing their own infrastructure, a platform team builds an internal developer platform that abstracts complexity for all engineering teams.
Related Terms
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