# What Is DevOps? Meaning, Practices, and Examples

> DevOps combines culture, practices, and tools so dev and ops teams ship software faster and more reliably. Learn its principles, CI/CD, DORA metrics, examples.

**URL:** https://www.ciptadusa.com/blog/devops-adalah  
**Type:** blog  
**Author:** PT Cipta Dua Saudara  
**Category:** Engineering  
**Published:** 2026-10-24  
**Cover:** https://www.ciptadusa.com/media/uploads/blog/2026-10/1792808697714-devops-adalah-20261024.webp  

## Article

DevOps is the combination of cultural philosophies, practices, and tools that increases an organization's ability to deliver applications and services at high velocity, while keeping quality and reliability in check. That is how AWS defines it, adding that under a DevOps model the development (Dev) and operations (Ops) teams are no longer siloed ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/devops/what-is-devops/)).

A simple example: every time a developer pushes a code change, a system automatically runs the tests, builds the application, and installs it on a staging server. If it passes, the same version can be released to production in one step, and the team watches the impact through logs and dashboards. This article covers what DevOps means, its principles, how it works across the application lifecycle, practices such as CI/CD and infrastructure as code, how to measure it, how it differs from Agile and SRE, and how to get started.

## What DevOps Means

The name DevOps combines the words development and operations. Microsoft describes DevOps as an approach that unites people, process, and technology in application planning, development, delivery, and operations, enabling coordination between formerly siloed roles such as development, IT operations, quality engineering, and security ([source](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/devops/what-is-devops)). IBM calls DevOps a software development methodology that accelerates the delivery of applications by combining and automating the work of software development and IT operations teams ([source](https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/devops)).

The term grew out of a community of practitioners. The first devopsdays conference was held in Ghent, Belgium, in 2009, with Patrick Debois listed as its founder ([source](https://devopsdays.org/about)).

### What Is DevOps a Combination Of?

Based on the AWS definition, DevOps combines three things ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/devops/what-is-devops/)):

- **Culture.** Development and operations teams share responsibility for the application, from the moment code is written until it runs in production.
- **Practices.** Ways of working such as continuous integration, continuous delivery, infrastructure as code, and monitoring and logging.
- **Tools.** Tooling that automates manual work, for example CI servers, version control systems, and monitoring platforms.

The three depend on each other. Microsoft writes that without a shift to a DevOps culture in the organization and its people, automating processes through technology will not deliver the full benefits of DevOps ([source](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/devops/what-is-devops)).

## The Problem DevOps Sets Out to Solve

In the traditional model, developers write features and then "hand over" the result to an operations team to install and keep running. The Google SRE team explains that separate teams, siloed knowledge, and incentives for purely local optimization have in many cases been actively bad for business ([source](https://sre.google/workbook/how-sre-relates/)).

The same text lists several key DevOps ideas ([source](https://sre.google/workbook/how-sre-relates/)):

- **No more silos.** Development and operations work as one unit.
- **Accidents are normal.** Failures come from missing safeguards, not just one person's mistake. The focus is therefore on speeding recovery rather than finding someone to blame.
- **Change should be gradual.** Changes are split into small pieces, tested automatically, and rolled back reliably when needed. This is where CI and CD come from.
- **Tooling and culture are interrelated.** Tools matter, but organizational culture decides whether the approach succeeds.
- **Measurement is crucial.** Decisions are based on data both sides agree on, not assumptions.

## DevOps Principles: CALMS

The Google SRE team summarizes the DevOps philosophy with the acronym CALMS, articulated by John Willis, Damon Edwards, and Jez Humble ([source](https://sre.google/workbook/how-sre-relates/)):

| Letter | Principle | What it means in practice |
| --- | --- | --- |
| C | Culture | Shared responsibility across development, operations, QA, and security |
| A | Automation | Repetitive work such as build, test, and deploy is done by machines |
| L | Lean | Workflows are streamlined and changes ship in small batches |
| M | Measurement | The result of every improvement is measured, for example with DORA metrics |
| S | Sharing | Results and lessons are shared so the whole organization improves |

## How DevOps Works Across the Application Lifecycle

Microsoft splits the DevOps application lifecycle into four phases. Each phase relies on the others, and no phase belongs to a single role ([source](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/devops/what-is-devops)):

| Phase | What the team does |
| --- | --- |
| Plan | Define features, manage backlogs, track bugs, use Scrum or Kanban boards, and progress dashboards |
| Develop | Write, test, review, and integrate code in a version control system such as Git, then build it into artifacts |
| Deliver | Deploy the application to production consistently, with clear manual approval stages and automated gates between stages |
| Operate | Maintain, monitor, and troubleshoot the application in production with telemetry and actionable alerts |

These phases resemble the stages of the [SDLC](https://www.ciptadusa.com/en/blog/sdlc-adalah). The difference is that DevOps keeps the cycle turning in short loops, and what the team learns in operations feeds the next round of planning.

## DevOps Practices and Technologies

### Version Control

Version control is the practice of tracking revisions and change history so code is easy to review and recover. Microsoft calls it a fundamental DevOps practice that other practices, such as continuous integration and infrastructure as code, also depend on ([source](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/devops/what-is-devops)).

### Continuous Integration (CI)

AWS defines continuous integration as a practice where developers regularly merge their code changes into a central repository, after which automated builds and tests run. The goals are to find bugs faster, improve quality, and reduce the time it takes to validate and release updates ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/devops/what-is-devops/)). GitHub's documentation adds that CI tests can include linters, security checks, code coverage, and functional tests ([source](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/get-started/continuous-integration)).

### Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment (CD)

Martin Fowler describes continuous delivery as building software so it can be released to production at any time. He distinguishes it from continuous deployment: with continuous deployment every change that passes the pipeline goes to production automatically, while with continuous delivery the team is able to release at any time but may choose when to do so ([source](https://martinfowler.com/bliki/ContinuousDelivery.html)). Together these practices are known as CI/CD, and the automated flow is called a pipeline.

### Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

Infrastructure as code is the practice of provisioning and managing infrastructure using code and software development techniques such as version control ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/devops/what-is-devops/)). Microsoft notes that IaC helps teams maintain development and test environments that are identical to production and reduces the risk of human error ([source](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/devops/what-is-devops)).

### Configuration Management

Configuration management handles the state of resources such as servers, virtual machines, and databases. Its purpose is to prevent configuration drift, where a system's configuration moves away from its desired state over time ([source](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/devops/what-is-devops)).

### Monitoring and Logging

DevOps teams collect metrics and logs to see how application and infrastructure performance affects the user experience, including the impact of each update ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/devops/what-is-devops/)). Microsoft stresses meaningful, actionable alerts rather than a flood of notifications ([source](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/devops/what-is-devops)).

### Microservices and Containers

AWS describes a microservices architecture as building a single application as a set of small services that communicate through APIs and can be deployed independently ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/devops/what-is-devops/)). Microservices are not a requirement for DevOps. A monolithic application can still use CI/CD, IaC, and monitoring.

## Example DevOps Flow for a Web Application

The flow below is an illustration of a pipeline for a business web application, not a fixed standard. The order follows the practices described by Microsoft, AWS, and GitHub above:

1. **Plan.** A new feature, for example a sales report per branch, is written as a backlog item with clear acceptance criteria.
2. **Code.** A developer creates a branch, writes the code, and opens a pull request.
3. **CI.** The pipeline automatically runs linters, unit tests, and security checks. The results appear on the pull request ([source](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/get-started/continuous-integration)).
4. **Review.** A teammate reviews the code before it is merged into the main branch.
5. **Deploy to staging.** The same artifact is installed in a staging environment for users to test through [UAT](https://www.ciptadusa.com/en/blog/uat-adalah).
6. **Release to production.** Once approved, that version is released. If a problem appears, the team rolls back to the previous version.
7. **Monitor.** Logs, errors, and response times are monitored. Findings from production go back into the backlog.

For Next.js applications, we cover the technical guardrails before release in our article on [Next.js security and deployment](https://www.ciptadusa.com/en/blog/nextjs-security-deployment).

## How to Measure DevOps: DORA Metrics

DORA (DevOps Research and Assessment) has identified five software delivery performance metrics, split into throughput and instability ([source](https://dora.dev/guides/dora-metrics/)):

| Group | Metric | What it measures |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Throughput | Change lead time | Time for a change to go from committed to version control to deployed in production |
| Throughput | Deployment frequency | Number of deployments over a given period, or the time between deployments |
| Throughput | Failed deployment recovery time | Time to recover from a failed deployment that needs immediate intervention |
| Instability | Change fail rate | Ratio of deployments that need immediate intervention, such as a rollback or hotfix |
| Instability | Deployment rework rate | Ratio of unplanned deployments that happen as a result of a production incident |

According to DORA, its research has repeatedly shown that speed and stability are not tradeoffs. DORA also warns about several pitfalls: setting metrics as goals, relying on a single metric, and comparing applications with very different contexts, such as a mobile app and a mainframe system ([source](https://dora.dev/guides/dora-metrics/)).

## DevOps vs Agile vs SRE vs DevSecOps

| Term | Focus | Relationship to DevOps |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Agile | Development in short release cycles with user feedback | Microsoft lists Agile as one of the DevOps practices ([source](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/devops/what-is-devops)) |
| DevOps | Collaboration across the whole application lifecycle, from plan to operate | The broader philosophy and way of working |
| SRE | Service reliability through a software engineering approach, managed with service level objectives (SLOs) | Google calls SRE one concrete implementation of DevOps: "class SRE implements interface DevOps" ([source](https://sre.google/workbook/how-sre-relates/)) |
| DevSecOps | Security becomes everyone's responsibility on the DevOps team | AWS describes it as the DevOps model where security is a focus for everyone on the team ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/devops/what-is-devops/)) |

In short, Agile answers how a team develops features, while DevOps extends that to how those features are delivered and run. For a fuller explanation of Agile, see our article [What Is Agile](https://www.ciptadusa.com/en/blog/agile-adalah).

## DevOps Engineer: Role and Responsibilities

The Google SRE team notes that the label "DevOps engineer" is a misnomer if it is treated as an instant fix: a company cannot simply hire people with that title and expect benefits immediately without changing how it works ([source](https://sre.google/workbook/how-sre-relates/)). The responsibilities of a DevOps engineer are therefore better read as a technical foundation the whole team builds. We derived the list below from the DevOps practices covered above:

- Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines.
- Manage infrastructure and configuration as code.
- Set up development, staging, and production environments.
- Build monitoring, logging, and alerting.
- Enable developers to deploy independently and safely.
- Take part in incident response and write blameless postmortems.

## Benefits and Challenges of DevOps for Business

Benefits named by AWS and Microsoft include ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/devops/what-is-devops/), [source](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/devops/what-is-devops)):

- **Faster releases.** Features and bug fixes reach users in shorter cycles.
- **Lower release risk.** Small changes are easier to test and easier to trace when they cause a problem.
- **Faster recovery.** Microsoft stresses measuring and improving the time it takes to recover from failure.
- **Consistent environments.** IaC and configuration management let staging and production be rebuilt the same way.
- **Better collaboration.** Shared responsibility reduces handoff time between teams.

The challenges are real too:

- **Cultural change.** Tools can be bought, but working habits and the division of responsibility have to change together.
- **Upfront automation investment.** Writing automated tests and pipelines takes time before the benefits show.
- **Pipeline security.** Pipelines hold access to servers and secrets, so their permissions need to be limited and audited.
- **Misdirected measurement.** DORA warns that metrics turned into targets can be gamed ([source](https://dora.dev/guides/dora-metrics/)).

The cost of running pipelines, servers, and monitoring is part of [application maintenance costs](https://www.ciptadusa.com/en/blog/biaya-maintenance-aplikasi) and should be planned from the start of a project.

## How to Start DevOps in a Small Team

DORA recommends a step-by-step approach: gather the cross-functional team responsible for one application, then walk through these steps ([source](https://dora.dev/guides/dora-metrics/)):

1. **Set a baseline.** Measure the application's current delivery performance, for example with the DORA Quick Check.
2. **Discuss friction points.** Map the release process from commit to production and mark the steps that are slow or error-prone.
3. **Pick the biggest constraint.** The whole team commits to improving one bottleneck first.
4. **Make a plan with measures.** For example, measure how long code reviews take or the quality of your tests.
5. **Do the work, check, repeat.** Use team retrospectives to validate progress.

DORA also names one approach for improving all five metrics: reducing the batch size of changes, because smaller changes are easier to reason about, move through delivery, and recover from if they fail ([source](https://dora.dev/guides/dora-metrics/)). For new products, this pattern pairs well with an [MVP](https://www.ciptadusa.com/en/blog/mvp-adalah) approach.

## FAQ

### What is DevOps?

DevOps is the combination of cultural philosophies, practices, and tools that increases an organization's ability to deliver applications and services at high velocity, with development and operations working as one unit ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/devops/what-is-devops/)).

### What does DevOps stand for?

DevOps combines the words development and operations ([source](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/devops/what-is-devops)).

### What is a DevOps pipeline?

A DevOps pipeline, or CI/CD pipeline, is an automated flow that takes code changes through build, testing, and deployment into increasingly production-like environments. Martin Fowler calls it a deployment pipeline ([source](https://martinfowler.com/bliki/ContinuousDelivery.html)).

### Is DevOps the same as Agile?

No. Agile focuses on development in short release cycles with user feedback. DevOps covers the whole application lifecycle including delivery and operations, and Microsoft places Agile as one of the practices within DevOps ([source](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/devops/what-is-devops)).

### What is the difference between DevOps and SRE?

DevOps is a broad philosophy and way of working. SRE is a job role and a set of concrete practices for keeping services reliable, for example through SLOs. Google describes SRE as an implementation of DevOps ([source](https://sre.google/workbook/how-sre-relates/)).

### Does a small company need DevOps?

The principles still apply, at a different scale. A small team can start with version control, automated tests, one deploy pipeline to staging and production, and error monitoring. The Google SRE team also notes that a small startup can still take a DevOps-style approach ([source](https://sre.google/workbook/how-sre-relates/)).

## Build Applications with a Production-Ready Pipeline with CDS

PT Cipta Dua Saudara builds web and mobile applications, internal dashboards, and API integrations through [custom software development](https://www.ciptadusa.com/en/services/software). Every release comes with staging and production environments, a CI/CD pipeline, technical documentation, and the full source code handed over to you. Every sprint includes code review and automated testing, the Ship stage covers QA, production deployment, and post-release monitoring, and a monthly retainer is available for fixes, monitoring, and feature iteration. If your team's release process is still manual and error-prone, start with [IT consulting](https://www.ciptadusa.com/en/services/consulting) to audit your systems and build a phased roadmap.

We also develop our own products such as [Zetta CRM](https://www.ciptadusa.com/en/incubating/zetta-crm), a self-hosted CRM backend shipped as a single binary and container image, accessed through an API and an MCP server. See [our work](https://www.ciptadusa.com/en/works), read [What Is System Integration](https://www.ciptadusa.com/en/blog/integrasi-sistem-adalah) and [when a business needs custom software](https://www.ciptadusa.com/en/blog/kapan-bisnis-butuh-software-custom-2026), or our [guide to choosing a software development company in West Java](https://www.ciptadusa.com/en/blog/pilih-jasa-pembuatan-software-jawa-barat-20260907) before starting a project.


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