How Tech Giants Leverage DevOps Engineers

The DevOps approach is exploding in popularity. It bridges the gap between development and operations, helping organizations develop and deploy solutions much faster and maintain existing solutions much more effectively. As a result, the demand for DevOps engineers has skyrocketed. 

 

A job that did not exist a few years back is expected to dominate the IT industry in the near future.

 

While the future of DevOps is pretty much set in stone, many companies still are unfamiliar with how they can benefit from this approach. So, let’s explore how some of the world’s leading companies utilize DevOps engineers to streamline their processes. 

 

How World’s Top Companies Address Problems with DevOps Engineers

 

1. Amazon

 

With over a billion users, Amazon is the largest e-commerce company in the world. However, it’s not been a smooth ride. Back when the e-commerce giant ran on dedicated on-premises servers, it frequently struggled to meet traffic demands and prepare for unexpected spikes of traffic.

 

So, throughout the months of low traffic, the company didn’t use over a third of its server capacity.  However, during high-traffic seasons such as Black Friday and Christmas, traffic could multiply. Since the company could not correctly predict demand, this would lead to outages and money wasted on unused server space. 

 

In addition to that, with the increase of merchants and users, the number of source files grew. Thus, scaling, upgrading, and maintaining their infrastructure and applications was continuously becoming harder. 

 

Once Amazon moved its servers to the cloud, its engineers were able to scale server capacity up and down according to demand. Moreover, the continuous deployment processes allowed Amazon’s developers to deploy new code on select servers whenever that was necessary. This allowed the company to reduce the number of outages, improve code deployment, reduce spending, and boost revenue. 

 

Lastly, Amazon relies on the microservices architecture. This channels user requests into the correct microservice, making it easier to maintain speed and accuracy with a growing number of requests. 

 

2. Etsy

 

If one has handcrafted products to sell, Etsy is their go-to e-commerce marketplace. The platform has over 2 million merchants and approximately 40 million shoppers. However, when it first started, site updates were slow and problematic, often causing the entire site to go down. 

 

Since netizens do not enjoy slow sites, this meant angry customers who could potentially switch to a competitor with a smoother user experience. Deployments would occur twice a week and could isolate entire departments. 

 

So, Etsy abandoned its waterfall model in favor of a more agile approach. Today, Etsy relies on the practices of DevOps engineers and is able to deploy services up to 100 times a day with its CI/CD pipeline. It pushes its updates to a small number of random users within the enterprise, which allows them to be tested safely before being deployed to the entire Etsy user base. 

 

3. Netflix

 

Netflix put Blockbuster out of business, becoming the biggest steaming service worldwide, but it didn’t do so without its share of challenges. Before offering subscription streaming services, it once had a much simpler business model of shipping physical DVDs. 

 

Transitioning to a web model meant managing vast cloud infrastructure and estimating traffic fluctuations. And who likes it when videos randomly pause to buffer?

 

As a result, Netflix moved to a cloud-based microservices architecture. It now uses over 700 different microservices that allow the streaming giant to control every aspect of its service. This architecture model separates different teams of DevOps engineers allowing them to build, test and deploy services at a much faster pace and without affecting the work of others. 

 

Furthermore, the company also relies on a team of volunteer developers called the Simian Army. They use a range of automated DevOps tools to stress-test the Netflix infrastructure. This allows the company to identify vulnerabilities before they impact user experience. 

 

4. Target

 

One of the top retailers in the United States, Target has gone through various service changes following the COVID-19 outbreak. It was among the businesses pioneering new services such as drive-up pickup and profiting when many businesses were shutting down. 

 

Target has been relying on DevOps engineers for years. It used DevOps practices to develop its various services, such as the mobile savings app, rewards program, and more. In fact, the company has benefitted from DevOps engineers so much that it hosts DevOpsDays for its various internal teams. During those, it features new demos, keynote presentations, open labs, and more. 

 

5. Facebook

 

With nearly 3 billion global users, the social media giant relied on DevOps practices before DevOps engineers even became a thing. Many of the approaches that the organization adopted in its early years are DevOps practices. They include incremental changes, code ownership, automation, and continuous improvement and deployment. 

 

These practices have helped the company to accelerate the speed of the development lifecycle, allowing frequent app updates and improvements. As a result, Facebook is not only able to continuously improve user experience but has also set a new standard for software development. 

 

How Will You Leverage DevOps Engineers?

 

DevOps practices are the way to go for IT companies that aim to remain competitive in the coming years. The above are only a few examples of how tech giants rely on DevOps engineers to continuously push development limits. 

 

If you have a development project in mind, putting it into the hands of reliable DevOps engineers is key to ensuring the successful development and rapid deployment. Datrick’s DevOps engineers can ensure that your development project is not only on time and on budget but also complies with the latest industry standards. Schedule a complimentary conversation to get started.