Gartner: DevOps toolset sales reach 2.3 billion in 2015
The sales of DevOps toolsets, tools to implement DevOps – a software development method that focuses on communication, culture and people – are expected to grow with 21% to $2.3 billion this year, a report from Gartner finds. Furthermore, the research consultancy finds that by 2016 the development method will cease being a niche strategy and will be utilised by a quarter of Global 2000 organisations.
DevOps
According to information technology research and consulting firm Gartner, DevOps is more than just a software development method; it is a ‘philosophy’. It is a way of working together that emphasises communication, culture and people over the tools and process through which developments are made and brought to market. By removing communicative and interpersonal barriers, and fostering collaboration on needs, the overall development and business process can be strengthened. “With respect to culture, DevOps seeks to change the dynamics in which operations and development teams interact,” explains Laurie Wurster, Research Director at Gartner. “Key to this change are the issues of trust, honesty and responsibility. In essence, the goal is to enable each organisation to see the perspective of the other and to modify behaviour accordingly, while motivating autonomy.”
Although DevOps focuses on improving people and culture, implementation utilises technology: DevOps tools. In recently released research titled ‘Market Trends: DevOps — Not a Market, but a Tool-Centric Philosophy That Supports a Continuous Delivery Value Chain’, Gartner explores the DevOps tool market. The firm finds that DevOps toolsets are expected to see strong sales growth, with an increase of 21.1% in 2015 from $1.9 billion in 2014 to $2.3 billion. The firm believes by 2016 DevOps will cease being a niche strategy found at large cloud providers, to become a mainstream strategy found at 25% of Global 2000 organisations.
Different tool sets can be provided for practices related to continuous delivery, continuous improvement, infrastructure and configuration as code, toolsets Gartner categorises as DevOps-ready, -enabled and -capable tools. The consultancy finds that particularly DevOps-ready tools, tools specifically designed and built with “out-of-the-box functionality to support the described DevOps characteristics and traits”, will continue to see strong growth in the coming period. While DevOps-enabled and -capable tools, which currently exist as part of the larger IT operation and development toolbox, will be re-appropriated by the DevOps philosophy and thereby gain different prominence and engagement.
In conclusion, Wurster says: “In response to the rapid change in business today, DevOps can help organisations that are pushing to implement a bimodal strategy to support their digitalisation efforts. Digital business is essentially software, which means that organisations that expect to thrive in a digital environment must have an improved competence in software delivery.”
