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Frameworks and standards

DevOps: delivering change quickly, safely and reliably

DevOps brings the people who build software and the people who run it together, so organisations can deliver improvements faster without sacrificing stability. Here is what it means and how it fits with service management.

In brief

What is DevOps?

DevOps is a culture and set of practices that bring software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) together, with shared goals, shared responsibility and a high degree of automation.

Traditionally, developers were rewarded for delivering change and operations teams for keeping things stable. Those goals pulled in opposite directions, and work was thrown “over the wall” between them. DevOps replaces that with cross-functional teams that own a product or service from idea to production and beyond.

Unlike ITIL or ISO standards, DevOps has no single owner, official body of knowledge or version number. It is a movement shaped by practitioners, research and community, which is both its strength and why definitions vary.

In practice, DevOps usually means small, frequent changes; automated building, testing and deployment; close monitoring of live services; and fast feedback that is used to keep improving.

Key facts

Type
Culture and set of practices
Owner
None. A community-driven movement
Origins
Around 2009, from the agile and operations communities
Certification for people
Yes, from several independent bodies and cloud vendors
Certification for organisations
No
Key research
DORA (dora.dev)

Core ideas

The key ideas in DevOps

CALMSA popular summary of DevOps: Culture, Automation, Lean, Measurement and Sharing.
The three waysOptimise the flow of work, amplify feedback from production back to development, and build a culture of continual learning and experimentation.
Continuous integration and deliveryCode is merged, built and tested automatically and often, so it is always in a releasable state.
Infrastructure as codeEnvironments are defined and built from version-controlled code, making them repeatable and auditable.
Observability and SREGood monitoring and site reliability engineering practices, such as service level objectives and error budgets, balance speed with reliability.
Measuring deliveryThe DORA research programme popularised metrics such as deployment frequency, lead time for changes, change failure rate and time to recover.

Ownership and history

Where DevOps came from

The term DevOps emerged around 2009. Belgian consultant Patrick Debois organised the first DevOpsDays conference in Ghent that year, building on conversations in the agile and system administration communities about breaking down the wall between development and operations.

Books such as The Phoenix Project and The DevOps Handbook, and the long-running research behind the Accelerate book and the annual DORA reports, helped bring DevOps into the mainstream. DORA is now part of Google Cloud and continues to publish research on software delivery performance.

Because no single organisation owns DevOps, several bodies offer training and certification based on their own interpretation of it.

Certifications

DevOps certifications for individuals

There is no single official DevOps certification. The most recognised options fall into three groups.

Vendor neutralPeopleCert DevOps InstituteThe DevOps Institute, now part of PeopleCert, offers certifications such as DevOps Foundation, DevOps Leader and Site Reliability Engineering Foundation.
Vendor neutralDASAThe DevOps Agile Skills Association offers DASA DevOps Fundamentals, followed by professional-level modules such as Enable and Scale, and Specify and Verify.
TechnicalCloud vendor certificationsHands-on engineers often pursue platform certifications, such as AWS Certified DevOps Engineer Professional or Microsoft Certified DevOps Engineer Expert.

Benefits

Why organisations adopt DevOps

Faster time to valueSmall, frequent releases get improvements and fixes to users in days rather than months.
Fewer failed changesAutomated testing and deployment make change more repeatable and less risky.
Quicker recoveryGood monitoring and small changes make problems easier to spot, diagnose and roll back.
Better collaborationShared goals and ownership reduce hand-offs, blame and delays between teams.
Built-in complianceAutomated pipelines can enforce and record controls, producing audit evidence as a by-product of normal work.
Happier teamsLess manual toil and fewer late-night firefights help attract and keep good engineers.

Who it is for

Who should use DevOps?

DevOps is most valuable for organisations that build, configure or frequently change software and digital services, whether that is a product company, an internal development team, or an IT department running cloud platforms.

It is not only for start-ups or tech giants. Traditional organisations, including those in regulated sectors, adopt DevOps practices gradually, often starting with automated testing and deployment for one service and expanding from there.

Where most IT work is supporting off-the-shelf products, the principles still help: automation, fast feedback and shared ownership improve any service.

Roles that benefit most

  • Software developers and testers
  • Operations, platform and cloud engineers
  • Site reliability engineers
  • Product owners and delivery managers
  • Change, release and service managers
  • Security teams (often called DevSecOps)

How it fits

DevOps and IT service management

DevOps and service management are sometimes seen as opposites: one about speed, the other about control. In reality, they need each other. Fast delivery is only valuable if services stay reliable and users are supported well.

  • ITIL 4 and Version 5 are designed to work with DevOps. For example, change enablement can treat low-risk, automated deployments as pre-approved standard changes.
  • VeriSM helps organisations combine DevOps, Agile and service management practices into one coherent approach.
  • ISO/IEC 20000 and ISO/IEC 27001 requirements can be met within automated pipelines, as long as controls and evidence are designed in from the start.

How Northera helps

Service management that keeps pace with DevOps

We help fast-moving teams get the benefits of service management without losing speed: right-sized change enablement, clear incident and problem routes for product teams, and service levels that make sense for continuous delivery. Our founder holds four DASA DevOps certificates. See our services page for more.

Related reading

ArticleService Management for DevOps Teams: Keeping Speed Without Losing ControlRead the articleArticleMoving from ITIL 4 to ITIL Version 5: A Practical Transition PlanRead the articleArticleWhy ITIL Adoption Programmes Stall, and How to Keep Yours MovingRead the article

Last reviewed November 2026. DevOps Institute is part of PeopleCert. DASA is the DevOps Agile Skills Association. Other names are trademarks of their respective owners.

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