DevOps Dictionary

DevOps is a set of practices that brings software development and IT operations together so teams can deliver changes quickly and reliably. It addresses the common problem where code moves fast but deployment and maintenance lag behind, creating delays, outages, and finger-pointing. DevOps works by aligning teams around shared ownership of services and by using automation for build, test, release, and infrastructure changes, often through continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD, automated pipelines that validate and ship code) and infrastructure as code (machine-readable definitions of servers and cloud resources). It also emphasizes feedback loops through monitoring and incident response so improvements are based on real production behavior.

With DevOps, releases are smaller, safer, and easier to roll back; without it, organizations tend to ship infrequently, rely on manual steps, and experience higher risk during deployments and slower recovery from failures. This gap exists because manual handoffs and inconsistent environments introduce variability that automation and shared processes are designed to remove.