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There’s a new buzzword in town, one that made it to the Gartner’s list of key trends, too. Called XOps, its roots lie in Development and Operations (DevOps). While DevOps, say experts, falls short of achieving full automation, XOps, an umbrella term is used for a combination of IT tech like DevOps, DevSecOps, AIOps, MLOps, GitOps, and BizDevOps, will do it. XOps supposedly helps to shorten a system’s development cycles and provides continuous delivery with high software quality.
Because of it, data and analytics professionals can automate their processes, manage pipelines and workflows, and manage scripts. Developers can extend XOps with custom interfaces, connectors, and capabilities. XOps helps make business processes more efficient and automate whatever can be automated in order to business goals.
XOps is designed to run on-premises or in a private cloud that meets specific requirements. It’s built to run enterprise-wide, globally distributed, and interconnected, especially in analytic environments. It is a combination of traditional business applications, such as data and analytics management, with modern technologies like:
The XOps SDKs enable seamless integrations with any Java-, Node.js- or Python-based infrastructure. It is built using open source technologies, including those contributed by the XOps community, such as Apache Hadoop, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and MySQL.
The Emergence of XOps
As we said earlier, XOps can be said to be an extension of DevOps. It helps to shorten a system’s development cycles and provides continuous delivery with high software quality. There are different Ops functions out there but these days, XOps is being used as an all-encompassing term for an amalgamation of IT operations such as DevOps, DevSecOps, AIOps, MLOps, and BizDevOps. XOps links various cycles – from development, deployment, maintenance to the operationalization of the expertise and processes required to monitor and to keep going analytics and AI tasks.
While XOps is a relatively new term, it has already begun to gather momentum in the DevOps space. It’s been interpreted as a great way forward in the evolution of operations and how they can be organized to meet business needs.
Various Components That Make Up XOps
XOps is a platform that enables you to manage and monitor your infrastructure, applications, and devices from a single pane of glass. Think of it like a pane of glass; one that provides a single-window on your operations. With XOps you can view a single view of your entire infrastructure, regardless of the size and/or complexity of your environment. Fully featured automation is provided for all operations in an organization, be it IT operations, application development, or even web development. XOps simplifies operations and monitoring.
The key components in addition to DevOps include:
DataOps: As analytics becomes more popular, DataOps is slowly making its way to the forefront. With it, data analytics projects can be completed more quickly while maintaining quality. It is deployed right from the beginning of the pipeline (data preparation) and connected to various points in the analytics chain and IT operations. Data delivery is automated using technology while adhering to appropriate levels of governance.
MLOps: Here, machine learning models are created, deployed, and maintained. Machine learning algorithms are deployed more efficiently and simply if DevOps, machine learning, and handling of data are combined. While doing so, business goals must be kept in mind at all times.
Is XOps More Than CloudOps and DevOps Or Is XOps A Mere Hype Then?
XOps is a term that has been coined to describe the intersection of cloud operations and DevOps. It is a term that is still relatively new, and we would not be wrong in claiming that to date, there’s no consensus on what it actually means. Some believe that XOps is just a buzzword and that there is no real difference between cloud operations and DevOps. But as technology starts to converge, this is becoming less and less likely. XOps is all about the convergence of these two IT operations models.
DevOps is all about the merging of software development, IT operations, and even application development. XOps is all about making the technology that runs your cloud to talk to the people who are responsible for running your IT operations. This is where XOps becomes extremely important because without it, then there is no real reason to merge these two very distinct models.
Originally published here
