DevOps vs DevSecOps: Which Approach is Best for Your Business?

Quick Summary: DevOps and DevSecOps are two innovative software development approaches with a myriad of benefits and use cases. This blog has covered lots of information about DevOps and DevSecOps and provides a complete comparison between them.

Businesses have been looking for a more efficient approach to their software development and deployment processes for a long time. This led to the emergence of various SDLCs (Software Development Life Cycles) such as Waterfall, V-Model, Spiral, Agile, Scrum, and more.

These methods have been successful to some extent. However, they cannot fully meet modern business requirements, especially with the rise of cloud services such as SaaS (Software-as-a-Service). Companies are required to deliver code more quickly and expedite their software release process to meet customer expectations. DevOps and DevSecOps provide those benefits.

DevOps and DevSecOps perform software development processes more efficiently with a loop of continuous integration and continuous deployment, known as the CI/CD pipeline. This approach emphasizes making incremental code changes reliably and frequently. It integrates the CI/CD pipeline into SDLC.

Today, businesses are rapidly adopting DevOps and DevSecOps approaches. According to Statista, DevOps and DevSecOps hold a 47% share among various software development methodologies.

But for many businesses, the dilemma of DevOps vs DevSecOps makes it difficult to decide which approach is better for them. They need to understand the difference between DevSecOps and DevOps to make a rational conclusion about which one is more suitable. This blog presents all the information along with a clear comparison to take that decision.

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Understanding the meanings of both is essential to come out of DevOps vs DevSecOps confusion. Let’s check out DevOps meaning first.

What is DevOps?

DevOps seems a peculiar term, but the underlying concept is easy to grasp. For ages, the development and operation teams have been “siloed”, and DevOps breaks this setup by combining them.

DevOps stands for “Development” and “Operations” and it provides an approach that establishes harmony between the development and the operation teams. The amalgamation of the development and operation teams results in better coordination between them when it comes to delivering value to customers.

With a new paradigm to software development, testing, and delivery, DevOps solves many problems for businesses like delayed software delivery, lack of coordination between development and operations, slow feature updates, and more. DevOps brings tools, processes, and teams together with automation to develop and deliver software products faster.

DevOps is a kind of mindset or culture that businesses can adopt to bring their development and IT teams together. It streamlines the development, testing, and deployment of every software solution. DevOps services inculcate that culture in an organization to provide an efficient development cycle.

Let’s understand DevSecOps meaning to find out the DevOps vs DevSecOps differences.

What is DevSecOps?

With security becoming a major concern for businesses today, they need a more holistic approach to the software development process. DevSecOps is the answer. It supersedes the DevOps framework with security as a key component in the development cycle. Therefore, DevSecOps is different from DevOps in terms of an additional layer of security with the framework.

In DevSecOps, security is an integral aspect that is present at each stage of the software development and deployment cycle. This is the most relevant approach when working in the cloud and where security and compliance is prerequisite.

DevOps vs DevSecOps: What are the Similarities?

DevOps and DevSecOps are different approaches, but they have much in common. Here are the commonalities of these two methodologies.

Similarity in Mindset

One similarity between DevOps vs DevSecOps is their emphasis on bringing separate departments together. Hence, they follow the same mindset or culture. DevOps focuses on bringing the development and IT teams together to improve collaboration and harmony between them.

Similarly, the DevSecOps approach promotes cooperation between the development, security, and IT departments by bringing them together. The DevOps culture reduces bottlenecks and promotes efficiency.

DevSecOps is effective for minimizing vulnerabilities in the development and deployment of applications. Besides DevOps vs DevSecOps differences, common tools and practices are used in these processes. You can adopt DevSecOps when security is a major focus for software development approach.

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Automation

When a task is performed without human intervention with the help of technology, this is called automation. Automation in DevOps and DevSecOps offer a CI/CD pipeline where software is continuously integrated and deployed. With the help of automation, software updates can be deployed very quickly in DevOps because of an efficient feedback loop connecting the development with operations teams.

CI/CD pipeline and automation make DevOps implementation services beneficial in terms of quick software development and releases.

DevSecOps reduces human error as automation offers secure processes. In both DevOps and DevSecOps, automation exists to provide efficient processes.

For automation, many tools like Docker and Kubernetes are used in both DevOps and DevSecOps workflows.

Monitoring

Businesses may need to improve their existing code or modify it in the future. Therefore, active monitoring is crucial for the software development process. In both DevOps and DevSecOps practices, active monitoring of applications or software and the code being developed is a vital part of the processes.

In DevSecOps there is one further step is to make sure that the code doesn’t have vulnerabilities. So, it also checks for possible vulnerabilities at every stage.

What are the Factors that Distinguish DevSecOps from DevOps?

Now that you know the meanings of DevOps and DevSecOps and the similarities between them, now it’s time to look at what is the difference between DevOps and DevSecOps.

DevOps vs DevSecOps: Diff of Emphasis

Both DevSecOps and DevOps offer a new kind of software development methodology where continuous code updates and releases are important. So, instead of waiting for the development team to finish their work and then deploy the software product, it is done on an incremental basis. DevOps offers automation testing to speed up the development process and minimize the risk of bugs.

While DevOps focuses on an optimum process for software development, DevSecOps also integrates security with a greater emphasis. With the integration of security from the beginning, DevSecOps attempts to reduce the risks and vulnerabilities in code.

So, when it comes to DevOps vs DevSecOps comparison, DevSecOps offers a more comprehensive approach.

DevOps vs DevSecOps: Diff of Goals

DevOps is a new software development approach that provides a distinct way of collaboration between the development and IT teams. The DevOps approach aims to improve the efficiency and coordination of various teams that result in speedy development process.

DevOps eliminates the seclusion of the IT and development teams to achieve that objective. It improves communication between them by removing restrictions and gaps. DevOps offers quick delivery of software release while also maintaining the quality due to fast development, testing, and deployment.

On the other side, DevSecOps puts greater emphasis on security. The primary goal of DevSecOps is to prevent the possible risks and vulnerabilities from occurring in the codebase. It puts security in place at all the steps in the development process.

DevOps vs DevSecOps: Diff of Skills

The DevSecOps and DevOps methodologies also differ based on team skills. In DevOps, the main concern for the team is developing and maintaining software solutions. The teams in DevOps utilize numerous tools and methods for managing the development process. On the other hand, in DevSecOps the team focuses more on the security of that software.

Therefore, in the case of DevOps, the team focuses on the technical aspects of a software solution. In DevSecOps, their primary concern is security. They have an understanding of cybersecurity issues and various coding practices to sort out and fix issues. The teams use tools that automate the tracking of security issues and make it a seamless process.

DevOps vs DevSecOps: Diff of Development Cycle

DevOps tends to have shorter development cycles than DevSecOps because there is an extra layer of process in the latter. Thus, more quick and frequent software releases are possible with DevOps. The development cycle revolves around continuous integration and deployment.

At every stage of a software development lifecycle that includes planning, designing, development, testing, deployment, and maintenance, security becomes an integral component. So, there are extra checks for security at all the phases in the SDLC in the DevSecOps methodology.

DevOps vs DevSecOps: Diff of Security Implementation

Another point that differentiates DevSecOps vs DevOps is at what stage security is considered. As already mentioned, security comes at every stage in DevSecOps. So, security is considered from the beginning in DevSecOps.

Though DevOps integrates an incremental approach to development and updates, security comes at the last stage of the software development process. Security checks are the last step in the development process in DevOps before software or applications are released.

Following are the prime differences between DevOps and DevSecOps:

The major difference between DevOps and DevSecOps is that, DevOps emphasizes the automation of the software delivery process, while DevSecOps focuses more on the security of the entire process.

The difference between DevOps vs DevSecOps is that DevOps focuses on collaboration between development and operations to streamline software delivery, while DevSecOps integrates security practices into DevOps, embedding security throughout the development and operation processes.

In terms of security, DevOps addresses security concerns later in the development cycle, whereas DevSecOps integrated security from the beginning, with continuous security checks and balances throughout the lifecycle.

Talking about the difference between DevSecOps vs DevOps, DevSecOps extends monitoring to include security threats, vulnerabilities, and incident response, while DevOps focuses more on performance and reliability.

DevOps process aims to improve deployment frequency, lead time for changes, and mean time for recovery. DevSecOps, on the other hand, enhances DevOps processes by incorporating security checks into every stage, from planning to deployment.

Tools and Platforms Used in DevOps and DevSecOps

Aside from the various DevOps vs DevSecOps differences, there are common tools used for both processes. In addition, there are some additional tools that are used with DevSecOps due to its extra security layer.

• Tools for CI/CD pipeline

There are several tools used to effectively implement the CI/CD pipeline that creates a loop of continuous integration and continuous deployment. GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins, Travis CI, and CircleCI are examples of continuous integration tools.

• Version Control Systems (VCS)

A VCS is a system to manage changes in software, applications, websites, and any piece of program. There are several version control systems like Subversion and Git.

• Containerization Platforms

These are the platforms that help in managing containerized applications in the cloud. They offer automation and make it easy to manage applications in the cloud. Kubernetes is one of the most popular tools for automation these days.

Many processes that are required for deploying, scaling, and managing containerized applications can be automated with this tool. Kubernetes comes with everything that is needed to manage and execute applications including dependencies and code.

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Other popular containerization planforms are Docker and OpenShift. These platforms also offer a lot of features for managing container applications.

• IaC (Infrastructure-as-Code) Tools

These tools help to manage and provision computing infrastructure through code rather than a manual process. These tools include Chef, Ansible, Terraform, and Puppet.

• Cloud Platforms

Cloud platforms offer cloud computing services and related features. AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud are the most popular platforms these days.

• APM (Application Performance Monitoring) Tools

They are a set of tools that help in tracking cloud application performance and rectifying issues. Popular tools are New Relic, Dynatrace, and Datadog.

Other tools that are used in DevSecOps but not in DevOps are:

• Tools for security scanning like SonarQube, Checkmarx, and Snyk
• Penetration tools like OWASP ZAP
• Threat modeling tool
• Compliance tools

Comparing DevOps with Other Types of Approaches

You have seen a comparison of DevOps vs DevSecOps, now let’s check the comparison of DevOps with popular methodologies and concepts. There are many other types of approaches that are used today in software development and delivery. The following is the comparison of DevOps with different methodologies and concepts.

DevOps vs SRE

Now you know that DevOps is a culture or mindset that eliminates the gaps between the development and operation teams and implements automation. The objective of DevOps is to get a shorter SDLC for fast development and release of software solutions.

SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) helps in automating IT operation tasks that otherwise need to be done manually by a system administrator. It uses software engineering to implement automation in IT operations and simplify some of the administrative tasks. Check out a proper DevOps vs SRE comparison to find out what differentiates them from each other.

Agile vs DevOps

Agile is an iterative approach that is usually used in developing software solutions and project management. The development process entails sprints or divided into small batches to work on a task basis. This approach works on a develop, review, and deploy basis where once a batch is completed, it is reviewed by the client, and deployed after resolving feedback.

Differences between Agile and DevOps

• In DevOps collaboration is between development and operation teams, and in Agile between development and project management.
• Agile comes in from ideation to code completion and DevOps extends to delivery and Maintenace.
• Agile follows an iterative approach and DevOps provides automation in testing and delivery.

You need to understand the complete DevOps vs Agile comparison to draw a conclusion about which application development approach is more suitable for your business.

DevOps and Microservices

Microservice is an application development architecture that divides an application into multiple service-based components. This type of architecture is useful for network-based applications. It is used in cloud services.

DevOps teams can pack individual functionalities into microservices that can work as building blocks for developing larger systems. CI/CD practices of DevOps help in microservices deployment. There are many benefits of this architecture that you can know in what are microservices and their benefits.

DevOps vs DevSecOps vs SecOps

DevOps vs DevSecOps has already been discussed and you need to understand what SecOps is. In simple terms, SecOps is the combination of security and operations. So, SecOps combines the security and IT operation teams.

Final Verdict on DevOps vs DevSecOpsDevSecOps is an ideal methodology for those businesses that handle sensitive data or are required to meet strict security compliances. DevOps offers a setup where the teams that are often isolated from each other come together to fast-track the development and release of the software.DevOps is a rising cultural mindset that helps businesses make their development cycle more streamlined and quicker. When security becomes an important concern for your development pipeline, DevSecOps becomes the priority. Many businesses are even making a transition to DevSecOps to meet their security requirements.However, the answer to which one is better, DevOps or DevSecOps depends on the requirements of your business. Pick an approach that best aligns with your requirements and fits into your software development lifecycle.Whether you want DevOps implementation or to integrate security in your development cycle from the beginning with DevSecOps, Radixweb is the best tech partner to fulfill all requirements. We are a renowned software development company and have worked with clients for DevOps and DevSecOps implementation. You can leverage our expertise in DevOps and DevSecOps to streamline your application development cycle. Feel free to contact us and can help you scale up your business.