DevOps has been introduced to increase, in particular, productivity and efficiency of the Development and Operations processes. Not surprisingly, DevOps personnel requested the IT marketspace to provide them with tools that can ensure control of the productivity and efficiency. To make an optimal choice of such a tool, DevOps teams should clearly understand the set of features they should be expecting from the tool vendors. Here are some features that DevOps teams should consider when selecting a vendor and a tool.

Budget management

·   Budget allocation by a team

·   Budget allocation by an individual

Resource management

·   Resource allocation by a team (e.g., people and tool allocation)

·   Resource allocation by developer (e.g., tool allocation)

Time management

·   Work-time allocation (per project, sprint, etc.)

Task management

·   Work segmentation

Issue management

·   Ticket tracking

·   Sprint tracking

·   Workflow diagnostics

·   Pull request resolution

Metrics

·   Target tracking

·   Activity heatmap (who and how will be impacted by a change in the workflow)

·   DORA metrics

• Deployment frequency
• Lead time to change
• Change failure rate
• Time to restore service

Analytics

·   Benchmarks

·   Scenario planner

·   Project delay/failure risk

·   Project timeline

Reporting

·   Executive reports

·   Detail reports

·   Daily project status

·   Sprint reports

·   Report history

·   Activity log

Performance management

·   Individuals’ performance review

·   Teams’ performance review

·   Collaboration view

Ask each vendor which you consider whether it can provide those features. Try to get all, or at least/most, of them in one tool. Even if some of the features are not on your short list, you might require them soon.

And another piece of advice: In this blog, we have been discussing DevOps capabilities. Meanwhile, the industry has been expanding DevOps paradigm into DevSecOps paradigm, where the goal is not just an effective development and operations process, but also a secure one. Therefore, see if the same vendor can offer you not just DevOps capabilities, but also DevSecOps capabilities.