Top 10 DevOps Tools Every Software Engineer Must Know in 2024

DevOps is a practice in which members of the development team and operations team collaborate to make software releases/ deployments more stable.

But in order to deploy stable releases, selecting the right DevOps tools is key. These DevOps tools could be for either CI/CD, Containerization, Configuration Management, Monitoring, or even Logging.

According to a recent survey, using the right DevOps tools helped 68% of organizations experience improvements in the quality of their software deployments. As the same survey shows, 99% believe DevOps has a positive impact on them. These results show that DevOps improves the stability of a delivery (CI/CD) pipeline.

Tools you must use for your DevOps pipeline as of 2024

This article enables you to gain a better understanding and knowledge of the necessary DevOps tools that are useful for this rapidly evolving domain.

These are the top ten DevOps tools that we have chosen from each category based on their importance, useability in several organizations, and future scalability.

·       Git & GitHub

·       Jenkins

·       Selenium

·       Ansible

·       Puppet

·       Docker

·       Kubernetes (or K8s)

·       Terraform

·       Nagios

·       Prometheus

1.    Git & GitHub

GIT is arguably the best and most popular version control system. It was introduced by Linus Torvalds in 2005 for the development of the Linux kernel. Git is used to handle small to large projects effectively. Enabling you to track changes across project versions. By using Git, multiple developers can work together on non-linear development.

GitHub:

GitHub is a web-based service to host Git repositories. It provides all of Git's distributed revision control and source code management (SCM). GitHub's interface is designed to be user-friendly, making it accessible even for novice coders to harness the power of Git. Without GitHub, working with Git typically demands a higher level of technical proficiency and a reliance on command-line operations.

Popularity of GIT according to Google trends Features:

Features:

·       Free and open-source tool

·       Allows distributed development

·       Branching and Merging

·       Enables faster release cycle

·       Compatibility

2. Jenkins

Jenkins is an open-source continuous integration tool written in the Java programming language. Jenkins helps organisations speed up the software development journey by automating various processes. It automates processes such as building, packaging artefacts, test case validation, deployment to staging or other environments, and more throughout the entire software lifecycle.

Popularity of Jenkins according to Google trends

Features:

·       Jenkins is simple to set up and configure via a web interface.

·       Jenkins is an extendable automation tool that can be used for Continuous integration (CI) and Continuous delivery (CD).

·       Provides a variety of communication channels, including a web-based GUI, a CLI, and a REST API.

3. Selenium

Selenium is a popular open-source software testing tool used for automation testing. You can also use it for cross-platform testing on both Android and iOS. In addition to that, it also allows you to integrate other DevOps tools and testing frameworks to automate testcases.

Popularity of Selenium according to Google trends

Features:

·       Supports a variety of operating systems, programming languages, and browsers

·       Agile control of webpage elements

·       Multiple Browser Support

·       Simple to understand and implement

4. Ansible

Ansible is an open-source command-line IT infrastructure automation software written in Python. This tool is designed to handle system configurations, software deployment, and the coordination of intricate workflows. It plays a crucial role in tasks such as application deployment, system updates, and more.

Popularity of Ansible according to Google trends

Features:

·       Utilizes master-slave architecture

·       Re-use same file multiple times and for different environments

·       Provides a simple, accurate, and stable approach for handling configurations

5. Puppet

Puppet is also an open-source configuration management tool. It is used for handling server configuration, management, deployment, and orchestration of diverse applications and services throughout an organisation's entire infrastructure. Puppet is specifically crafted for the purpose of configuring Linux and Windows systems.

Popularity of Puppet according to Google trends

Features:

·       Cross-Environment Deployment

·       Scalability

·       Security

·       Deploys a Controller-Agent architecture

·       Utilizes a Master-Slave architecture for deployment in Puppet.

6.    Docker

Docker is a popular lightweight DevOps tool for containerization. With the help of Docker, developers can quickly create, distribute, run, update, scale, and maintain containers— a standard unit of software that packages the source code along with its dependencies and libraries into one single executable that can be run and deployed across different environments.

Popularity of Docker according to Google trends

Features:

·       Applications can be packaged to reliably run in a variety of environments, including on-premises, Azure, AWS, or Google.

·       Explore images on Docker Hub from reliable publishers and the community.

·       Expand to 1,000 nodes

·       Update without any downtime

7.    Kubernetes (or K8s)

Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration platform for container-based deployments. It was initially developed by Google and later contributed to the CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation). This tool is used to automate the deployment, scaling, and management of container-based applications.

Popularity of Kubernetes according to Google trends

Features:

·       Apply a variety of hybrid, private, or public cloud hosting services

·       High levels of flexibility and storage orchestration

·       Increases web servers' capacity as needed for software applications

·       Load balancing and finding services

·       It works perfectly with Docker containers

8. Terraform

Terraform developed by HashiCorp, is an open-source tool categorized as an "Infrastructure as Code" (IaC) tool. Terraform requires developers to write code in a high-level configuration language known as HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language) for the targeted "end-state" infrastructure, whether in the cloud or on-premises. Subsequently, it generates a plan outlining the steps to attain the specified end state and executes the plan to provision the infrastructure.

Popularity of Terraform according to Google trends

Features:

·       Provides a user-friendly custom syntax that supports JSON.

·       Code for infrastructure can be created and defined in a variety of well-known languages, including Java, Python, C#, TypeScript, and Go.  

·       It enables the creation of variables to make templates generic, making it possible to easily reuse them for a variety of resources or contexts.  

9. Nagios

Nagios is an open-source monitoring tool that is used to monitor both small networks and large interconnected networks, infrastructure, and systems.  It has a wide range of plugin support to perform specific checks, such as service status, resource utilisation, hardware health, network monitoring, application-specific metrics, log file analysis, and security checks, enabling comprehensive monitoring of IT infrastructure.

Popularity of Nagios according to Google trends

Features:

·       Enhanced user administration

·       Capacity optimization

·       Nagios provides a thorough view of the IT infrastructure, allowing for a comprehensive overview.

·       This application offers data graphing plugins for visual representation and analysis

10. Prometheus

Prometheus is an open-source monitoring tool. It captures and retains its metrics in the form of time series data, where the information, including a timestamp of its recording is stored. Prometheus works effectively in cloud-native, dynamic environments, with a strong emphasis on time-series data and service discovery.

Popularity of Prometheus according to Google trends

Features:

·       Several graphing and dashboarding methods are supported.

·       A pull model via HTTP is used for time series collection.

·       Targets are discovered via service discovery or static configuration.

·       Pushing time series is supported via an intermediate gateway.

Conclusion

In essence, these are our top 10 DevOps tools every Software Engineer Must Use in 2024. Using the right tools not only makes the overall operation smooth, but also sets the stage for future growth and innovation. Embracing this curated set isn't just a current trend; it's a smart investment for the long-term success of DevOps in the ever-changing world of software development.

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