Crispy Code, Fresh Lettuce, Tangy Automation: The DevOps BLT Sandwich Delight

Sandwiches are easy to make, filling, and the perfect breakfast on the go. However, sandwiches are mostly boring – think peanut butter and jelly, or soggy with lumps falling off the moment you bite into it.

Learn the art of carefully stacking up the sandwich, and you can transcend from mediocre to an all-time great sandwich.

Just as with DevOps, which comprises multiple layers of tech stacks that need to be thoughtfully selected to ensure synchronization among the various teams involved in the build, development, design, and deployment phases of the software development lifecycle, it's essential to remember that a delicious BLT stack relies fundamentally on the quality of its ingredients. By choosing the right components, you can create a truly delightful experience.

Choosing the condiments!

Just as a DevOps practice is about a culture – a culture that fosters responsibility, collaboration, and open communication between development, operations, and other teams involved in the software delivery process, a BLT sandwich too is a part of the American culture and like DevOps there is too no one size fits the rule. People have been experimenting with BLT, but for the ultimate experience, there are only four ingredients you need.   

Building the stack – the bread

First the bread - choose according to your taste and program according to enterprise or process need. Remember just as the bread must be fresh and slightly toasted to hold the condiments - cheese, veggies, eggs and patty.

Similarly, choose a programming language that can meet the requirements of the DevOps tasks and bind the technology stack – existing and new seamlessly. Be liberal with automation, like you had been with butter, because it is pointless to write endless codes that can be automated. Here are some of the programming languages that you can choose from, along with the benefits.

• Python: Readability and ease of use. The advantage of using Python comes from rich libraries, widely used, rich frameworks such Ansible for configuration management and Boto3 for AWS automation that simplify DevOps tasks.
• JavaScript/Node.js: Used primarily in web development. It is one of the most versatile programming languages used for the build automation and creating custom tools.
• Go (Golang): Used for writing microservices, container-based applications, and building CLI tools for DevOps tasks.
• Java: For building enterprise applications. For building robust and scalable DevOps tools or microservices for continuous integration and delivery.

Magic FinServ's team builds a DevOps for financial services strategy that is in-line with your goals and expansion plans, which could be multi-cloud or hybrid, depending on the organization's needs.

The Bacon/Patty/Vegan Alternative - Immutable part of BLT

Apart from the bread or bagel, the immutable part of any BLT sandwich is the bacon, meat, or vegan alternative. For you can remove the veggies or change the sauces and the pickle, but the bacon/meat/vegan alternative simply must exist. Else, it is no BLT.

Transform it to DevOps, it is the aspect of containerization that is central or immutable to any DevOps practice. Containerization involves packaging applications and their dependencies together into lightweight, portable containers to provide a consistent and isolated environment, enabling applications to run reliably across different environments, from development to production.

Instead of modifying existing servers, containers are designed to be immutable, so that when things do not go as planned, an updated version spring up. There is no patching or updating here for the servers. For DevOps financial services, Magic FinServ's highly specialized team designs and maintains highly available & auto-scalable Kubernetes clusters (Azure AKS, Google GKE & AWS EKS) to manage docker containers.

Infrastructure as a code: the Cheese

Just as cheese is essential to a classic BLT sandwich and enhances the flavor profile when the right type is chosen, the selection matters. For instance, cheddar, Swiss, and pepper jack stand as excellent options. When toasted in a pan prior to melting, the experience becomes truly exceptional.

To achieve a more American or classic ambiance, provolone or fontina cheeses become indispensable.

Similarly, Infrastructure as Code (IaaC), a software engineering practice involving the management and provisioning of infrastructure (including servers, networks, and storage) through code, introduces a new dimension to DevOps. The automation of infrastructure provisioning and configuration using tools such as Terraform, AWS CloudFormation, or Ansible plays a pivotal role.

In Magic FinServ's DevOps for Financial Services approach, the Infrastructure as Code concept simplifies and expedites the infrastructure provisioning process. It aids in averting inconsistencies and errors in cloud deployment, ensures policy compliance, enhances developer productivity, and reduces critical dependencies, all at a lower cost.

Monitor and Alert – The Hot Sauce

It is the hot sauce that transforms a BLT sandwich into a gastronomic delight, but one must be careful when it comes to hot sauce. For if the amount of hot sauce is less, the BLT tastes bland, and if it is more, the sandwich becomes too spicy for the tastebuds.    

Monitoring and alerting are the hot sauce of DevOps. These elements offer insights into the health and performance of applications and infrastructure and require prompt attention.

At Magic FinServ, we recognize the significance of addressing vulnerabilities and bugs early on, before they escalate. Monitoring and alerting stand as decisive components of our DevOps financial services package, and we are dedicated to identifying, prioritizing, and isolating application defects while pinpointing their root causes. This practice ensures transparency for the DevOps team concerning issues arising within the process chain. When it comes to monitoring, you have the option to choose between Nagios, Splunk, and DataDog.

The tomato, lettuce and Onion - the CI/CD and the automation aspect

Apart from the tomatoes and lettuce, you can also add onions to the sandwich. While tomatoes add juiciness to the sandwich, adding layers of lettuce keeps the bread from getting soggy. Just like lettuce, CI/CD are a constant in DevOps practice. It is used to automate and improve the process of software delivery, allowing for the rapid and repeated release of new features, enhancements, or bug fixes with minimal manual overhead. For our CI/CD process, we utilize best-in-class tools, including GitLab, Jenkins, Azure, and Kubernetes.

This is how we create our DevOps BLT sandwich, if you would like to have a bite or have a taste of our devops services for financial industry or any other financial technology solutions, write to us mail@magicfinserv.com.