Today, more than ever, CIOs are impelled to get the most value out of each technology investment their company makes. And, at the same time, maintain a level of flexibility that will allow their company to adapt to challenging and uncertain business conditions. Yet, if they are to make it in this ever-changing techno-economic landscape, CIOs and their teams need to work as methodically as possible. Be that as it may, that’s easier said than done; especially without having a self-service software delivery workflow set up and running, first.
In this article, we’ll discuss the benefits a self-service software delivery model offers; and, how Cycleops can help you set up your own!
Key business benefits of setting up a self-service software delivery workflow
To begin with, ‘Why do you, as a CIO, want to set up a self-service software delivery workflow?’. The reason why CIOs are turning to a self-service software delivery model is to optimize and accelerate the software development and delivery process. That’s how CIOs prepare the ground for the standardization of:
- tools,
- processes,
- technology,
- configurations,
- infrastructure, etc.
When you have a self-service software delivery portal, designed upon best practices in automation, you help your team build and deploy applications independently, and streamline the CI/CD process.
What’s more, through a central dashboard, you and your team can overlook all resources and active projects. Rather than navigating around numerous resources, applications and documentation to complete a single task, your team can find everything they need, in a consolidated and comprehensive self-service portal.
Not only will this practice help increase overall efficiency, but it will also help minimize the chance of human error and maintain cloud control. As a result, you’ll have a flexible — yet stable and predictable — technology environment that responds and adapts fast to both business needs and market demands.
Self-service software delivery benefits, and then some
Let’s have a glance at the benefits we just talked about, one by one, while adding a few more, to gain a better understanding of its potential:
- Centralizes access and management
- Increases visibility
- Offers role-based access
- Enables DevOps and Agile practices
- Accelerates software delivery
- Decreases time-to-market
- Boosts productivity
- Leaves room for innovation
- Facilitates standardization
Making the most out of Cycleops’ no-code, self-service software delivery capability
How about setting up and managing workflows around cloud resources and workloads, through an easy-to-use, online cloud management and self-service DevOps portal? Using Cycleops, you can leverage repeatable tasks in your software development lifecycle, while taking advantage of the best DevOps automation practices.
Besides reducing application backlogs and related bottlenecks, Cycleops can also:
- Speed up the application deployment process
- Reduce cycle times
- Accelerate releases
- Establish self-service
- Minimize operational costs
With Cycleops’ automation engine, powered by Ansible, speeding up infrastructure provisioning and software delivery workflows, your employees will be able to collaborate much more efficiently, toward business growth and innovation.
Cycleops’ key features for structuring your self-service application delivery workflows
Here are Cycleops’ key features, designed to assist you in structuring your self-service software delivery model:
1. Ready-to-use stack templates
Cycleops’ ready-to-use stack templates enable you to achieve automation and standardization across your environments. Putting reusable workflows to good use, you’ll be able to simplify, accelerate and scale your software delivery process; saving both time and money.
2. A rich Service Catalog
With Cycleops’ built-in units collection — including resources, services, Operating Systems, tools, and other technology elements — you have access to everything you’re going to need, to set up your redeployable stack templates.
3. Control over resource usage
Moreover, Cycleops provides your team with self-service access to cloud resources, while increasing visibility into cloud spending and usage. That being the case, your team becomes more productive, having more time to focus on other projects.
4. User access and management for your teams
In addition to the above, Cycleops offers a comprehensive role-based access control system; allowing for successful policy implementation and compliance, toward a more streamlined management model.
5. Infrastructure automation and application deployment
Cycleops’ Devops automation engine ensures that the delivery and management of infrastructure and application services are optimized, resulting in improved efficiency and cost savings. Following the automation path, you can quickly adjust to ever-changing market demands, and take advantage of new technological opportunities.
6. Fast, and repeatable software deployment, with Docker
Last, but not least, allowing access to Docker capabilities, Cycleops helps Dev teams to develop, test, and deploy applications in a self-service manner. Providing a consistent, standardized environment, Docker eliminates repetitive, time-consuming tasks, across the entire application delivery lifecycle. This way, teams work more productively, applications perform optimally, and systems become user-friendly and scalable.
Helping your team accelerate software delivery and drive business success
To ensure success in today’s demanding — and ever-changing — business landscape, CIOs must grant their team the autonomy they need to innovate. To that end, a self-service software delivery portal fosters a culture of agility that will allow your team to collaborate better, so that they can quickly ‘serve’ the market with a highly-responsive and secure product. Success, at the end of the day, depends on your ability, as a CIO, to help your team accelerate software delivery while keeping systems secure, stable, and robust.