As we discussed in the previous sections, the software development lifecycle has become increasingly complex with each decade, and the infrastructure has followed the same trajectory.
In the first years of my full-time career starting in 2013, DevOps Engineering was non-existent. Instead, we had Network Engineers within the company who were manually managing, installing, and maintaining physical on-premise servers. They had no software development experience, typically coming from IT helpdesk backgrounds and lacking the ability to address specific technical issues. Their role was limited to scaling on-premise servers and monitoring system load.
The first need came to fruition when cloud servers became a mandatory requirement, combined with Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) practices. The infrastructure became more intertwined with orchestration tools that utilize cloud-based DevOps infrastructure. This led to a new kind of software engineer with operations knowledge, specialized in software development digital infrastructure.
To summarize, emerging digital technologies and the combination of software development with cloud infrastructure have led to this new field of DevOps Engineering. This has created a vital profession that strengthens its importance and necessity within each organization, ensuring the secure, reliable, and productive utilization of software development tools and services.
The following infographic was generated by Google Gemini to visualize the birth of DevOps Engineering and its relationship with IT operations:
