Managed cloud services provider 2nd Watch Inc. today announced a new DevOps offering for companies that want to enjoy the benefits of a more agile and rapid software development philosophy without the hassles of configuring, deploying and managing the process themselves.

DevOps refers to a set of practices that combines software development and information technology operations. It’s aimed at shortening development lifecycles and enabling continuous software updates.

But tapping into the benefits of DevOps requires increased communication and collaboration between the various business stakeholders, development, quality assurance, IT operations and security teams involved. As a result, a “true DevOps transformation” requires that a company evolve not only its culture, but also its tooling, processes, measurement systems and organizational structure, and that’s a tricky business, 2nd Watch says.

The company’s new Managed DevOps offering is aimed at helping companies with that transition by providing a range of fully managed services that make it easier to build, test and deploy new applications and infrastructure in the cloud. The offering combines a four-phase process that begins with a period of assessment, followed by training, tooling implementation and onboarding to managed services.

The offering is closely integrated with the code repository service GitHub, which offers a Git-repository manager with issue-tracking and continuous integration and continuous development features.

“Internal teams still struggle with conflicting priorities, poor collaboration, technology sprawl, skill shortages and security bottlenecks,” Chris Garvey, executive vice president of product at 2nd Watch, said in a statement. “DevOps can help by simplifying software development, accelerating product delivery, implementing processes to comply with internal controls and regulations, and decreasing downtime and time-to-resolution. We’re excited to help our clients move to a DevOps model, while bringing our immense cloud migration and management experience to bear.”

The company said it will work closely with its clients in each phase, beginning with an assessment of each organization’s existing software development and operational maturity, before developing a strategy on where and how to apply DevOps principles. Once that’s out of the way, 2nd Watch will then assess the skills of its customers’ internal teams and their readiness to adopt DevOps tools and processes. Then there’s a training period for instructing teams on the basics of DevOps.

The third stage involves implementing end-to-end tooling based on GitHub that covers the essential aspects of software development, including source code management, continuous integration and continuous delivery or CI/CD, project management, communication systems and security. That new tooling is then integrated with the companies existing development tools, 2nd Watch said.

Finally, 2nd Watch will provide ongoing management and training for customers that includes monitoring, security, backups and patching.

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