Optimising DevOps Workflows with Job Orchestration

With the sheer number of tasks and sub-tasks within workflows, the DevOps pipeline cries out for inter-platform job orchestration. The DevSecOps lifecycle requires numerous tasks to be performed in cohesion, either in order or parallel. However, some tasks require automation while some require manual intervention. You can achieve the desired outcome only if they are orchestrated efficiently.

Job orchestration is critical in the modern landscape of automated workflows and complex IT environments, especially in the DevOps and DevSecOps world. As the jobs become automated within the DevOps lifecycle, their management has not. By seamlessly integrating and managing diverse tasks and processes, DevOps teams can achieve greater efficiency, reduced costs, fewer errors and faster deployment cycles, ultimately fostering a culture of continuous delivery and improvement.

What is job orchestration?

In DevOps, job orchestration means automating the sequence and management of multiple tasks that constitute a workflow or a process according to priority or time, parallel or in order. Job management can be redundant and repetitive. To remove this redundancy, it became necessary to automate the ‘scheduling and sequencing of jobs,’ known as ‘job orchestration.’

Various tasks may involve multiple systems and might even throw errors. Orchestration should be able to handle all these eventualities in an optimised manner, in complex environments and without human intervention. Orchestrating is about reducing manual intervention and improving consistency and efficiency at scale.

The key aspects of job orchestration include scheduling, sequencing, monitoring the progress and status of jobs and handling errors or failures that are bound to occur. Lastly, event-driven automation triggers workflows in response to specific events or conditions that can help boost operational efficiency.

Challenges of traditional DevSecOps workflow methods

Traditional DevSecOps workflow methods are no longer tenable in today’s fast-paced digital environment. For instance, it’s likely that a DevOps engineer typically uses around ten tools in the DevOps toolchain alone. While some organisations may use 20 in the DevSecOps lifecycle. Although many automation tools in the market support the traditional tasks within a DevSecOps workflow, the lack of orchestration adds a layer of redundancy that is counterproductive.

In a traditional setup, the initial stages of DevSecOps would involve writing code and pushing it to version control platforms such as Git. This is followed by integration in the CI phase and then testing. The deployment and release phases would follow. While the stages of the DevOps/DevSecOps process remain the same in a modern environment, each stage of this lifecycle involves numerous tools. This means that DevSecOps engineers struggle to manually check task completion, which can lead to inefficiencies and delays.

 Common DevOps scenarios

A couple of scenarios illustrate the true potential of job orchestration to enhance the management of DevOps workflows. Firstly, a DevSecOps engineer might want to verify that their IT fleet is updated and that all software is current. There is the added complexity of a diverse fleet, with multiple platforms and architectures. Job orchestration is a catalyst for this process as it allows developers to string tasks into one workflow, including status checks, identifying devices and making crucial software updates. An automated workflow can be scheduled to run whenever you deem fit, which consistently and efficiently keeps systems updated.

The second scenario involves a systems administrator scrambling to deploy periodic operating system patches throughout their fleet. This should be done smoothly and controlled instead of disrupting the entire system. The administrator can create a task to identify what nodes need to be patched. From there, they can create segments that can be patched in a phased manner and then a task to patch the nodes. Orchestration allows users to automate these tasks to execute one after the other rather than selecting the tasks manually.

The benefits of job orchestration in DevOps

With orchestration in DevOps, organisations can navigate data silos and fragmented responsibilities to achieve consistency and reliability in their IT operations.

Job orchestration extends responsibilities and visibility across individuals and teams. This will inform every DevOps stakeholder of the pipeline’s tasks and reduce dependencies on SMEs and niche teams. In fact, with the right platform, any resource comfortable with reading and writing JSON/YAML files can start working immediately. Shared responsibilities mean individuals or teams aren’t burdened with routine or critical remediation tasks.

The idea is to provide self-service capabilities for provisioning tasks to non-experts, which might even depend on third-party integrations, databases or other complex infrastructures. With orchestration, IT can automate repeatable and redundant tasks or activities, making workflow automation more streamlined, giving time for DevOps engineers to focus on more strategic work. Orchestration in DevOps enables IT teams to deploy quickly and efficiently, resulting in faster time to market and improved customer experiences. You can automate menial tasks and minimise performance issues or outages.

Automation makes monitoring and spotting risks and errors easier. This gives IT Ops better control over what they need to work on. And when DevOps processes are orchestrated, investment in IT personnel and infrastructure is reduced. This saves costs and optimises resources for more strategic tasks.

7 best practices for job orchestration

Some best practices to optimise job orchestration include:

1. Define clear pipelines: A good starting point is to separate the pipelines for each phase and decide on what orchestration tools are required for each phase.

2. Adopt an ‘as-code’ method: In a modern deployment pipeline, the ideal orchestration tool should allow you to automate your workflow with code. This will maintain consistency and efficiency, allowing all teams to collaborate easily.

3. Select scalable tools: It’s important to test your preferred orchestration platform for scalability.

Orchestrating a few tasks might be easy, but when tasks cut across teams, platforms and architectures, it must be at scale.

4. Maintain in-built security: As part of the DevSecOps security-first approach, all platforms, including orchestration tools, must have security at their core.

5. Use version control: Keeping orchestration scripts under version control helps to maintain consistency, traceability and collaboration across disparate teams.

6. Monitor tasks: Being able to monitor tasks effectively is vital so that any stakeholders in the pipeline can view the work to understand what is being automated and how.

7. Include security and compliance: Maintain security scanning to identify vulnerabilities and compliance checks. This helps the team adhere to regulatory and organisational policies in your pipeline.

More efficient and accurate deployment cycles

The complexity of DevOps can cause data silos and fragmented responsibilities. However, managing and coordinating these tasks at scale streamlines execution. The solution for this, job orchestration, is critical in the modern landscape of automated workflows and complex IT environments, especially in the DevOps and DevSecOps world.

Implementing an enterprise job orchestration and automation platform that allows you to perform any action over your IT fleet anytime and anywhere improves DevSecOps maturity. By seamlessly integrating and managing diverse tasks and processes, DevOps teams can achieve greater efficiency, reduced costs, fewer errors, and faster deployment cycles. Ultimately, this will foster a culture of continuous delivery and improvement with more effective teams.