The Differences Between DevOps and DevSecOps and Why They Matter

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It’s easy to assume that the “only” difference between DevOps and DevSecOps is the addition of security. However, it’s not that simple; secure development doesn’t occur in just one step. For example, it takes more than one action to ensure applications are built with the correct security configurations, controls, and policies in place — and that they have been tested and validated.

The two concepts do build on each other. DevOps includes practices and methodologies including continuous integration/ continuous delivery (CI/CD), building microservices, and using infrastructure as code. DevSecOps adds in threat modeling, vulnerability testing, and incident management.

Also, they both require two critical aspects: collaboration and automation.

 

woman working on devsecops

 

Collaboration

Teamwork is crucial for DevOps to achieve rapid development and deployment. Similarly, security operations requires multiple areas of security expertise to come together — configuration, policy, monitoring, compliance — to ensure software is secure.

In traditional DevOps, security concerns are addressed near the end of the development pipeline — which can lead to missed vulnerabilities or untested code. That’s why for DevSecOps to be effective, collaboration and integration must occur between developers and security professionals from the very beginning all the way through the development lifecycle, including the continuous security of application updates. They must share their unique expertise rather than work in silos.

 

Automation

DevOps teams are likely familiar with using automation to speed the development process. It reduces feedback loops and eliminates repetitive processes. Security teams also typically recognize that automation increases their effectiveness by improving incident response and lessening the need for manual work like policy setting.

By shifting left to DevSecOps, organizations ensure that automation improves both development and security — from the use of auto-completed code all the way through to identification of high-risk threats.

There are certainly other considerations toward shifting toward DevSecOps. For example, there are specific tools and technologies that inherently improve the security aspect of development — both from infrastructure and application standpoints. Read more about these technology factors, including ways to reduce DevSecOps complexity, in this article.

That said, collaboration and automation underpin DevSecOps and become increasingly important as organizations move into multi-cloud environments where complexity heightens. The more teams can talk to each other and the more they can lean on trusted processes, the less risk for errors and incidents.

 

How STS Can Help

Many aspects of DevSecOps can seem overwhelming, especially if your organization faces shortages of skilled developers, security experts, or cloud operations personnel. STS can help.

 We take an incremental approach to addressing DevSecOps. That starts by identifying baseline familiarity with collaboration technologies, automation, infrastructure as code, containers, and more. Then we map a journey to help your organization smoothly transition into DevSecOps processes. Along the way, STS can provide coaching, develop one-click deployment pipelines, and offer templates that ease enterprise adoption.


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