The present-day digital world is supposed to provide an exceptionally fast, reliable, and convenient experience. And to meet these unique requirements, software development practices are becoming leaner and smarter.
Meanwhile, professionals are looking forward to newer techniques for elevating the reliability of their software systems. They are doing so without making any compromises on speed and quality.
DevOps and SRE are two popular software methodologies in the world of software development. Surprisingly, both rule the world of software development by overlapping and confusing people to a certain extent.
Today, this article will give you a quick run-through of both SRE and DevOps. Further, we will provide you with in-depth information on the same by conducting a comparative study on SRE vs DevOps. Please keep reading until the article’s end to learn more about it.
Let’s dive in!
What is DevOps?
DevOps is a unique approach to software development. Unlike any other methodologies, DevOps follow either Lean or Agile principles. It focuses on enabling continuous delivery with an automated software and application development approach.
Please note that the approach of DevOps includes a complete set of norms and technology practices. This particularly enables the fast flow of planned work that includes deployment through extensive testing, operations, etc.
You can read more on DevOps & Cloud Engineering here.
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What is SRE?
SRE is a typical methodology meant to improve software systems’ reliability. It basically involves identifying and addressing the persisting problems within the software system. Furthermore, it provides aid in developing solutions that address those problems.
SRE ensures continuous testing of the system to confirm its reliability. It is based on the principles of reliability engineering, which are equivalent to the principles that drive reliability engineering within hardware systems.
The primary goal of SRE is to reduce the probability of failure by easy identification and to address them early. On the other hand, it focuses on continuous testing, which ensures that the system remains reliable even when not in use.
As a key component of Agile development, it encourages developers to test and iterate on their own software continuously. Read this guide to Iaas to know more!
Difference Between SRE and DevOps
Here, we have made a comprehensive listing of the differences between SRE and DevOps:
The difference of purpose in SRE vs DevOps:
| SRE |
DevOps |
| It ensures that the new changes don’t elevate the overall failure rates in production. |
It is responsible for implementing the new features requested for a product. |
The difference of skill set in SRE vs DevOps:
| SRE |
DevOps |
| The SRE team carries out analysis to learn the reason why anything has gone wrong. They will do anything to prevent the problem from continuing or reoccurring. |
The DevOps team usually works with the code and sets up and runs a CI/CD pipeline. |
- SRE vs DevOps: Implementation
The difference of implementation in SRE vs DevOps:
| SRE |
DevOps |
| SRE essentially works with the operations teams. |
DevOps essentially works with the product development teams. |
The difference of approach in SRE vs DevOps:
| SRE |
DevOps |
| SRE is a unique approach to IT operations that treats your production environment. |
DevOps is a cross-functional approach. |
- SRE vs DevOps: Target Areas
The difference of target areas in SRE vs DevOps:
| SRE |
DevOps |
| SREs usually target to increase the engineering pace of the developer teams while keeping the products reliable. |
A DevOps model ensures that the teams can seamlessly achieve their desired results. |
The difference of focus in SRE vs DevOps:
| SRE |
DevOps |
| The primary focus is on the system’s reliability, scalability, and availability. |
The primary focus lies on continuity and the speed of the product development. |
- SRE vs DevOps: Importance
The difference of importance in SRE vs DevOps:
| SRE |
DevOps |
| SRE team is responsible for reporting the bug to the core development team and doesn’t get involved in debugging. |
DevOps team is responsible for debugging the code in case of any bug reported in the product. |
The difference of use cases in SRE vs DevOps:
| SRE |
DevOps |
| SRE is most commonly used with lean infrastructure practices. |
DevOps is often applied in Agile software development projects. |
The difference of tools in SRE vs DevOps:
| SRE |
DevOps |
The most widely used tools for SRE are:
- Prometheus and Grafana for collecting and visualizing the different metrics
- Ansible, Puppet, or Chef
- incident alert tools
- Kubernetes and Docker for container orchestration
- GCP
- cloud platform AWS
- JIRA
- Azure
- GitHub
- SVN
|
The widely used tools for DevOps are:
- Integrated Development Environment (IDEs) for development purposes
- JIRA for change management
- Jenkins for Continuous Integration and Development
- Splunk for log monitoring
- GitHub
- SVN, etc.
|
Here is difference between SRE and DevOps pros:
| SRE |
DevOps |
| SRE bridges the gap between developers and operations. |
DevOps provide stable operating environments. |
Here is difference between SRE and DevOps cons:
| SRE |
DevOps |
| The influence within an enormous SRE team isn’t sufficiently strong. |
DevOps lack standardization. |
SRE vs DevOps : How to Choose the Best?
The debate on SRE vs DevOps has been raging for many years. But theoretically, DevOps is remarkably efficient and is extremely less prone to bugs in comparison to SREs. While they have shared ownership, both can keep everything functioning. Right from writing initial codes, and building software, to production, deployment, and maintenance, they do it all. Please note that both SRE and DevOps engineers can seamlessly write and optimize code before deploying in production,
Now that you are familiar with SRE vs DevOps, you will probably know which provides greater benefits. DevOps can seamlessly benefit any business with the development and operations teams and their own focused goals. On the other hand, SRE is capable of monitoring the performance and stability parameters quite effectively, thereby strengthening the entire team. You can also read our blog on iaas paas saas to have a better understanding of the three.
Taking the dependency of SRE vs DevOps, certain organizations possess both teams while leveraging the maximum benefits. And that’s exactly how you can choose the best.
FAQs
SRE is nothing but an opinionated collection of principles and practices. It is primarily built on the best practices of DevOps by emphasizing more on production, business, and end-user. Please note that DevOps is an enormous set of principles, guidelines, and culture. In comparison, SRE is typically one unique implementation of DevOps.
DevOps automate deployment, thereby automating tasks and features. Meanwhile, SRE automates redundancy, automating manual tasks that can seamlessly turn into programmatic tasks to keep the stacks up and running.
Theoretically, SREs are nothing but the people who are responsible for running the software and infrastructure of a company. They are also given the responsibility of keeping them healthy. In contrast, DevOps is a unique term that is used to describe the procedure of developing and deploying software.
When Google introduced the concept of SRE, many predicted that DevOps would soon become obsolete. But things turned out quite differently. As per the current scenario, SRE, DevOps, and Agile are still present and employed widely.
The primary role of SRE is to build software for helping DevOps, ITOps and support teams. Please note that the SRE teams are in charge of proactively building and implementing services for making IT. Besides, they are also responsible for providing them with better support at their jobs. This can include anything from adjustments to monitoring and alerting code alterations in production.
The answer to this question is a resounding YES, as both SRE and DevOps can co-exist. Even though both of them share similar foundational values, their work emphasis is quite different. Also, note that DevOps and SRE share similar tooling and development practices.
Updated on April 19, 2024
