What is ChatOps: Everything to Know Before Integrating it in DevOps

What is ChatOps? Being in the IT industry, we have all heard about DevOps, but have you encountered another buzzing word, i.e., ChatOps? If not then this blog is dedicated to you.

In this blog, we will discuss what ChatOps is all about and how it can be beneficial for breaking silos between teams in an organization while proactively eliminating arising problems in the project they are working on. So, without waiting any longer, let's begin!

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What is ChatOps?

In short, ChatOps is a way to streamline software development and operations by using chat clients and real-time chat tools like Microsoft Teams and Slack. It facilitates quick and straightforward communication among DevOps team members and leverages APIs to initiate actions that optimize DevOps and ITOps.

ChatOps or Chat Operations is an extension of DevOps that combines real-time communication tools with automation processes to improve teamwork and streamline workflow.

ChatOps is a collaborative model that connects processes, automation, people, and tools into a translucent workflow. It speeds up the response time to meet user’s needs while orchestrating IT and security processes.

Experts define ChatOps as Conversation-driven DevOps or Conversation-driven collaboration.

In ChatOps, the chat client acts as the primary communication channel, and tools used by DevOps managers are integrated into the collaborative communication environment. This integration enables the automation of incident response and the improvement of ticket tracking.

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Core Components of ChatOps

Before going any further, let’s understand the three crucial components of ChatOps as follows:

• Chat platforms: Chat platforms such as Discord, Slack, Hip-chat, and Microsoft Team are the backbone of ChatOps. These platforms serve as the heart of team communication. As mentioned in the previous section, chat platforms allow the DevOps team to communicate and collaborate in real time to share and coordinate tasks and updates.

• Automation Bots: Next comes automation bots like Cog, Hubot, Lita, and Errbot bridge the gap between collab tools and the DevOps team. It allows developers to create custom scripts (instructions) using which the bots can receive requests, retrieve data, automate most ops-related tasks, and activate complicated functionalities.

• Integrations: Last but not least crucial component in ChatOps is third-party integrations that allow extra productivity. These integrations can range from version control systems, configuration management tools, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Continuous integration servers to issue tracking and monitoring. With third-party integrations, ChatOps allows the team to access relevant information, automate tasks, trigger actions, and make informed decisions without moving from one interface to another.

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Benefits of ChatOps in DevOps

ChatOps has several benefits when implemented in DevOps for collaboration. Some of the key advantages of ChatOps are as follows:

• Automation: ChatOps enables automated triggering of tasks and execution of workflows directly from the chat interface, without requiring human intervention. This automation simplifies the detection and execution of real-time commands and console updates while ensuring manageable security and compliance.

• Engagement: ChatOps removes the communication barrier between teams, ensuring everyone is on the same page. This drives easier contribution to team discussions leading to better engagement and information-driven decisions.

• Collaboration: When group members fail to share statistics, it can create silos within the organization. With the increasing number of tools and complex processes in DevOps, these silos can make it impossible to extract and represent accurate information. This is where ChatOps comes in to provide accessible and updated information in context.

• Productivity: With ChatOps, developers and IT operators no longer depend on tedious and repetitive manual scripts to execute a command as it gets automated, this increases productivity for the team allowing them to focus on more complex tasks.

• Transparency: Having increased automation and communication in the chat tool, creates better transparency between team members. That being said, all actions performed in the automated ChatOps environment are visible to the entire DevOps team, providing complete transparency over project status.

• Problem-Solving & Reliability: ChatOps allows the DevOps team to directly access metrics, tools, and information in the chat, leading to proactive problem-solving, reduced downtime, and better system reliability.

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Best Practices for ChatOps Implementation

Undoubtedly, ChatOps can positively impact the development and IT operations team workflow while boosting productivity. But, how to implement ChatOps in the organization? If you too are pondering about the same, here are a few best practices to remember.

• To implement ChatOps, starting small with a team enthusiastic about exploring new ways to improve productivity is advisable. For instance, begin by automating a simple yet time-consuming task such as deployment. As the team becomes more comfortable and familiar with the tools and process, you can gradually shift to a more advanced level.

• It is also important to opt for and integrate the right tool within the existing system based on the development, security, and collaboration requirements. Some of the tools to go for are Mattermost, Lita, Rocket.chat, Lazlo, Gitter, and Hubot.

• Incorporating the right tool set will provide auto-remediation, extensive plugins, conversation tracking, chat rooms, module and TCL scripting support, workflow orchestration, security responses, troubleshooting, and more.

• The success of ChatOps depends on the experimentation culture a team has. It allows the team to have a safe environment to explore, experiment, and take risks without fearing failure. This unlocks new opportunities for organizations to improve efficiency and collaboration.

• You should also write and deploy custom scripts, enable chatbot access to source code management, deployment triggers, and CI platforms, and extend chatbot capabilities through custom configurations.

• Ensuring adequate training and support helps teams effectively learn ChatOps usage and achieve success.

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Wrapping it up

ChatOps, the practice of bringing together people, processes, and tools in a chat-based collaboration platform, can serve a variety of purposes depending on its stage of implementation and the intended goals. These purposes may include application deployment, access control and security, continuous delivery, and incident management, among others.

As we move forward in the adoption of ChatOps, we can expect to see some exciting trends, such as the integration of AI and NLP capabilities, the implementation of voice and video features, and the extension of ChatOps beyond technical departments to encompass non-technical teams as well.

So, if you are looking to integrate ChatOps in the product development lifecycle or want to hire developers who use ChatOps along with DevOps to build reliable and secure software solutions, then get in touch with our experts for personalized consultation today!