Everyone who works in DevOps has a dream work environment in mind. One you feel comfortable with; familiar tools and tried and tested workflows that let you focus on the bigger picture.
For many, the reality doesn’t quite match the dream. Vendor lock-in, integration headaches and steep learning curves on new technology often leave you fighting against the very systems you use – or turning to your preferred tools through shadow IT.
If this is the kind of environment you operate in, you’ll encounter the same problems time and time again. Long hours are spent on manual code reviews and debugging errors. Days used to identify CI/CD bottlenecks. On top of that, there is time spent worrying about whether you have the resources for deployment and ongoing security monitoring.
New tech trends, new opportunities
Operating at the forefront of development means constantly navigating new technology trends, taking automation and artificial intelligence as an example.
As fast-paced as this environment can feel, it's important you take time to understand the power and impact of such tools. Especially when they hold the keys to unlocking your dream work environment.
The questions you need to ask are, “What opportunities can these technologies create for DevOps?” and importantly “Where do I start?”.
So grab your loungewear, because we’re digging into the answers.
A sea of data
At its core, Salesforce DevOps contains a huge amount of data, metadata and deployment tasks – often hampered by rigid workflows and tools. Many longstanding issues that teams encounter come from having to manually work on these tasks, which takes valuable time away from strategic thinking.
Automation represents a huge opportunity if you apply it to specific areas like workflows and technical tasks, which in turn benefit your overall business objectives.
Workflow wonders
Many development issues stem from multiple environments that need data to be shared across them. Additionally, it can be difficult to harmonize individuals working simultaneously across these different Salesforce organizations.
Automation can be applied to integrations and to streamline how data is shared between these environments, synchronizing efforts for DevOps teams and removing manual burdens – often a key focus for stakeholders. The result is enhanced collaboration built around a central source of truth; no more duplicated or conflicting work because of blind spots.
Automated version control can also simplify the process of change tracking and collaborative code development into a more straightforward task. Hand-in-hand with this is autonomous code reviews (such as regression testing) and rollback capabilities.
These reveal insights into potential issues with new code before they happen, and give you the ability to roll back versions quickly if changes are needed. The Flosum version of this comes in the form of our Branch Deployment agent, analyzing API and component areas before code ever goes live, which we explore in detail in this piece.
Technical processes, streamlined
Specific technical aspects of development can make up a large proportion of your work; some are simply fundamental, complex tasks. Others need a constant watchful eye to ensure safe and compliant solutions are in the hands of your customers.
Manually creating and operating a CI/CD pipeline is a large-scale undertaking that can eat up much of your and your team’s time. By automating CI/CD, teams can test, build and deploy code with far greater speed. You can focus on Salesforce development while the system works independently, reducing delays and accelerating delivery timelines.
Security and compliance is a different beast, needing oversight and resources round the clock to monitor for weaknesses in solutions and potential issues that may occur. And it’s only becoming more important, with record levels of AI-fuelled incidents out there. Implementing an automated security agent can free up much of your team's focus, by monitoring developing or live solutions round the clock – without the need for a nap or coffee.
Some autonomous systems can also suggest the best course of action to mitigate vulnerabilities, helping you to execute a plan faster, when every second counts. Knowing security oversight is being consistently automated means a level of comfort and reassurance to focus on the tasks at hand.
Happy developers, happy businesses
When the benefits of automation in a Salesforce DevOps environment are combined, one major outcome is a faster time to market for your solutions and your business. With workflows and technical considerations being automated, you operate with more cohesion and collaboration, and avoid many of the issues that regularly hamper your efforts.
And as your organization changes and grows, automation enables this to happen precisely when you need it. These technologies can scale, change priorities and flex far faster than asking the same from your DevOps colleagues. So you can focus on the new, strategic and value-adding tasks at hand, comfortable in the fact that automated support can adjust to your needs.
Flosum’s AI automation has been built to specifically help you gain access to these benefits. Our suite of AI agents spans Branch Deployment, Code Review, Security Analyst and Test Creation, alongside the capability to develop your own AI-driven solutions on Agentforce. That’s how we aim to give DevOps teams a true comfort zone of autonomous support, so they can focus on what they do best – creating.
For more information on our Salesforce DevOps and AI capabilities, speak to our experts today.
