DevOps has evolved over the last decade as a combination of practices that combine software development and IT operations. Because of its utility, flexibility, and sophistication, DevOps has become an essential ingredient of success in supporting basic software engineering principles such as CI/CD (continuous integration/continuous deployment) and the exploratory iterations of Agile development.
Organizations that follow DevOps practices create a reusable development pipeline and overarching methodology for software development. These frameworks include highly automated workflows that facilitate rapid and repeatable coding efforts, experimentation, test automation, and production-level deployment. New software products can be conceptualized, created, and then stored systematically with archived and auditable data, code versions, documentation, toolchain configurations/dependencies, and scripts. These archives serve purposes such as re-creating original SW development environments, tracking changes, ensuring version reproducibility, and facilitating further enhancement and evolution of software products.