Automation affects every aspect of IT, from data analysis, digital marketing, to IoT. Software development is one of the significant industries now wholly transformed by automation. The most enormous progress is the integration of automation tools in the life cycle of the software. The faster and better your code output can be, the more your team uses these tools. Automation in software development can help create more resilient systems because it puts developers so much at the table.
Here are a few benefits of automation in software development:
- The entire life cycle of software development becomes faster — Software automation accelerates application development and implementation.
- The chance of human error is reduced — Human error is always a factor in software development. It can affect code, as well as the environment in which code is developed.
- Automation improves collaboration — Containerized and more portable code can improve collaboration between development teams. Automation can also collaborate in other ways.
Starting with software development, automation isn’t that difficult. The challenge is settling on the right tools with so many great choices. Here are the top 10 automation tools for software developers to try.
1. Ansible
Dubbed “Automation for Everyone,” Ansible is a very flexible configuration management tool that simplifies your system infrastructure setup. This easy-to-use automation tool uses Code (IAC) model infrastructure. Ansible prides itself on being super-simple. It can also do IT orchestration, creating a chain of events that then run tasks in order on several different servers or devices. Ansible is written in Python and need not set up a client-server environment, but it can be run from any machine.
2. Code Climate
Even the best code can become old and unhealthy over time. Code Climate is a DevOps tool that monitors code health from start-to-end. It can identify issues earlier so the team can work to solve problems before becoming a bigger problem. Several teams trust Code Climate and analyze over 2 billion lines of code daily. It can also automate the review code before merging. This will help prevent bugs and problems from creating overwhelming issues.
3. Docker
Docker excels in “containerizing” applications, making them portable while enhancing security. Docker helps developers create, deploy, and run applications while using containers. Using Docker, developers can put all the parts needed for development in one container, like libraries and other dependencies, and ship it as a single package. This technology will increase productivity and reduce the time it takes to market an application. Additional Docker registries are available to enhance the system, such as Artifactory Docker Registry, which provides full automation using REST API and JFrog CLI.
4. Graylog
Graylog is a powerful log management tool providing a free, open-source option. Graylog can archive data automatically; the DevOps team can get this task off their plates. This tool can also search and analyze machine data from IT applications.
5. Jenkins
Jenkins is a DevOps tool that can monitor repeated tasks. It runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux operating systems, well integrating with other DevOps automation tools. Many teams use Jenkins to find a problem quickly. It can help scale companies and find errors immediately.
6. Juju
Juju is an open-source application modeling tool that redirects the software development overhead by supporting fast deployment, configuration, scaling, and operational task integration. Juju can work on public and private cloud services. Juju provides a powerful GUI and command-line interface and detail logs to resolve issues. DevOps teams can deploy services to the targeted cloud in seconds.
7. Kubernetes
Kubernetes is one of 2019’s hottest software automation tools. Some Google engineers launched this open-source system to create a way to manage containers on scale. Kubernetes, also run by K8s, is an open-source system that can automate deployments, scaling and managing the container applications built with Docker. While Docker created the packaging standard, Kubernetes coordinates, and schedules containers, ensuring all containers talk to each other.
8. Puppet Enterprise
This popular cross-platform configuration management platform is another fantastic system supporting infrastructure management automation. This tool eliminates software manual work and helps deliver software faster. Puppet Enterprise can model, manage an inclusive environment, and provide real-time reporting. It will inspect and report all infrastructure-wide packages.
9. ProductionMap
ProductionMap is unique, allowing the DevOps team to drag and drop to automate and execute processes. This tool can take sophisticated automation to simple steps that create powerful automation. This integrated visual platform makes automation development quick and easy and is supported by a team of IT professionals.
10. Stackify
An excellent solution for smart data center orchestration, Stackify eliminates messy configurations. This tool provides instant feedback on what web apps.net or Java does. Stackify displays real-time logs, error queries, and lets the team find and fix bugs before production.
