DevOps is a term used to describe combining software development teams (comprised of software developers, and quality assurance engineers) with IT operations teams (made up of system engineers, and network administrators).

Closer collaboration between software development and IT operations teams allows companies to create and refine software products much faster than in a silo environment. DevOps has become popular because it enables these teams to communicate on project changes and reduces the cost of development.

Here is our list of the Best DevOps Automation Tools:

  • Red Hat Ansible Tower A work scheduling application with live performance graphs and goal notifications.
  • Chef Infra An automated configuration manager and patch installer.
  • Terraform This platform enables you to plan and manage infrastructure through codable workflow screens.
  • Puppet An infrastructure management platform with coded workflow automation.
  • New Relic One A centralized performance monitor for devices, applications, and services.
  • Datadog Metrics, Traces, & Logs Monitoring This is a cloud-based subscription service that includes modules for network, server, and application monitoring plus traffic and code analysis tools.
  • RedGate SQL Toolbelt A database creation, development, management, and monitoring tool for SQL Server.
  • SonarQube A program code verifier that spots bugs and schedules revisions and releases. Available in free and paid versions.

Once DevOps merged the disparate worlds of development and operations, automation became a top priority for many organizations. But first, let’s take a closer look at what DevOps is and why automation is important.

Why is Automation Important?

For companies using DevOps, automation is essential because it eliminates manual tasks that slow down application delivery. An automated solution can automatically complete manual tasks that would usually be done by a human user. Automation thus enables technical staff to focus on other more important work in the DevOps workflow.

However, automation isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. After all, you can’t automate everything! To use automation effectively, companies have to run an audit first. The audit identifies which processes can be automated. Identifying potential use cases for automation ahead of time helps to onboard new solutions smoothly.

The Best DevOps Automation Tools

DevOps raises many challenges, none more significant than trying to deliver software efficiently with minimal bugs. Automated solutions like the tools listed below are critical for enabling enterprises to deploy and test software.

1. Red Hat Ansible Tower

Red Hat Ansible Tower is an automation platform that is designed to help teams communicate. When using Red Hat Ansible you can view real-time job output version through a dashboard. Jobs can be scheduled to manage future projects.

Our methodology for selecting a DevOps automation tool

We reviewed the market for DevOps automation solutions and analyzed tools based on the following criteria:

  • Orchestration to allow software produced by different vendors to exchange data
  • Support systems that cater to both development and the management of live systems
  • Security testing considerations
  • Bug tracking
  • Workflow integration
  • A free trial or a demo system for a no-cost assessment opportunity
  • Good value for money delivered by a tool that works well as part of a suite and is marketed at a fair price

With these selection criteria in mind, we derived a list of efficient DevOps automation systems that increase productivity in both development and system management.

Key Features

  • Project task scheduler
  • Coordinates workflows
  • Manages data exchanges
  • Completion notification by email or messaging app
  • Conditional workflow progress

To monitor jobs the user has a Job Status graph to monitor alongside supporting metrics such as Hosts, Failed Hosts, Inventories, Inventory Sync Failures, Projects, and Project Sync Failures. Having all of this information on hand makes it easy for multiple teams to monitor the progress of the DevOps pipeline.

With Ansible Tower Workflows you can create representations of complex processes. These workflows can chain together multiple playbooks and workflows depending on your requirements. For example, you can create a workflow that creates an application, deploys it, runs tests, and then automatically promotes those with successful results.

To ensure integration with your team Red Hat Ansible Tower has notifications. Notifications let you know when a job has been completed. Notifications can be sent through email, SMS, Slack, Hipchat, PagerDuty, and more. These notifications make sure that your team is always updated on workflow progress.

There are two versions of Red Hat Ansible Tower available to purchase: Standard and Premium. The Standard version comes with 8-to-5 support. The Premium Version has 24/7 support. To view the price for either version you will have to contact the company directly for a quote. You can download the free trial.

Pros:

  • Excellent interface – provides high-level insights and easy to access details
  • Displays and tracks workflows and offers intuitive task scheduling
  • Great for collaboration, supports notifications as well as integrations into messaging platforms
  • Great options for both small and large dev teams

Cons:

  • Offers many different options which can take some time to fully explore

2. Chef Infra

Chef Infra is an infrastructure automation tool that automates configuration management and deployment. Configurations can be updated automatically based on the environment or hardware. There is also a patch management capability so that teams can patch infrastructure remotely.

  • Automation for configuration management
  • Onboarding workflows
  • Patch management
  • Activity logging

Interaction with Chef Infra takes place through the Chef automation language, which is easy to write so even inexperienced users can start creating their own commands and automating manual tasks.

There are two main Chef Infra packages available: Effortless Infrastructure and Enterprise Automation Stack. The Effortless Infrastructure version comes in two versions: Essentials, and Enterprise. The Essentials version supports 100 nodes and 100 targets for $16,500 (£12,706) per year. The Enterprise version supports 500 nodes and 500 targets for $75,000 (£57,758) per year.

The Enterprise Automation Stack also comes in two versions: Essentials and Enterprise. The Essentials version starts at 100 nodes with 100 targets and 100 service instances for $35,000 (£26,954) per year. The Enterprise version includes 500 nodes, 500 targets, and 500 service instances for $150,000 (£115,517) per year. You can try Chef Infra for free.

  • Works to automate workflows, configurations, and patching

  • Uses a simplified automation language called Chef

  • Users can draft on-boarding workflows or use templates

  • Features and pricing is suited for larger dev teams and environments

3. Terraform

Terraform is a solution that allows you to write infrastructure as code and manage your infrastructure and IT services. You can write configuration files and share them with others to collaborate. There is also the ability to automate provisioning and create new resources for your team. Resource dependencies are mapped so the user can identify exactly how infrastructure changes protect normal processes.

  • Configuration automation
  • Onboarding workflows
  • Code development controls

There are many features that support the automation of workflows with Terraform. For example, there is VCS integration with GitHub, BitBucket, and GitLab to help manage source code changes more efficiently. There are also notifications to notify the user about run events. Notifications can be sent through Slack or webhooks, which is ideal for remote teams.

There are three versions of Terraform available to purchase: Free, Team, and Governance. The Free version supports up to five users and offers features like VCS integration and remote operations.

The Team version costs $20 (£15.40) per user per month with team management and role-based access control. The Governance version costs $70 (£53.91) per user per month with the Sentinel Policy as Code framework and cost estimation features. You can sign up here.

  • Simplifies writing infrastructure as code

  • Offers provisioning automation

  • Uses integrations with multiple repositories to help manage and secure source code more effectively

  • Would like to see an in-depth trial version

4. Puppet

Puppet is a solution designed to automate the delivery of infrastructure and applications. The software enables you to manage infrastructure as code so your team can configure and deploy services more efficiently. There is an automated configuration so you can keep your environment updated constantly.

  • Focused on development
  • Formalizes application environment setup
  • Creates delivery and installation packages

The product also offers automatic provisioning, which you can configure to automatically provision machines based on the policies you define and deploys the necessary OS or hypervisor. Provisioning in this way speeds up deployment so you can deploy services faster with less manual legwork.

To help speed up your operations there are Puppet Forge modules. These modules are designed to automate everything from Apache Web servers to docker containers and DNS. There are over 5,000 Puppet Forge modules so you have plenty of options you can use to control your infrastructure.

If you’re looking for a tool that simplifies infrastructure management then Puppet is an excellent choice. Puppet is free for up to 10 nodes. If you require more than 10 nodes then you will need to contact the company directly for a quote. You can get the free version here.

  • Sleek dashboard and interface (works well even at scale)

  • Designed to deploy infrastructure as code and services through automation

  • Users can design and build installation packages

  • Must contact sales for a quote, but supports a free version

5. New Relic One

New Relic One is a performance monitoring solution that provides top-down visibility over services like devices, applications, and microservices. The tool collects data from entities and displays them with visualization. For example, you can view graphs of Error Rate by App and Total Requests by App to measure application performance.

  • Application performance monitor
  • Bug testing
  • Integration with DevOps management tools

When it comes to resolving incidents, the New Relic AI helps to find the root cause by collecting and prioritizing event data in one pane of glass. The tool will also issue alerts when a human user needs to interact.

You can even respond from inside an external incident management tool like PagerDuty, making it easy to resolve issues quickly. Notifications can be viewed on Slack, Campfire, HipChat, OpsGenie, VictorOps, and more.

There are two versions of New Relic available to purchase: Essentials and Pro. The Pro version starts at $1.20 (£0.92) per month, per instance with additional integrations. The Essentials version starts at $0.60 (£0.46) per month per instance and doesn’t support integrations. You can request a demo.

  • Features a wide range of integrations (great for diverse DevOps environments)

  • Provides AI-powered root cause analysis

  • Works well with existing incident management tools

  • Would like to see a trial version for testing verse a demo

6. Datadog Metrics, Traces, & Logs Monitoring

Datadog is a SaaS provider that offers performance tracking, code analysis, log management and system tuning support. The service is available in modules, which include Infrastructure for monitoring hardware performance, Network Performance for traffic analysis, an APM to monitor software and services, and website performance tracking through Synthetic Modelling.

  • A suite of system monitors
  • Includes observability processes
  • Integrates with project management tools

Each module of Datadog can be used as a standalone service, but combinations of services increase the monitoring and analysis capabilities of the system. When introducing a new service in your system, you need to plan hardware capacity against your existing infrastructure to make sure that the system can cope with the extra demand.

The Infrastructure module of Datadog enables you to see day-to-day network and server performance and log their capabilities. The Network Performance module lets you see what spare capacity you have for any increased traffic that new services might bring. These two modules also include analytical tools to support your projections of capacity requirements. The Infrastructure module also maps your servers and identify which are running out of space and which have spare capacity.

If you run a website, you need to keep tabs on its performance. The site should be available at all times to all corners of the earth and the Synthetic Monitoring module of Datadog provides that through uptime monitoring. The Synthetic Modelling service also allows you to create your own walk-through tests to make sure that new features in a site won’t slow down the delivery of web pages.

Datadog is a subscription service and each module has different plan levels. Datadog Infrastructure even has a Free version and many of the services are charged by volume, which makes this monitoring system appropriate for all sizes of enterprises. All of the Datadog products can be examined on 14-day free trials.

  • Excellent data visualizations and interface options

  • Can help teams track performance, automate tasks, and estimate future infrastructure needs

  • Is available as a flexible subscription model, making is accessible to nearly all teams

  • Offers highly accurate synthetic testing

  • Would like to see a longer 30-day trial

7. Redgate SQL Toolbelt

Redgate SQL Toolbelt is a SQL server development and deployment management tool that can be used to deploy and monitor SQL servers. SQL Change Automation automates database delivery, building, and testing while providing instant feedback on code changes. You can even write tests for databases. The SQL change automation feature is advantageous because it allows you to check code changes more efficiently. There is also integration with Visual Studio Team Services and Octopus Deploy.

  • DevOps services for SQL Server
  • Testing and deployment features
  • Integrates with issue tracking and project management tools

SQL Compare Pro and SQL Data Compare Pro can also sync different databases together. You can enter the changes you want to deploy and then use a script to deploy your modifications. The comparison feature helps centralize database management.

To help you catch bugs early on, there is a feature called the SQL Data Generator. SQL Data Generator collects data from load testing and integration tests. You can work through the command line in Python to generate additional data. There are over 60 built-in generators available out-of-the-box.

There are two versions of Redgate SQL Toolbelt available to purchase: SQL Toolbelt Essentials, and SQL Toolbelt. SQL Toolbelt Essentials costs $1,985 (£1,528) per license with 11 SQL server tools included. SQL Toolbelt costs $3,495 (£2,691) per license and comes with 14 SQL server tools. You can download the 14-day free trial.

  • Great option for dev teams that rely heavily on SQL environments

  • Can automate database testing, management, and configurations

  • Offers built-in testing to help verify code before publishing

  • Would like to see a longer trial

8. SonarQube

SonarQube is a continuous inspection tool that scans code. To monitor the code, the software uses thousands of unique Static Code Analysis rules to get your code ready for release. The software can detect bugs and vulnerabilities so the user can find a solution. One of the main features is The Quality Gate, which tells the user whether an application passes the criteria for release (which supports the larger QA process).

  • Code analysis
  • Continuous testing
  • Integrates with CI/CD pipeline management

The product supports over 25 programming languages including Java, JavaScript, C#, C/C++, PHP, Python, and more. The diverse range of programming languages means it is compatible with many types of applications. However, if you require more then you can use plugins to add more languages to the mix (there are over 60 plugins available to use).

There are four versions of SonarQube available: Community, Developer, Enterprise, and Data Center. The Community version is free and open-sourced with code analysis for 15 languages and bug detection. The Developer edition starts at $150 (£115) and includes everything in the community edition plus support for C, C++, Swift, PL/SQL support and more.

The Enterprise edition starts at $20,000 (£15,402) and includes security reports and portfolio management. The Data Center Edition starts at $130,000 (£100,115) and has extra features like component redundancy and horizontal scalability. You can download SonarQube for free.

  • Continuously monitors code for vulnerabilities, errors, and inefficiencies

  • Offers numerous QA tools and testing options

  • Supports multiple languages and applications through simple plugins

  • Would like to see more variety in data visualization options

DevOps Automation Makes You More Efficient

Without automation, the workload of engineers and developers becomes unmanageable very quickly. Incorporating automated tools like Datadog, Red Hat Ansible Tower, Chef Infra, and Terraform into your technology stack reduces your team’s workload and makes them more efficient.