DevSecOps (short for development, security, and operations) is a flexible, process-driven approach that integrates security across the entire software development lifecycle. DevSecOps strategies rely on a mixture of automation, platform engineering, and cultural shifts that boost collaboration. This means breaking down barriers between teams. Shared tools, responsibilities, and the importance of shift-left testing make this possible — all while reducing the number of vulnerabilities that make it into production.
Everyone contributing to software development in a DevSecOps culture must focus on security. Breaches are common across the business world and challenging to stop when teams are fragmented, and DevSecOps aims to solve this problem. Delivering code that's cleaner and easier to maintain also cuts down on misconfiguration, which has long been a leading OWASP Top Ten cybersecurity threat. However, this emphasis on security shouldn't introduce new developmental bottlenecks. Releasing safely is key, but increasing efficiency is (nearly) just as important from a DevSecOps standpoint.
DevSecOps is a branch of DevOps. Patrick Debois first coined the term "DevOps" around 2007 in response to the growing divide between IT and software development teams. His revised approach focusing on unity became popular in the years that followed. Intuit's Shannon Lietz later coined "DevSecOps" in 2014 to better capture this renewed focus on security. Today, the foundation for successful DevSecOps adoption is already there — as 86% of surveyed professionals (via Spacelift) prefer a DevOps culture.
How does DevSecOps work?
First, knowing each internal team's role is key to understanding DevSecOps:
Development (Dev) team – Responsible for planning, coding, developing, and testing applications — including ongoing feature development.
Security (Sec) team – Responsible for uncovering and preventing vulnerabilities and related misconfigurations as early as possible during the release pipeline. This may include chaos testing, vulnerability scanning, and other processes that uncover hidden issues.
Operations (Ops) team – Responsible for launching, monitoring, managing, and fixing applications currently in production. This may also include oversight of external software, such as load balancers, that support mission critical services.
In the past, each of these teams would operate more or less independently. DevSecOps instead gives each unit more autonomy over the software development lifecycle (SDLC) and removes hangups that can result from messy task handoffs. Guardrails help prevent any one team from negatively impacting application security accidentally, reducing human error. Plus, each team receives special training to ensure they're current on the latest security best practices.
Consequently, DevSecOps is a core component of the continuous integration and continuous delivery/deployment (CI/CD) pipeline. Here's how that works:
Continuous integration – Includes automated integration of new code into an existing development project once it's tested and validated. Development teams regularly push small code changes to a central repository to enable this and catch integration issues as soon as possible.
Continuous delivery and deployment – Includes automated processes for moving application code from building, to testing, to deployment. Teams test code and API integration while incorporating some form of stress testing ahead of launch. They may also check whether the UI itself meets quality standards prior to release.
Security is always central to application development, but DevSecOps adds the concept of continuous security into the mix. All teams must do their part to test for vulnerabilities, verifying their various environments for development and testing, and model any common threats before they're introduced in the wild. Protecting sensitive data is always a top priority.
What are the benefits of DevSecOps?
DevSecOps approaches offer plenty of advantages to organizations of all sizes:
Security vulnerabilities and other gaps are noticed more often and more quickly, resulting in safer software releases.
General security awareness increases as teams learn about DevSecOps methodologies.
Teams are given equal opportunity to contribute to the SDLC and have ownership over security, in conjunction with their specific duties.
Teams work more centrally and have access to crucial runtime data, testing results, and other CI/CD processes without having to make specific requests.
Built-in automations make teams more efficient and reduce human error.
DevSecOps and other practices, such as platform engineering, can support one another and function in tandem. For example, tools used to monitor distributed services can help teams closely monitor individual SDLC processes.
DevSecOps shortens the CI/CD pipeline and can help organizations push products or fixes to users much faster, following an agile strategy.
Additionally, DevSecOps practices pair well with modern, containerized deployments. In a landscape increasingly dominated by microservices and rapid development, DevSecOps delivers the flexibility, agility, and cloud-native compatibility needed to help teams innovate.
DevSecOps approaches may seem daunting to implement. It's recommended that organizations start small by embracing some elements initially, shifting culture slowly and intentionally, then ramping up from there. Once improvements start becoming noticeable, it's much easier to gain support across the organization.
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Does HAProxy support DevSecOps strategies?
Yes! HAProxy Fusion Control Plane enables full-lifecycle management, observability, and automation of multi-cluster, multi-cloud, and multi-team HAProxy Enterprise deployments for your DevSecOps teams. All teams have a home in HAProxy Fusion — unlocking simpler integration, unrivaled observability, and increased productivity without the steep learning curve. An intuitive GUI and API offer deeper control for users with varied technical expertise.
HAProxy Fusion also brings load balancing as a service (LBaaS) to organizations. You can centrally manage HAProxy Enterprise load balancers distributed across regions and business units with HAProxy Fusion. Oversee LB cluster groups, PKI, access policies, and more while offloading duties from central Ops teams.
To learn more about HAProxy and DevSecOps, check out our HAProxy Fusion product page.