Web operations

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Web operations (WebOps) is a domain of expertise within IT systems management that involves the deployment, operation, maintenance, tuning, and repair of web-based applications and systems. [1] WebOps is also increasingly acknowledged as crucial to the success of digital marketing teams, and shows up as part of the MarTech (marketing technology) ecosystem. [2]

Contents

Historically, operations were seen as a late phase of the Waterfall model development process. After engineering had built a software product, and QA had verified it as correct, it would be handed to a support staff to operate the working software. Such a view assumed that software was mostly immutable in production and that usage would be mostly stable. Increasingly, "a web application involves many specialists, but it takes people in web ops to ensure that everything works together throughout an application's lifetime". [3] The role is gaining respect as a distinct specialty among developers and managers, and is considered by many to be a subset of the larger DevOps movement.

With the rise of web technologies since mid-1995, specialists have emerged that understand the complexities of running a web application. Earlier examples of IT operations teams exist, such as the Network Operations Center (NOC) and the Database Administration (DBA) function.

WebOps vs DevOps

Web applications are unique in many ways, presenting challenges that other software types do not have to deal with:

In this sense, WebOps simply refers to DevOps for web applications.

Responsibilities

Web operations teams are tasked with a variety of responsibilities, including:

Typically, web operations personnel are familiar with the TCP/IP stack, the http protocol, HTML page markup, and Rich Internet applications (RIAs) such as AJAX and the like.

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References

  1. Schlossnagle, Theo. "What is Web Operations?" . Retrieved 19 June 2013.
  2. Brinker, Scott (10 January 2022). "3 Big Martech Innovation Themes in 2022" . Retrieved 22 August 2022.
  3. See http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920000136