17 DevOps KPIs and Metrics to Consider

DevOps has made an important mark in the place for software delivery and has emerged as a viable option for most organizations. It has changed the software delivery lifecycle with a complete cultural transformation within different teams. This is because of delivering higher quality software and ensuring customer satisfaction. To leverage the advantages of DevOps in SDLC, gathering feedback, setting benchmarks, and continuously measuring results to track progress are important.  

Here's where tracking metrics come into the picture. This blog discusses DevOps KPI (the Key Performance Index) and metrics worth tracking to improve the software development lifecycle and user experience efficiency. It is critical to understand the importance of system DevOps Key Performance Index measurement and metrics monitoring to provide relevant business information and results. 

DevOps Metrics and Key Performance Indicators

DevOps metrics and KPIs provide an overview of the deployment, change process, and places where improvements can be made. They provide relevant information so that it should be easy to understand. Since Metrics and KPIs do not have any formal framework, the definition of progress and performance can vary from organization to organization. But there are some common definitions and performance parameters of the metrics and the most important DevOps KPIs that help the DevOps cycle to keep on track. Your team can take the Best DevOps Course online, learn how to stick to the basics and ace these KPIs. 

Let us look at the below 17 key DevOps KPIs in practice that is worth tracking for application or system improvement in term of both efficiency and user experience. application or system improvement in term of both efficiency and user experience. 

1. Deployment Frequency

Deployment frequency is one of the most reliable predictors of a business's growth and velocity. With the implementation of CI/CD in teams, deploying software has become more frequent than ever. Deployment frequency denotes no updates, new features, software improvements or bug fixes with efficiency and accuracy are implemented in the production or live environment. The improvement in the frequency of deployment leads to agility and faster compliance with changing the needs of users.

It is measured on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, depending upon the organization, which helps provide them better insight about the most beneficial or areas that still need improvement.

More deployments are better, but only up to a point. In the case of a sudden increase or decrease in frequency, it will eventually result in increased deployment time due to a higher failure rate or indicate the imbalance sign of workflow. In that case, it is always helpful to hold the deployment until issues /bugs are resolved.

2. Change Volume 

This metric depends on the deployment frequency, which goes side by side and checks the number of new code changes the DevOps team provides with each release over a period. This DevOps KPI determines the extent to which code is changed vs remaining static. 

Ideally, improvement in the deployment frequency should not have much impact on change volume. 

3. Deployment Time 

The next KPI to consider is deployment Time. It is about how much time is needed to roll out deployments after it has been approved. When considering CICD deployment, quicker deployment time and better accuracy should go hand in hand, and Jenkins, Circle CI, Teamcity or Bash Scripting for automation can help with deployment speed. Also, there are several other CI/CD strategies that can help in improving pipeline deployment speed and time.

Another great way to improve deployment speed and time with CI/CD principles is to utilize the deployment pipeline. Having a deployment pipeline will allow us to automatically test the code on different environments like production after building, integrating, or changing the code.

4. Failed Deployment Rates 

In some places, the failed deployment rate is referred to as the mean time to failure, which determines no of times deployments result in outages or other issues. Changes rolled out should not only be always frequent but should be smooth as well. Ideally, we expect this number should be as low as possible.

Some of the failures that we experience in the application are time-out and connectivity issues for users, which are later resolved by the rollback. Therefore, it is important to monitor success and failure for changes and keep track of the same, and DevOps Training and Certification for your team can ensure you meet your bottom line.

Also, sometimes a high failed deployment rate not only affects the application's end users but also requires the team to invest additional time and effort in troubleshooting and fixing bugs rather than achieving other initiatives.

5. Change Failure Rate 

Success in DevOps does not come from a single metric, whereas it is a combination of the success of different KPIs and metrics. We have seen an increase in the demand for change release for greater agility, but it comes in the collaboration of failure rate. The more frequently changes are deployed, the more chances of failures to occur. The result could be a loss of revenue and customer dissatisfaction. 

The rate of failure refers to the extent to which releases result in failures or other unplanned failures. 

6. Time to Detection 

Time to detect generally refers to the time required to detect failures or issues. It highlights the efficiency of the monitoring tools and alerting practice. Not only is it essential to catch failures quickly once they occur, but also to minimize or even eradicate failed changes.is essential to catch failures quickly once they occur, but also to minimize or even eradicate failed changes.

Fast detection will be helpful not only in terms of security but also in minimizing delays. Ideally, the time to detect failures or bugs should decrease over time as the team gains more experience. 

7. Mean Time to Recovery 

MTTR, or Mean Time to Recovery, is used to measure the time period between a service being detected as "down" till being "Up and Available". In some places, it is also called the meantime to repair or respond.

It is the average time taken to recover from a product or system failure. MTTR gives information about the time needed to solve issues and get back on track from the time team detects failed deployments or changes.

8. Lead Time 

Lead time checks on the time for change to happen.

Image courtesy - Clue Logic

It is tracked in the beginning with idea initiation and continues till deployment in production. Lead time provides valuable details about the efficiency of the development process and the current status of meeting the user's evolving demands. 

9. Defect Escape Rate

We came across an instance where the build is deployed successfully but generates no outage bugs, though it is impacting user experience negatively.

The defect escape rate is also known as the defect escape ratio in some places. This DevOps metric represents bugs in production that are identified as part of user complaints, compared to defects filed by QA or developers before deploying the build to production.

This can indicate issues with QA testing and code review. This figure can provide a gauge of the quality of software releases. 

10. Defect Volume

This metric focuses on the volume of defects. A small percentage of defects is to be expected, which is fine, but sudden increases in the number of defects increase the concern for the team since a high volume of defects for a particular application release can indicate issues with QA testing and code review. This figure can provide a gauge of the quality of software releases.

11. Availability

Availability is one of the very important KPIs for any application. We measure it as complete or partial availability and try for minimum downtime for the application. Some downtime may be required for scheduled maintenance, but we will try to keep it as short as possible by utilizing many automated processes.  

12. Service Level Agreement Compliance

Service-level agreements require that the infrastructure, services, and dependent applications meet all goals of availability. Service levels should be online as much as possible, which creates uptime goals as high as 99.999% since application uptime is an important metric for every IT organization. 

13. Unplanned Work

This metric helps track time invested in unexpected efforts or unplanned work by the team. It is compared the amount of work planned at the beginning vs actual work done at the time of completion. The Unplanned work should not be more than ¼ of the planned work. 

In case of an increase in the value of unplanned work, it is suspected to not detect or caught while testing by the testing team 

14. Customer Ticket Volume

This indicates how many alerts, user tickets, and incidents are created. It is not always inferred that all Incidents/user tickets are harmful. Ideally, it should be caught at an early stage. This concept is reflected in the volume of customer tickets, which indicates the number of alerts that end users generate.

From analysis, if there is Stable user volume along with increased ticket volume, it indicates problems in production or QA. But for this KPI end goal is always hard to detect.

15. Cycle Time

These metrics provide a more comprehensive view of application deployment by tracking the entire process, beginning with ideation or planning till completing with user feedback. Time definition of this KPI varies from organization to organization, but shorter cycles are preferred. 

16. Rate of Security Test Passes

This DevOps KPI suggests teams use secure practices and checks the test's viability to implement it

A few failed security tests during the build indicates fault and prevent faulty releases from going into production or live environment. Upskilling your team with a DevOps Fundamentals Certification can help you in a better way. 

17. Application Performance

It is always a best practice to check the performance before end-users face reports the bugs and performance issues.

Also, there is a list of DevOps KPI tools available in the Market that can help us trace performance issues, system performance and bugs within an application. This monitoring of application performance should always be there before the deployment and, even more particularly, after deployment. 

A few issues such as CPU spikes, storage, high memory consumption, and network latency are all results of an increase in application usage by customers. Therefore, it has become important to monitor the standard performance of servers to make sure that applications work seamlessly and are always up and running. 

 Steps to Implementing DevOps 'KPIs'

The following steps are followed in the development of the DevOps KPI: 

1. Identify

Identify the set of relevant and important DevOps KPIs to track for the organization/application. 

2. Create

After identifying, it is important to get DevOps KPI dashboard/User Interface prepared to have a complete view of KPI results and measure regular progress. 

3. Evaluate

Next is to evaluate the successful and positive results of KPIs for DevOps for meeting business goals based on KPI 

4. Change

As per evaluation, change and plan strategies for improving performance in required areas. 

5. Assess

Assess if KPIs meet the desired objectives and, in case required, make necessary changes. 

Conclusion

Hopefully, all the above details it has given a better picture of the importance of monitoring the right DevOps CI/CD DevOps KPI metrics and KPIs. As an SRE or DevOps, one can use these success metrics and KPIs that are mentioned above to evaluate the efficiency of the process and enhance the software development life cycle. These DevOps KPI metrics will help in detecting issues that might occur and affect the application. There are many DevOps KPIs out there, but as long as the team follows the ones mentioned in this article, your application DevOps process should be fine.

If you find the above DevOps KPI list useful and want to grow more knowledge in DevOps and its implementation in SDLC, the KnowledgeHut Best DevOps Course online is something that can come to your rescue. Right from the understanding of each topic to its practical implementation, this course will be helpful for sure in many ways.