DevSecOps vs. SRE: How They Intersect

  • DevSecOps embeds security practices throughout the software delivery lifecycle—threat modelling, secure coding checks, automated scanning, and runtime protection.
  • Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) applies software engineering to operations to keep services reliable, scalable, and observable.

Comparison

DimensionDevSecOpsSRE
Primary GoalShip secure software continuouslyMaintain service availability and performance
Core ActivitiesSecure SDLC, dependency scanning, policy-as-codeSLO management, incident response, automation
Lead StakeholdersSecurity engineers, platform teams, product squadsReliability engineers, platform operations, product squads
Success MetricsVulnerability remediation time, policy compliance, security test coverageError-budget burn rate, MTTR/MTTD, change failure rate

How They Work Together

  1. Shared Tooling: Integrate security scanners into CI/CD pipelines managed by SRE/platform teams.
  2. Unified Playbooks: Develop incident response and escalation procedures that cover both security breaches and reliability outages.
  3. Governance: Use risk reviews to prioritise work that protects both confidentiality/integrity and availability.

Practical Steps

  • Align SLOs with security requirements (e.g., patching SLOs, detection SLAs).
  • Automate policy enforcement in infrastructure-as-code pipelines to prevent drift.
  • Run joint game days that simulate both failure scenarios and security incidents.

Summary

DevSecOps and SRE address different dimensions of software quality, but high-performing organisations blend the two disciplines. Security must be reliable, and reliability must be secure.