DevOps is a combination of software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops). It promotes collaboration between development and operations teams to deploy code to production faster through automation. Some key benefits of DevOps include increased speed of application delivery, improved quality, reduced risk, and cost efficiency. The DevOps lifecycle involves development, integration, testing, feedback, deployment, monitoring, and operations. DevOps architecture aims to reduce the gap between development and operations by having both teams work collaboratively through the entire application lifecycle.