By 2026, Gartner predicts that over 80% of businesses will have implemented applications with generative AI capabilities or used generative AI APIs.

Application modernization is the strategic upgrade of legacy systems using modern technologies. It is not just about replacing technology; it’s about adopting current development practices like DevOps and infrastructure-as-code. These approaches ensure streamlined collaboration, automation, and efficient resource management, further maximizing the benefits of modernization.

The treatment of legacy applications can span a spectrum, from rehosting for quick wins to comprehensive rewrites for unlocking the full potential of cloud-native principles. The optimal approach depends on the application’s value, criticality, and desired business outcomes.

While rehosting offers immediate benefits, rewriting unlocks the most significant advantages. It allows building truly cloud-native applications characterized by superior flexibility, rapid development cycles, and seamless scaling. This empowers businesses to respond swiftly to market demands and accelerate innovation.

Why Gen AI for legacy modernization?

Modernizing applications used to be a slog. Laborious manual rewrites, hefty resource demands, and endless timelines defined the process. But the tech landscape is evolving, and businesses are yearning for faster, smarter solutions to bring their applications into the future. This is where Generative AI (Gen AI) emerges as a game-changer, fundamentally reshaping the modernization game. Gen AI analyzes your applications, identifies modernization opportunities, and even generates code suggestions to accelerate the process.

In fact, generative AI is emerging as a critical enabler to drive change in accelerating modernization, making it an essential tool for cost-conscious businesses.

Legacy systems: A bottleneck in modern business

Legacy systems are characterized by a constellation of limitations that impede organizational progress. These limitations can be broadly categorized into inherent shortcomings and operational challenges.

Inherent shortcomings

Obsolescence: Built with outdated technologies and methodologies, legacy systems need more capabilities and security features of modern solutions. This renders them vulnerable to cyber threats and incompatible with modern software and hardware.

Inflexibility: Designed for specific, often narrow purposes, legacy systems need help to adapt to evolving business needs and changing market dynamics. Modifying or extending their functionality is often a cumbersome and costly endeavor.

Performance bottlenecks: Inefficient code and outdated architecture lead to sluggishness, data processing delays, and frustrating user experiences. These limitations can significantly hinder operational efficiency and productivity.

Operational challenges

Security risks: Patching and updating legacy systems can be difficult, if possible, due to compatibility issues and lack of vendor support. This exposes them to known vulnerabilities and increases the risk of data breaches and security lapses.

Limited maintenance: As skilled personnel familiar with the arcane intricacies of legacy systems retire, finding qualified replacements becomes increasingly challenging and expensive. This can reduce maintenance frequency and response times, further exacerbating existing problems.

Scalability constraints: Legacy systems cannot often scale efficiently to meet growing business demands. This can impede expansion, limit market reach, and ultimately stifle growth.

Compliance checks: Complying with evolving regulations and data privacy mandates can be a near-impossible feat with legacy systems. Their rigid structures and opaque data handling practices make it difficult to meet compliance requirements, potentially exposing the organization to legal and financial risks.

Ten ways Gen AI-powered portfolio assessment can fine-tune your legacy app landscape

1. Generate cost-effective roadmaps: With a precise understanding of your app landscape, Gen AI can create personalized modernization roadmaps, considering factors like budget, resource availability, and business priorities. This data-driven approach ensures efficient resource allocation and maximizes the return on your modernization investment.

2. Prioritize modernization candidates: Gen AI can assess the criticality and dependencies of different applications within your portfolio, guiding you in prioritizing which ones to modernize first. This ensures you maximize the return on investment while minimizing disruption to ongoing operations.

3. Predict and prevent risks: Gen AI can analyze historical data and identify potential risks associated with modernization efforts, such as compatibility issues or unexpected performance drops. This allows you to proactively invest in modernization initiatives that align with your long-term business goals and prevent your legacy systems from becoming obsolete.

4. Remove code clutter: Generative AI can detect repetitive logic scattered across your codebase, analyze its purpose, and replace it with a single, centralized function generated by itself. This not only cleans up your code but also reduces complexity and simplifies maintenance.

5. Automate and streamline code generation: Gen AI automates tedious tasks like code analysis and enables you to create a functional document from existing applications, which can be converted into JIRA stories. Moreover, these JIRA stories can be further translated into a modern code base with Gen AI.

6. Uncover bottlenecks and opportunities: Gen AI can analyze vast amounts of data across your legacy applications, identifying underutilized features, performance bottlenecks, and potential security vulnerabilities. This deep dive reveals hidden opportunities for optimization and targeted modernization efforts.

7. Translate to microservices: Buried deep within your legacy code might lurk functionalities wanting to be agile microservices. Generative AI can identify these modules and suggest code segments for isolation, automatically generating the necessary microservice structure and APIs.

8. Detox databases: Outdated databases hinder performance. Generative AI can scan your legacy code, identify database dependencies, and suggest optimal migration paths and schema updates, seamlessly transitioning you to modern SQL or blazing-fast NoSQL solutions.

9. Automate bug fixes: Gen AI can identify and fix bugs, keeping your application running smoothly. GenAI eases integration with modern libraries, generates RESTful APIs, and improves code modularity, future-proofing your app.

10. Modernize user experience: Legacy apps often need help to keep up with modern user expectations. Generative AI can generate user-friendly layouts, create responsive CSS for mobile devices, and even suggest modern design elements—all while preserving core functionality.

Finally, Gen AI sets modernization on autopilot.

By leveraging GenAI-powered portfolio assessment, you can gain a deep understanding of your legacy applications, identify the most impactful modernization opportunities, and make informed decisions about the future of your technology landscape. This data-driven approach allows you to prioritize modernization efforts, maximize your return on investment, and build a future-proof IT infrastructure.

Remember, successful modernization is not just about replacing old technology with new; it’s about understanding your needs, identifying the right opportunities, and implementing solutions that optimize your IT landscape for long-term success.

Take away

Integrate Gen AI into your ongoing application lifecycle management (ALM) to continuously monitor and optimize your modernized app landscape. Ensure your technology landscape remains dynamic and adaptable, constantly evolving to meet your evolving business needs.

The post How Gen AI-powered portfolio assessment can fine-tune your legacy app’s technology landscape? appeared first on Indium.

How Important Test Automation Is?

Test automation is the cornerstone of effective software development in the collaborative DevOps environment, where teams from development and testing converge in the pursuit of continuous integration and delivery. Beyond its function in quick issue discovery, it protects code quality by making sure that standards are obeyed without exception.

Understanding AccelQ

AccelQ is a cutting-edge platform for continuous testing and test automation. It provides a centralised environment for testing operations by seamlessly integrating test design, automation, and execution. Businesses may automate testing processes with AccelQ, leading to quicker product releases, cost savings, and improved software quality.

What Market Say

As of the latest reports, the global software testing market is projected to reach $60 billion by 2025, with North America accounting for a significant portion of the revenue. AccelQ’s innovative approach to testing positions it as a key player in this burgeoning market, offering businesses a strategic advantage in their development efforts.

The Challenges with Traditional Test Automation Tools

For years, traditional test automation tools have presented challenges that hindered the seamless adoption of test automation across industries. Complexity, coding requirements, flaky tests, high maintenance costs, and a lack of intuitiveness have plagued the effectiveness of many tools.

According to a recent survey, 70% of software testing professionals cite the high maintenance efforts required by traditional test automation tools as a major challenge.

Enter ACCELQ: A Paradigm Shift in Test Automation

ACCELQ emerges as a beacon of hope in the world of test automation. Powered by artificial intelligence and boasting a codeless approach, ACCELQ transforms the landscape of test automation in several profound ways.

1. AI-Powered Automation at Its Finest

ACCELQ leverages the power of AI to enable codeless test automation. This means that even testers without extensive coding skills can utilize the tool effectively. It simplifies the complexities of testing while ensuring robust and comprehensive coverage.

2. Cost Reduction: A Game-Changer

Imagine a world where you can achieve more while spending less. ACCELQ’s codeless nature and reduced maintenance efforts translate into significant cost savings for your organization. ACCELQ users have reported a staggering 50% reduction in testing costs.

3. Multi-Channel Automation

Whether it’s web, mobile, APIs, or desktop applications, ACCELQ offers seamless automation across your entire enterprise stack. It eliminates the need for multiple tools, streamlining your testing process.

4. Zero Coding: The Future of Automation

ACCELQ’s NLP-powered codeless approach revolutionizes automated testing. It harnesses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to enable testers to create and execute tests without traditional coding. This makes testing more intuitive and accessible. The approach handles real-world complexities, including intricate workflows, dynamic data inputs, and complex validation logic. It’s highly scalable, adapting seamlessly to projects of varying size and complexity.

Over 80% of ACCELQ users praise this zero-coding feature for simplifying testing efforts. By eliminating the need for traditional coding, testers can focus on designing comprehensive tests that ensure software quality.

ACCELQ’s NLP-powered codeless approach represents a significant leap forward in test automation, making it more accessible and efficient.

5. Packaged Apps Automation

ACCELQ LIVE, a part of the ACCELQ suite, is a transformative technology for cloud and packaged app testing and automation. It offers a seamless, defect-free, and agile testing experience that reduces costs and maintenance efforts.  ACCELQ LIVE has demonstrated a 60% reduction in defects and an agile testing experience.

6. Quality Lifecycle Management

ACCELQ doesn’t just automate testing; it revolutionizes how you manage your quality lifecycle. By unifying test design and execution, it streamlines your processes and accelerates the journey to high-quality products.

Use Cases of AccelQ

AccelQ’s versatility extends its usefulness across various industries and scenarios. Here are some notable use cases that highlight its effectiveness:

E-commerce Excellence

In the highly competitive e-commerce industry, rapid website and application updates are paramount. AccelQ enables e-commerce businesses to conduct seamless testing across platforms and devices, ensuring a seamless shopping experience for customers. Retail giants like Amazon have reaped the benefits of AccelQ’s automation capabilities, achieving faster rollouts of new features and heightened user satisfaction.

Banking and Finance

In the financial industry, accuracy and security are indisputable requirements. Financial organisations may make sure their software complies with legal requirements and is secure by using AccelQ’s thorough testing. In the era of digital banking, where customers want constant access to their accounts, this has proven extremely important. Leading banks have implemented AccelQ to improve their digital services and lower the risk of software errors.

AccelQ Unified: Seamless Integration of Web, API, Mobile, and Manual Testing Tools 

AccelQ Unified is a groundbreaking integration that brings together AccelQ’s versatile testing tools into a cohesive and powerful testing ecosystem. It seamlessly combines Web, API, Mobile, and Manual Testing capabilities, offering a comprehensive solution for testing teams. With AccelQ Unified, testing professionals can efficiently manage a wide range of testing requirements across different platforms and interfaces. Whether it’s web applications, APIs, mobile apps, or manual testing processes, AccelQ Unified streamlines the entire testing lifecycle.

This integrated approach ensures that testing efforts are synchronized, allowing for thorough and consistent testing across all aspects of your software application. It eliminates the need for managing separate tools or platforms, providing a unified interface for all your testing needs.

AccelQ Unified is designed to enhance collaboration and efficiency within testing teams. It enables seamless communication between different testing domains, ensuring that all testing efforts work in harmony towards achieving the highest level of software quality.

For more detailed information about AccelQ Unified and its individual components, you can refer to AccelQ’s official page on Test Automation Unified.

The Future of Software Testing

The field of software testing is constantly changing as a result of advancements in technology. Innovating and paving the way for the future of testing, AccelQ is at the forefront of this evolution:

• AI and Machine Learning Integration

AccelQ is actively exploring the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) into its platform. This means predictive analytics, smarter test automation, and the ability to identify potential issues before they become critical. This proactive approach will revolutionize testing by minimizing the need for manual intervention.

• DevOps and Continuous Testing

The rise of DevOps practices and continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines demands faster and more agile testing. AccelQ is aligning itself with these trends, offering seamless integration with DevOps tools. This ensures that testing keeps pace with development, reducing bottlenecks and ensuring that only high-quality code reaches production.

• Cross-Platform Testing

As applications become more diverse, testing across various platforms and devices becomes increasingly complex. AccelQ is committed to simplifying this challenge by providing robust cross-platform testing capabilities. This will be pivotal as businesses strive to deliver consistent experiences across web, mobile, and emerging platforms.

Conclusion

Transforming Your Testing Landscape with ACCELQ

As software development continues its relentless pace, the need for test automation is more evident than ever. Test automation doesn’t just eliminate manual testing; it improves collaboration, communication, and feedback cycles, resulting in faster issue resolution.

The post ACCELQ: A Test-Drive to Tomorrow appeared first on Indium.

By adopting DevOps value stream management and shared services, organizations can optimize their workflows, bolster inter-department collaboration, and deliver enhanced value to customers with great agility and precision.

This blog presents the significance of DevOps, the Key components of DevOps value stream management, and the operational value of implementing shared services. Ultimately, it walks you through the benefits businesses can reap by integrating DevOps value stream management and shared services, driving innovation, and streamlining operations.

The principles of Centralized DevOps Services

Enterprises must recognize that DevOps is no longer an optional approach; it’s a necessary directive. This isn’t just about adopting new technologies. It’s a focused effort to identify and remove operational barriers while enhancing core value. Central to this mission is value stream management. It’s not just a tool for mapping processes; it’s a critical instrument that identifies inefficiencies and highlights areas for innovation. With this knowledge, businesses can adjust and optimize, ensuring both efficiency and quality in their operations.

To manage value streams effectively, businesses need to understand their specific components. Value stream maps provide a clear picture of the work process, helping teams see where things are efficient and where they’re not. By carefully mapping out every step of software delivery, teams can measure how long tasks take and where failures might happen, helping them spot where value is added and where delays occur.

Taking a closer look, we’ll examine the three essential components that define the strength of a value stream.

Product

Timing is a pivotal element for organizations aiming to deliver maximum value to their clientele. Within the continuum from development to deployment, the nature and efficacy of products play a paramount role in driving business outcomes. To harness the full potential of DevOps, it’s imperative to analyze the product’s contribution across three distinct dimensions.

Enter Value Stream Delivery Platforms (VSDPs). These platforms stand out as crucial instruments for enhancing delivery scale and amplifying customer value. The pitfalls of using disjointed, poorly integrated tools become evident when teams grapple with a lack of visibility throughout the software delivery lifecycle. VSDPs address this by simplifying the landscape and bolstering visibility, paving the way for:

• Accelerated market penetration through automation.
• Robust and secure orchestration of releases.
• Harmonizing technological objectives with broader business goals.
• A thorough embrace of continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD).
• Enhancement of pivotal DevOps metrics.

VSDPs are not just about speeding up deployments or refining delivery quality. They play a pivotal role in fostering cross-functional cohesion, ensuring teams can deliver value at an accelerated pace and with heightened efficiency.

However, it’s essential to recognize that introducing a VSDP is merely one component of the expansive DevOps transformation journey. True success in this realm is holistic, necessitating an evolution in organizational frameworks and a renewed focus on empowering the workforce. It’s a dance where products, processes, and people must move in harmony, each complementing the other, to realize the full potential of DevOps value stream management.

Process

Large enterprises, with their myriad work streams, often grapple with inefficiencies that can’t be resolved by technology alone. Strategic management and a shift in organizational culture are imperative. The principles of lean manufacturing provide a useful lens to understand this transformation. Instead of viewing DevOps as a mere assembly line, think of it as an ecosystem that thrives on continuous improvement. This ecosystem is designed to identify and rectify inefficiencies, much like lean manufacturing pinpoints and addresses production bottlenecks.

The true essence of DevOps mirrors the continuous improvement ethos of lean manufacturing. It’s not just about rapid software releases; it’s about ensuring these releases are of high quality, mirroring the precision and reliability expected in manufacturing. Value stream maps and their associated metrics are the compasses on this journey. They spotlight areas of concern, be they longer lead times or frequent production errors.

For instance, if lead times are extended, the data might reveal issues like inadequate training or challenges in agile implementation. Similarly, a surge in production errors could indicate the need for more robust quality checks.

By addressing these concerns, organizations can enhance productivity and work quality. The ripple effect of these improvements is a higher return on investment. In essence, while technology is a catalyst, the real transformation is rooted in refining processes and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

People

Rather than viewing technology as a replacement in the DevOps framework, it’s seen as a tool to elevate human expertise. By refining workflows, professionals can direct their focus to pivotal tasks. This approach not only accelerates operational outcomes but also cultivates a motivating work atmosphere, resonating in both team spirit and performance.

However, the journey of DevOps transformation extends beyond the mere integration of new tools. It’s about nurturing the workforce through this change. This means comprehensive training sessions, instilling a culture that’s rooted in continuous growth, and providing unwavering support as they navigate unfamiliar terrain.

Key to this supportive environment are:

• Dedicated periods for skill enhancement and its practical application.
• Transparent review mechanisms that spotlight growth areas rather than just shortcomings.
• A sense of ownership among teams, empowering them to spearhead change while also ensuring accountability.
• Collaborative development of best practices, ensuring those on the frontlines have a say in the standards set.

Yet, for such changes to be internalized, the workforce needs more than directives; they need a clear understanding of the ‘why’ behind these shifts. A culture of apprehension, where teams might manipulate metrics to sidestep potential backlash, is counterproductive. DevOps, in its true essence, champions a culture of evolution over blame.

Diving deeper into the DevOps paradigm, the pillars of value stream management emerge. They aren’t steps to be followed in sequence but rather components of a cohesive whole. Within the DevOps framework, it’s not just about the product. It’s the harmonious blend of human talent and efficient processes that brings about true innovation. While the product might spark the initial change, it’s the collective effort of people and the processes they follow that sustain and amplify this transformation.

The role of centralized devOps services in each pillar

Organizations in modern business environments seek ways to reduce costs while adhering to high efficiency and effectiveness. Shared services are a favored strategy that directs enterprises to these desired outcomes. A survey suggested that approximately 85% of participants consider working with a shared service model.  Shared services centralize and consolidate business support services within a single unit to assist different units or functions within an organization. The success of shared services largely depends on the three pillars of DevOps. The following are the roles of shared services in each pillar:

Product

Centralized tool management:  Shared services can centralize the management and maintenance of VSDPs and other DevOps tools by creating a central repository, unified monitoring, and standardized configuration. This approach ensures all teams across the organization have access to the same updated products and tools, thereby reducing redundancy and ensuring consistency.   

License management: Businesses implementing shared services can centralize product licenses, achieve economies of scale, ensure efficient utilization of licensed products, optimize costs, avoid over-purchase and simplify renewals.   

Integrated platforms: Shared services can facilitate seamless integration by providing a common framework and data consistency among various products utilized throughout the development lifecycle. This promotes effortless data flow and minimizes manual handoffs.   

Process

Standardized processes: Standardizing processes across different teams and departments ensures the best practices are consistently applied, leading to a predictable and high-quality impact. Shared services aid in standardization through centralized oversight, fostering uniformity and efficiency. 

Continuous improvement: Through shared services, businesses can monitor and analyze processes across the organization, which helps in discerning areas for improvement and implementing changes more effectively, driving consistent growth and innovation.   

Governance and compliance: Adhering to regulatory requirements, organizational policies, and industry standards is crucial for businesses to maintain their esteemed reputation and avoid legal repercussions. Shared services provide a centralized framework to ensure consistent compliance and effective governance across the organization.   

People

Training and development: Through shared services, training initiatives and skills development programs can be streamlined, ensuring all employees have access to the same high-quality resources and training materials. This promotes consistency in digital literacy across the organization.   

Resource allocation: Optimizing resource allocation is vital for organizations, as it allows each team to have the right mix of skills and expertise. Shared services assist in distributing these resources based on the needs and demands of various units.   

Cultural alignment: With a centralized approach, companies can foster a unified organizational culture. This is crucial for DevOps, where collaboration and open communication are key. Shared services can effectively promote these values, making sure all the teams are aligned in their approach and objectives.   

Indium Software: Driving innovation in application delivery

Indium Software excels in application delivery, enabling businesses to enhance their capabilities. Through meticulous orchestration and CI/CD integration, Indium streamlines the software delivery pipeline, eradicates bottlenecks, and accelerates deployment. By forging a strategic partnership with Indium Software, companies can achieve optimized lifecycles, faster workflows, and a reduced time-to-market.

Based on its profound experience and expertise in DevOps consulting, Indium Software equips companies with efficient DevOps methodologies, including incremental and iterative development, on-demand task management, agile architecture, and automated testing procedures. As a beacon in digital transformation, Indium Software’s offerings are geared towards fostering business agility and operational efficiency.   

Conclusion:

In the rapidly advancing digital era, centralized DevOps services are indispensable for achieving optimized DevOps lifecycles. By embracing these strategies, organizations can navigate the complexities of modern development while optimizing workflows and fostering collaboration. This cohesive integration offers a roadmap to elevated productivity, streamlined processes, and enhanced customer value. By implementing these methodologies, businesses can unlock unparalleled agility and a competitive edge in the market.

Choosing the right products is vital for teams to optimize their work and  value streams. As digital shifts speed up and scaling agile DevOps becomes challenging, companies turn to technology for support.

Scaling delivery and ensuring customer value arecentral to these platforms. The challenge many teams face is the use of isolated tools, leading to a fragmented view of the software delivery lifecycle. In contrast, these platforms simplify the landscape, offering:

• Expedited access to markets through automation.
• Reliable and secure orchestration of releases.
• Alignment between technological initiatives and business objectives.
• An all-encompassing approach to continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD).
• Enhanced visibility into pivotal DevOps metrics.

Centralized DevOps services play a pivotal role in enhancing deployment speed, delivery quality, and fostering cross-functional unity, enabling teams to deliver value rapidly and efficiently.

While the introducing of a new product refines processes significantly, it represents just one aspect of the broader DevOps transformation. Achieving holistic success requires both updating organizational structures and empowering team members.

The post Centralized DevOps Services: Driving Agile and Efficient Workflows appeared first on Indium.

In the dynamic realm of modern software development, continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) have become essential practices to streamline workflows, ensure high-quality code, and deliver software faster. As teams strive to adopt these practices, selecting the right CI/CD tools is crucial. The sheer number of tools available can be overwhelming, but by following some key principles, you can navigate the landscape and make informed choices that align with your team’s needs and goals. Let us delve into the tips and tricks to help you choose the right CI/CD tools for your projects.

1. Determine your CI/CD tools requirements

Before diving into the different CI/CD tools available, it’s crucial to understand your team’s specific needs and objectives. Consider factors such as your team size, the complexity of your projects, your preferred development methodologies, and your current pain points. By clearly defining your requirements, you can narrow down your options and focus on tools that address your unique challenges. The best CI/CD system for your team will depend on your specific needs and requirements. Some factors to consider include the types of tests you need to run, the level of customization you require, and your scalability requirements.

2. Explore open-source solutions

Open-source CI/CD tools can provide flexibility and cost-efficiency. They offer the advantage of being customizable to your team’s workflows and requirements. Existing scripts/plugins spare the need to buy or create a new one. Prioritize exploring these resources. Understanding your libraries and scripting language is crucial. Begin with a plugin list and experiment by creating sample plugins or local app instances. This hands-on approach provides insights before committing to potentially challenging commercial solutions.

3. Find the best fit: Striking the right balance

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution in the world of CI/CD tools. It’s essential to strike a balance between having too few tools and an overly complex toolchain. Aim to find the “sweet spot” where your chosen tools cover your needs without creating unnecessary complexity in your pipeline. For new, untested applications, it is more important to first create a test framework before automating deployment. This approach allows teams to get early insights into the benefits of automated testing and how it can improve development practices. It also helps teams adopt CI/CD gradually and comprehensively, which can ultimately improve team efficiency.

4. Tackle small tasks first

When adopting CI/CD practices, it’s wise to start small. Begin by automating simpler tasks and addressing smaller problems in your development workflow. This incremental approach helps your team gain familiarity with DevOps tools and processes while building confidence in their capabilities.

The choice of tools is simply one aspect of the CI/CD setup. You need a plan, and make sure that all the components work together smoothly. It is worth taking the time to configure all the components of your CI/CD pipeline properly from the start, even though it may take some time. This will make it easier for you to scale your team horizontally in the future.

5. Embrace horizontal scaling excellence

As your projects and team grow, your CI/CD needs will evolve. It’s crucial to select tools that can scale horizontally to accommodate increased workloads. Scalable tools ensure that your CI/CD pipeline remains efficient and responsive even as your development efforts expand. For instance, on-premises machines are a good way to manage scaling scenarios. You can add more servers to meet demand as needed.

6. Keep the CI/CD setup a continuous process

CI/CD implementation is not a one-time task; it’s an ongoing process. As your projects change, your CI/CD pipelines will need to adapt. Regularly review and refine your processes to ensure they align with your evolving needs.

Apart from the controls in place, you need to explain to your team why they are important and encourage them to use them. It will take time for everyone to adjust their behavior, so it’s important to set up CI/CD tools in small steps and make sure they all work together smoothly.

7. Prioritize security and stay vigilant

Security should be a top concern throughout your CI/CD pipeline. Choose tools that incorporate security controls and best practices into every stage of development. This includes vulnerability scanning, code analysis, and access controls to safeguard your software. Even though most CI/CD tools are open source, they can still be secure for professional use. Some of them even have built-in security controls, which can save you time and effort.

If there are no specific security controls available, you can still help your team transition to CI/CD by making sure everyone knows how to protect their machines from malicious attacks or other security breaches. For example, if you are working on a new backend server, make sure it only has access to the databases and services that it needs to do its job. There are also many tutorials available online if you need help.

8. Practice and excel

Creating good automation frameworks takes time and practice. Even when they work correctly for a while, there may be unforeseen problems that could cause your work to fail. It is important to be patient and keep practicing to improve your skills. Encourage your team to actively engage with the chosen CI/CD tools and learn their intricacies. Regular practice will lead to increased efficiency and better utilization of the tools’ capabilities.

9. Take charge of bugs

Bugs and issues are inevitable in software development. Choose a tool that integrates issue tracking and management, allowing your team to easily report, track, and address bugs discovered during the CI/CD process. This will help to ensure that your development efforts are not disrupted.

10. Don’t rush for immediate perfection

CI/CD adoption is a journey. Don’t aim for perfection right from the start. Instead, focus on iterative improvements. It is important to start small and gradually automate more and more of your development process. As you become more familiar with DevOps tools and processes, you can fine-tune your pipeline to better suit your needs.

11. Stay focused on the goal

The ultimate goal of CI/CD is to deliver high-quality software to your users faster. Always keep this objective in mind when selecting tools and designing your pipeline. Opt for tools that contribute directly to this goal. Seamless tool integration fosters collaboration between teams. Automated testing, code reviews, and monitoring maintain quality. Prioritizing this objective creates a culture of agility and innovation, ensuring user satisfaction and competitive advantage.

12. Engage in transparent team communication

CI/CD implementation affects your entire team. Ensure clear and continuous communication throughout the process. It is important to regularly evaluate your CI/CD automation process to identify areas for improvement. This includes reviewing the roles and responsibilities of everyone involved, as well as the communication and leadership practices used. Involve team members in tool selection, pipeline design, and decision-making to foster a sense of ownership and collaboration. By ensuring that everyone is clear about their responsibilities and that there is a clear chain of command, you can help to prevent problems in the future.

13. Stay on top of framework updates

It is important to regularly update your CI/CD framework to ensure that it is up-to-date with the latest software releases. Regularly update your chosen tools and review your pipeline to incorporate the latest features, security patches, and best practices. An outdated toolchain could hinder your team’s efficiency and expose you to vulnerabilities. This may need to be done more frequently if the update cycle is fast. It is also important to communicate these changes to everyone involved so that they know what to expect.

Final thoughts

In conclusion, selecting the right CI/CD tools is a strategic decision that significantly influences software delivery success. Prioritize tools aligned with your development objectives and foster seamless collaboration among teams. Aim for automation, efficient testing, and streamlined deployment processes to accelerate delivery while maintaining quality. Integrating tools that contribute directly to the overarching goal of rapid, high-quality software release ensures a competitive edge in the dynamic technology landscape. Remember, the right tools empower your team to turn development challenges into opportunities for growth and innovation.

Reasons to choose Indium

Indium offers invaluable expertise in DevOps services to businesses embarking on CI/CD implementation. Armed with a profound understanding of modern software practices, Indium ensures a smooth transition. Their skilled professionals collaborate closely, tailoring CI/CD strategies to match the unique demands of each business. Leveraging automated testing, continuous integration, and efficient deployment, Indium accelerates software delivery while maintaining quality. Businesses can confidently optimize workflows and reduce development cycles with Indium’s guidance. Indium’s support empowers companies to unlock the full potential of CI/CD, fostering innovation and success in the competitive tech landscape.

The post Strategically choosing CI/CD tools: A guide for organizational success appeared first on Indium.

In the ever-evolving landscape of software development and operations, new methodologies and practices constantly emerge. One such paradigm that has been gaining tremendous prominence is GitOps. GitOps brings together the power of version control and declarative infrastructure management to streamline software delivery and operational efficiency. This blog explores why GitOps has become a game-changer for organizations and how it revolutionizes the software development lifecycle.

GitOps drives a new era in software operations

Before delving into the world of GitOps, it’s essential to comprehend the traditional approach to software delivery. Traditionally, development and operations teams have worked independently, often leading to a lack of synchronization, longer release cycles, and higher error rates. This traditional siloed approach creates challenges for maintaining version control, collaboration, and reproducibility.

GitOps fundamentally aims to bridge the gap between development and operations by leveraging Git as a single source of truth for the entire software delivery process. With GitOps, organizations can ensure a declarative and auditable infrastructure by representing the desired state of the system in version-controlled repositories.

Key principles – GitOps workflows in action

GitOps is built upon a set of core principles that guide its implementation. These principles include declarative infrastructure, version control, reconciliation, and automated deployments. By adopting these principles, organizations can achieve reliable and predictable software delivery, reduce the risk of manual errors, and enable faster rollbacks.

The GitOps workflow revolves around a pull-based model where the desired state of the system is described in Git. The workflow involves the creation of infrastructure as code, Git-based version control, continuous integration and delivery pipelines, and automated reconciliation of the system’s actual state with the desired state. This ensures that the system is always in the desired state, minimizing manual intervention.

GitOps adoption benefits

1. 1. Teams’ collaboration and version control: GitOps fosters collaboration between development and operations teams, promoting transparency and accountability. Version control ensures that all changes to the system are tracked, making it easier to roll back to a previous known state, if necessary.
2. 2. High visibility and traceability: With GitOps, organizations gain visibility into the entire software delivery process, allowing them to trace the history of changes made to the system. This enables easier troubleshooting, compliance audits, and accountability.
3. 3. Consistent environments and faster rollbacks: By enforcing a declarative infrastructure through GitOps, organizations can ensure consistent environments across different stages of the software development lifecycle. In case of issues or failures, GitOps allows for faster rollbacks to a known working state, minimizing downtime.
4. 4. Increased security and compliance: GitOps enhances security by enforcing access controls and providing an auditable trail of changes. Compliance requirements can be easily met by leveraging the version-controlled nature of GitOps.

GitOps vs. DevOps: Are they mutually exclusive?

GitOps is often perceived as an alternative to DevOps, but in reality, they are complementary. While DevOps focuses on the cultural and organizational aspects of software delivery, GitOps provides a framework for implementing DevOps principles effectively. GitOps leverages version control, automation, and infrastructure as code, which are essential components of a successful DevOps implementation.

GitOps tools and ecosystem

Several tools and platforms have emerged to support GitOps practices. Some prominent examples include:

1. Flux

Flux is one of the pioneering GitOps tools. It continuously monitors the Git repository for changes and automatically reconciles the cluster’s state to match the desired state defined in the repository. It does so by leveraging Kubernetes controllers and operators to apply the necessary changes to the infrastructure, ensuring that the actual state aligns with the specified configuration.

Flux embraces the principles of declarative infrastructure management, making it a powerful tool for maintaining system consistency and minimizing manual intervention. By relying on Git as the single source of truth, Flux enables teams to have version-controlled infrastructure configurations, which not only facilitate collaboration but also ensure traceability and reproducibility.

In addition to its core functionality, Flux offers several features that enhance its usability and flexibility. It provides integration with various Git hosting providers, such as GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket, allowing teams to leverage their preferred version control platform. Flux also supports multi-tenancy, enabling organizations to manage multiple clusters and environments efficiently.

Furthermore, Flux supports automated image updates, which allows for seamless continuous delivery of containerized applications. It can automatically detect new container image versions in the registry and update the deployment manifests accordingly, triggering a rolling update of the application.
Flux’s extensibility is another valuable aspect, as it allows the integration of custom operators and controllers to tailor the reconciliation process to specific requirements. This flexibility enables organizations to adapt Flux to their unique needs and incorporate additional automation and validation steps as desired.

2. Argo CD

Argo CD is a declarative GitOps tool specifically designed for Kubernetes environments. It serves as a powerful solution for managing application deployments and configuration updates, ensuring that the desired state defined in the Git repository is effectively synchronized with the running cluster.
Argo CD provides a simple and intuitive web-based interface that allows users to visualize and manage the state of applications deployed in Kubernetes. With its user-friendly dashboard, teams can easily track the status of deployments, monitor synchronization processes, and gain insights into the overall health of their applications.

One of the key strengths of Argo CD is its declarative nature. It leverages Kubernetes manifests stored in a Git repository as the source of truth for application configurations. By adopting a declarative approach, Argo CD ensures that the actual state of the cluster aligns with the desired state defined in the Git repository. This approach not only enhances reproducibility and traceability but also simplifies the management of application configurations.
Argo CD’s continuous synchronization capabilities are a standout feature. It automatically detects changes in the Git repository and initiates the reconciliation process to bring the cluster’s state in line with the desired state. This automatic synchronization reduces the need for manual interventions and enables faster and more efficient updates to the system.

Moreover, Argo CD supports application rollbacks, which can be crucial in scenarios where issues or bugs arise after a deployment. With its version-controlled approach, Argo CD allows teams to easily roll back to a previous known working state, mitigating risks and minimizing downtime.
Argo CD’s extensibility is another notable aspect. It provides an ecosystem of plugins and extensions that can be leveraged to customize and enhance its functionality. This extensibility allows teams to integrate Argo CD seamlessly into their existing workflows and adapt it to their specific requirements.

3. Jenkins X

Jenkins X is an opinionated implementation of GitOps specifically designed for cloud-native applications. It brings together the power of Jenkins, Kubernetes, and GitOps principles to automate the continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, enabling fast and reliable application delivery in cloud-native environments.

At its core, Jenkins X follows a GitOps-driven approach for managing the entire CI/CD process. It leverages Git as the source of truth for defining and version-controlling pipelines, configurations, and deployment manifests. By storing these artifacts in Git repositories, Jenkins X ensures that the entire software delivery process is transparent, auditable, and reproducible.

One of the key strengths of Jenkins X is its opinionated nature. It provides a predefined set of best practices, tools, and workflows that guide teams through the CI/CD process, reducing the complexity and time required to set up pipelines for cloud-native applications. Jenkins X’s opinionated approach allows organizations to quickly adopt industry-standard CI/CD practices without the need for extensive configuration and customization.

Jenkins X seamlessly integrates with Kubernetes, leveraging its orchestration capabilities to provision and manage build agents, environments, and deployments. It automatically creates isolated namespaces for each application, facilitating isolation and ensuring that applications are deployed consistently across environments.

With Jenkins X, developers can easily trigger pipeline executions by simply pushing their code changes to the Git repository. Jenkins X then automatically builds, tests, and deploys the application using the defined pipeline configuration. This automated process not only reduces manual effort but also ensures consistent and reliable application deployments.

Furthermore, Jenkins X embraces the principles of progressive delivery, enabling teams to adopt strategies such as canary deployments, blue/green deployments, and automated rollbacks. These progressive delivery techniques enhance application resilience and allow for seamless updates with minimal disruption.

Jenkins X also provides a rich set of additional features, including built-in support for code reviews, issue tracking, and collaboration. It integrates with popular developer tools and services, such as GitHub, Jira, and Slack, to streamline the development workflow and improve team communication and productivity.

Overcome challenges with a successful implementation partner—Indium

While GitOps offers numerous advantages, implementing it effectively requires careful consideration of various factors. Some challenges include managing infrastructure drift, ensuring secure access controls, and handling complex application dependencies.

Partnering with Indium brings the advantage of their decades of experience in handling DevOps projects across different industries. Their expertise and knowledge gained from successfully delivering various DevOps initiatives can provide valuable insights and guidance throughout your GitOps journey. They can offer tailored solutions, recommend best practices, and assist in implementing efficient workflows that align with your specific requirements and industry standards. Organizations must also invest in training and cultural changes to foster collaboration and embrace the GitOps mindset.

The future of GitOps

As organizations continue to embrace cloud-native technologies and adopt Kubernetes, GitOps is expected to gain even more prominence. The ecosystem around GitOps is rapidly evolving, with new tools, best practices, and standards. GitOps has the potential to become the de facto approach for managing cloud-native infrastructure and software delivery in the future.

The post Embracing the GitOps paradigm: Leveraging tools and ecosystems for success appeared first on Indium.

In today’s digital age, businesses rely heavily on cloud computing infrastructure to enable efficient and scalable operations. Google Cloud Platform offers a powerful set of tools to manage and deploy virtual machines (VMs) across a distributed network. However, ensuring the security and seamless intercommunication of these VMs can be challenging. In this article, we will explore how to enable intercommunication of distributed Google Virtual Machines via a secured private network, providing a solution to this problem.

Let’s take a closer look at the current situation. One of our clients requested multitenant support for their newly launched application(s), which enables all of their customers’ sentiments to be converted from text to speech, for their end users. The real difficulty lay in connecting the various services found in various VPCs while providing multitenant support for the customers who were spread out geographically. At first, we thought VPC peering might be the best way to connect multiple VPC that are in different regions, but we later discovered the main challenges with the peering, which are:

1. No overlap IPs accepted.
2. Limitation per project which is maximum 50 peering can be done in a single project, but the client holds more than 70+ customers in their production project.

After researching, we identified Private Service Connect (PSC)is the enabler, for a quicker solution. The same has been communicated to the Client Team and the solution has been implemented in the Client Environment.

The illustration below demonstrates how Private Service Connect routes traffic to managed services, such as Google APIs and published services, by allowing traffic to endpoints and backends.

Introduction to Google Private Service Connect

Google Cloud networking provides Private Service Connect, which enables users to access manage services privately within their VPC network. Moreover, this feature enables managed service providers to host these services in their individual VPC and provide private connection to their users.

By this way the users can access the services using their internal IP addresses, eliminating the need to leave their VPC networks or use external IP addresses where all the traffic remains within Google Cloud granting precise control over the way services are accessed.
Managed services of various types are supported by Private Service Connect, including the following:

• Published VPC-hosted services, which comprises the following:
  • GKE control plane by Google
  • Third-party published services like Databricks, Snowflake are made available through Private Service Connect partners.
  • Intra-organization published services, which enables two separate VPC networks within the same company to act as consumer and producer respectively
• Google APIs, like Cloud Storage or Big Query are also included.

Features

Private Service Connect facilitates Private connectivity has salient features, such as:

• The Private Service Connect is made to be service-oriented; the producer services are made available to the public through load balancers that only reveal one IP address to the consumer VPC network. By using this method, consumer traffic to producer services is assured to be one-way and limited to the service IP address, rather than gaining access to the entire peered VPC network.
• Provides a precise authorization model that allows producers and consumers to exercise fine-grained control. Due to the guarantee that only the intended service endpoints can connect to the service, any unauthorised access to resources is prevented.
• Between consumer and producer VPC networks, there are no shared dependencies. There is no need for IP address coordination or any other shared resource dependencies because NAT is used to facilitate traffic between them. Because of their independence, managed services can be deployed quickly and scaled as needed.
• Enhanced performance and bandwidth by directing traffic from consumer clients to producer backends directly, without any intermediary hops or proxies. The physical host machines that house the consumer and producer VMs are where NAT is directly configured. The bandwidth capacity of the client and server machines that are directly communicating sets a limit on the bandwidth available.

Also read:   How to Secure an AWS Environment with Multiple Accounts

Step by step guide

1. Create a new project- shared-resource-vpc to maintain Redis as centralized service across multiple projects

2. VPC Creation: A new VPC named lb-vpc created in the US-West region

For instance, assuming all the customers of the client use the default IP range of 10.0.3.0/24. To avoid an overlapping ip, created a new subnet (lb-lb-west) with the range 10.0.4.0/24 in the shared-resource-vpc project. The subnet is created in the US-West region assuming all the VM in the project is present in the West region, this is because Private service connect only allows inter-region connections, whereas VPC peering allows multi- region connection.

3. Redis is created in the Standard mode under the shared-resource-VPC project using the lb-vpc along with securities like Auth and TLS enabled.

4. A new VM is created in the shared-resource-VPC project, and installed HA Proxy to route traffic of the Redis machine

5. Internal Load balancer is used to manage the service connection across the project, new TCP LB created in the Shared-resource-VPC project named lb-west.

Configured the backend with 6378 ports enabled to communicate with the proxy machine and the frontend machine used to forward the rule with an Ip.

6. Private service Connect is used to configure the Publisher and the receiver connection, in our case the publisher is the shared-resource-VPC and the receiver is the Kansas-dev-18950 project.

After creating the private service connect in the publisher machine the service Attachment ID has to be used in the end point connection to establish the connection between the two projects.

7. Testing the connection from the foundry2 machine to Redis memory store present in the Kansas-dev project, we now use the private service endpoint to connect to the Redis machine along with TLS certificate attached in the foundry2 VM.

Benefits

PSC brings in a plethora of benefits to the customers who have heavy customer base at disparate locations.

1. Seamless connectivity to businesses in distributed locations with a better user experience especially for SaaS application users
2. Consumers can now access Google’s services directly over Googles backbone network which is more robust and has no latency.
3. PSC insulates customer’s traffic from the public internet, creating a secured private network for transmitting any data without being decoded by intruders
4. All services are now accessible via end points with private IP addresses, eliminating need for proxy servers
5. Affordable pricing – VM to VM egress when both VMs are in different regions of the same network using internal or external IP addresses, costs less than a Cent (0.01 USD between US and Canada)

Conclusion

In conclusion, the secure intercommunication of distributed Google Virtual Machines via a private network is a crucial step in ensuring the efficient and scalable operation of cloud computing infrastructure. With the right tools and best practices in place, businesses can take advantage of the power of Google Cloud Platform while ensuring the security of their data and operations. By following the guidelines provided in this article, organizations can confidently deploy and manage their virtual machines across a distributed network, achieving seamless intercommunication and network security.

The post Enabling intercommunication of distributed Google Virtual Machines via a secured private network appeared first on Indium.

Digital transformation is not just about adopting new technologies; it’s a holistic approach that involves rethinking business processes, customer experiences, and organizational culture. It’s about leveraging digital technologies to create new opportunities, optimize operations, and deliver value to customers in innovative ways.  

Using the lens of digital assurance and digital engineering, we hope to further illuminate the idea of digital transformation in this blog. The blog will specifically emphasize digital engineering and assurance while highlighting their role in digital transformation. 

Let’s begin! 

The Importance of Digital Transformation 

The importance of digital transformation in today’s business landscape cannot be overstated. Here are some key reasons why enterprises must prioritize digital transformation to stay relevant and competitive: 

• Resilience: The pandemic has highlighted the need for businesses to be resilient and adaptable to changing circumstances. Digital transformation enables enterprises to build agility into their operations, processes, and customer interactions, making them better equipped to navigate disruptions and uncertainties. Example: During the pandemic, many companies had to adapt their business models to survive. Restaurants that implemented online ordering and delivery services were more resilient than those that didn’t, as they were able to continue serving customers even during lockdowns. 

• Customer-centricity: Customers today demand seamless, personalized, and digital experiences. Digital transformation allows enterprises to leverage data, analytics, and automation to understand customer needs, preferences, and behaviors, and deliver hyper-personalized experiences that drive customer loyalty and retention. For Example: Amazon is known for its hyper-personalized customer experiences, with personalized recommendations based on purchase history and browsing behavior. This helps drive customer loyalty and retention, as customers feel understood and appreciated by the brand. 

• Innovation: Digital transformation fosters a culture of innovation within organizations, empowering employees to think creatively, experiment with new ideas, and drive continuous improvement. It enables enterprises to explore new business models, revenue streams, and markets, unlocking new growth opportunities. Tesla is known for disrupting the traditional automotive industry by introducing electric cars and self-driving technology. This innovation has enabled them to capture a significant share of the luxury car market and expand into other markets like energy storage.  

• Efficiency: Digital transformation streamlines operations, automates repetitive tasks, and eliminates manual errors, resulting in improved operational efficiency and cost savings. It enables enterprises to optimize their processes, reduce overheads, and enhance productivity, driving better business outcomes. Banks have embraced digital transformation to improve efficiency in their operations. For example, many banks now offer mobile banking apps that allow customers to deposit checks, transfer funds, and pay bills without visiting a physical branch, saving both time and money for both the bank and the customer.  

• Competitive Advantage: In today’s hyper-competitive business landscape, digital transformation is no longer optional; it’s a strategic imperative. Enterprises that embrace digital transformation gain a competitive edge by staying ahead of the curve, adapting to market changes faster, and delivering superior customer experiences. Example: Netflix disrupted the traditional TV and movie industry by introducing a subscription-based streaming service that offers personalized recommendations and original content. This has allowed them to gain a competitive advantage over traditional cable and satellite TV providers, as they are able to offer more value to their customers at a lower cost. 

Read our success story on Implementing Critical and Inclusive Testing Methods To Accelerate The App Development Lifecycle For Complex Retail Applications. 

Definition of Digital Assurance and its effects 

In layman’s words, digital assurance is a collection of QA (Quality Assurance) practices that guarantee seamless communication between various digital ecosystem components. Digital ecosystems include cloud computing, online analytical processing, and even social networking. 

Data management and data systems are also essential components of any digital ecosystem. Effective data management involves collecting, storing, processing, and analyzing data in a secure and organized manner. Digital ecosystems generate vast amounts of data, and having the right data systems in place ensures that businesses can effectively use this data to make informed decisions and drive growth.  

For example, online retailers like Amazon use data systems to track customer behavior and purchase history, allowing them to provide personalized recommendations and offers. Another example is healthcare organizations that use data management systems to store and analyze patient data to improve diagnoses and treatment plans. In both cases, effective data management and systems play a critical role in optimizing digital ecosystems and driving business outcomes. 

How Digital Assurance Helps in Digital Transformation? 

Digital Assurance plays a crucial role in supporting successful digital transformation initiatives for enterprises. As organizations strive to embrace new technologies, processes, and business models, Digital Assurance provides a comprehensive framework to ensure that the digital assets are reliable, secure, and aligned with the desired objectives. Here are some ways in which Digital Assurance helps in driving digital transformation: 

• Digital Assurance ensures the quality and reliability of digital solutions. Through comprehensive testing and validation, Digital Assurance identifies and addresses potential issues, bugs, or vulnerabilities in digital assets, thereby minimizing risks of system failures, security breaches, or customer dissatisfaction. By ensuring that digital solutions are functioning optimally, Digital Assurance enables organizations to deliver seamless, user-friendly experiences to customers, employees, and other stakeholders, fostering their adoption and engagement with digital technologies. 
• Digital Assurance promotes innovation and agility in the digital transformation journey. By continuously testing and validating digital assets, organizations can identify opportunities for improvement, innovation, and optimization.  
• Digital Assurance allows for rapid iterations, testing of new features or functionalities, and experimentation with emerging technologies, enabling organizations to stay agile and adaptive in the dynamic digital landscape. This helps organizations to respond quickly to changing customer needs, market trends, and business requirements, and stay ahead of the competition. 

Digital Engineering: Definition & Its Impact 

Digital engineering is a comprehensive approach to design that utilizes models and data instead of documentation. This technique involves integrating data across various models and transforming the culture of project teams. By doing so, digital engineering can significantly reduce the risk associated with building costs and timelines. 

How Digital Engineering Helps In Digital Transformation? 

It goes beyond traditional software development, focusing on building robust, scalable, and innovative digital assets that drive business outcomes. Here are some key reasons why Digital Engineering is vital to digital transformation: 

• Digital Engineering is a powerful tool that enables organizations to develop cutting-edge digital products and services that meet the constantly evolving demands of customers. For instance, a bank might use AI to create a chatbot that provides personalized financial advice to customers, while a retailer might use Big Data to analyze customer behavior and tailor their offerings accordingly. 

• By leveraging Digital Engineering, organizations can stay ahead of their competitors in the rapidly changing digital landscape. For example, a car manufacturer might use IoT technology to create a connected car that offers new features and services to customers, thereby differentiating itself from its competitors. 

• Digital Engineering fosters agility and flexibility in the development and deployment of digital solutions. For instance, an e-commerce company might use Agile methodology to develop its website and continuously improve its user experience based on customer feedback. 

• Digital Engineering methodologies such as DevOps and CI/CD enable organizations to rapidly design, develop, and deploy digital assets. For example, a software company might use DevOps to automate its software development and deployment processes, thereby reducing errors and accelerating time-to-market. This agility is essential for organizations looking to drive digital transformation and adapt to the constantly changing needs of customers and market conditions. 

To sum up, digital transformation is now a vital part of an enterprise’s ability to succeed in the modern world, particularly in the aftermath of the pandemic. Rather than a trendy phrase, it is a critical strategic element that organizations must adopt to remain pertinent, competitive, and adaptable to changing circumstances. 

The post Digital Assurance and Digital Engineering – The pillars of Digital Transformation appeared first on Indium.

Having said that, the next stage in software development model evolution is already here – in the form of GitOps. As cloud-native app development gains popularity, there is a greater need for simplifying cloud infrastructure management. GitOps uses Git, an open-source version control system (VCS), for application and infrastructure configuration management and thrives on the DevOps ecosystem and culture.

Today, both GitOps and DevOps are facilitating collaboration between development and ops teams and making the development process more efficient. Where they differ is in the approach to achieving this goal. Git provides developers with a unified view of the source code. It stores all changes in a central location, which enables easy auditing and tracking of any modifications to the system. For example, with Git, it’s easy to track application updates and infrastructure configurations. Git also allows teams to revert to an earlier commit without compromising on quality. It ensures continuous delivery, deployment, and version control of applications as well as infrastructure as code and deployments.

GitOps can be used independently or as an extension of DevOps. Incorporating Git in the DevOps software delivery process improves the orchestration of projects, enabling efficient and reliable development and delivery of software applications.

For instance, Deutsche Telekom, a multinational telco group that has more than 220,000 employees working across offices in 50 countries, built a multi-site, multicluster, multi-infrastructure, Kubernetes engine using open-source technologies. It manages several hundred clusters by combining GitOps and the declarative system with Kubernetes. This allows scaling up based on need faster and at no additional cost.

Read this insightful article on the Top 5 Tools for API Integration in Modern Cloud-Based Applications.

GitOps vs DevOps

Some of the key differences between GitOps and DevOps are:

DevOps focuses on automation and GitOps on version control.

DevOps engineers use Jenkins as the primary tool for continuous integration and delivery. Sometimes they use it with Ansible and Chef. GitOps engineers use Git. Sometimes they also use Kubernetes for making changes. GitOps offers the following advantages:

• Code branching and merging becomes easier.
• A large variety of third-party integrations is possible.
• It helps with version control.

Deployment correctness is manual in DevOps and automated in Git

In DevOps, while the operations team manages the infrastructure and deploys the code, the development team ensures correctness of the deployments. In GitOps, declarative configuration files stored in Git repositories automate the verification and check for correctness before deployment. This also improves the accuracy of the application. As a result, the risk of errors is less and in case of errors, rollback is possible. Of course, Git repository management requires technical expertise and organization.

Git comes with version control and eliminates manual intervention.

Git enables version control, which simplifies automation as it allows the code and configuration to be pushed directly from the system to the production environment. This accelerates deployment while eliminating the risk of errors due to manual intervention.

Managing Infrastructure Code: DevOps vs GitOps

DevOps follows declarative and prescriptive approaches to operations. Therefore, it can be used for models of monolithic applications or those with limited componentization. DevOps monitors, configures, and manages infrastructure as a code for solving problems around infrastructure changes, such as during modernization.

GitOps, on the other hand, uses a declarative approach and is becoming popular for managing modern cloud infrastructure. When developing containerized applications, it optimizes CI/CD on Kubernetes and accelerates deployment. For DevOps teams familiar with Kubernetes, using GitOps pipelines is easy and needs minimal changes to the existing workflows for automated software delivery.

6 More Reasons Why GitOps is Great

While it improves the delivery cycle and software efficiency, Git is not without its challenges. Git requires highly technical skills to manage and maintain the software. If the changes are not merged or managed properly, it can result in data loss. It also requires the development and operations teams to collaborate more closely, which can be challenging in a large organization.

Having said that, there are many benefits of incorporating the GitOps approach to software development.

• Businesses can become more agile and responsive to customer needs as it accelerates production time, feature management, and updating of Kubernetes.
• With Git Repo, tasks such as pull requests for the Continuous Deployment and Continuous Integration (CI/CD) pipelines can be made reproducible.
• It improves efficiency of workflows through end-to-end standardization and automation.
• GitOps improves stability and reliability by providing audit logs that help validate changes.
• Its robust cryptography ensures the security of the environment, reduces downtime, and improves response times to incidents.

GitOps Use Cases

GitOps can be used in a variety of scenarios, such as,

• Slicing Networks: GitOps can be used to lower costs by allowing service providers to slice service tiers and letting users pay according to bandwidth usage.

• Documentation and Writing: VCS such as GitHub or bitbucket can be used to store ASCII docs. They can be used for product documentation or other writing projects. It even enables checking grammar and spelling and the document can be converted to any format such as doc, PDF, or ePUB.

• Editing for Static Websites: GitOps simplifies the editing of complex markdown files in static websites.

Indium for GitOps Approach

Indium is a data engineering, software development, and quality assurance company with vast experience in DevOps and automation. Our team of experienced developers works closely with our customers to create bespoke solutions that accelerate development and break barriers to innovation. Our developers have the necessary qualifications and expertise in GitOps, DevOps, Kubernetes, Jenkins, and other tools needed to create the right architecture and solutions for our customers based on their goals and needs.

The post Intelligent and Automated Software Delivery with GitOps appeared first on Indium.

Organizations want surveillance solutions that can monitor and publish data as it is processed.

Payment gateways are used to authenticate financial transactions and to publish the success/failure status after they have been completed. A transaction status is required for EOD billing.

Establishing centralised monitoring and alerting mechanisms necessitates a thorough examination of application and system level logs. If an incident occurs, all parties involved will be notified via message/email/dashboard so that the affected teams can respond immediately.

This article will go over the log aggregation process for containerized applications running in a Kubernetes cluster.

Business Case

One of our clients approached Indium for improved visibility of their log aggregation and System Metrics visualisation. The client has over 100 applications running in a variety of environments. As a result, proactive monitoring and maintaining 100% uptime of business-critical applications became nearly impossible. They also had to manually search through multiple text filters for CloudWatch metrics. This was a time-consuming and labour-intensive process. There was also the possibility of avoiding outages that could result in SLA violations.

As a result, the customer’s top priority was to monitor these business applications centrally and effectively.

On the market, there are numerous surveillance options. Traditionally, the NOC team performs monitoring and incident response. In such cases, human intervention is required, and there is a risk of missing an incident or responding too slowly. For automated monitoring mechanisms, the ELK stack is frequently used. This saves time and money by reducing manual intervention.

The ELK Stack assists users by providing a powerful platform that collects and processes data from multiple data sources, stores that data in a centralised data store that can scale as data grows, and provides a set of tools for data analysis. All of the aforementioned issues, as well as operating system logs, NGINX, IIS server logs for web traffic analysis, application logs, and AWS logs, can be monitored by a log management platform (Amazon web services).

Log management enables DevOps engineers and system administrators to make more informed business decisions. As a result, log analysis using Elastic Stack or similar tools is critical.

The diagram below depicts the ELK stack workflow and log flow transmission.

Business Need & Solution delivered

• The client lacked a warning system to prevent the application from failing. The ELK server recently crashed due to heavy load, and the affected team was unaware of the incident for three days.
• This mechanism for ELK server and application alerts was proposed and implemented by the Indium team.
• To avoid future failures, we wrote our serverless computing code in Python and deployed it to our customer’s infrastructure via AWS Lambda functions.
• When a pod in the Kubernetes cluster fails, the event trigger will be triggered.

The Lambda function monitors health and notifies affected teams via email. We also offered the solution in the form of an email notification of Kubernetes pod resource utilisation, such as CPU, memory, and network utilisation. Elasticsearch DSL queries and metric thresholds were used to configure these notification emails. If any of these system resources become unavailable, the client will be notified via email. The Indium team used the ELK stack to deploy a centralised monitoring solution. We created a dashboard for each environment that displays the metrics that are being used.

You might be interested in: AWS Lambda to Extend and Scale Your SaaS Application

Below is an example of how the metrics utilization is being captured and notified.

• Created the alert name in the Elasticsearch for e.g. [metrics-prod-CPU Utilization]
• Set Trigger event for every 1 minute
• Configured the conditions:

                  WHEN Max OF valu.max is above 90%.

• Added Filters as mentioned below:

              metric_name.Keyword: “CPUUtilization” and namespace.keyword: “AWS/EC2”.

• Created a group alert
  • _index
  • InstanceID
  • Metric_name
  • Region. Keyword

• Created Email Connector: [Connector Name]
• Configured Sender email. Alerts will be sent using this DL
  • Added service – Outlook
  • Host Name
  • Port: 25

• Created the Alert subject as [ALERT]: [PROD]: High CPU usage detected!!
• Below Conditions will be checked to display along with alerts:

            – {{alertName}}

            – {{context.group}} is in a state of {{context.alertState}}

            – Reason: {{context.reason}}

            – Routed the ELK link of the corresponding dashboard.

We have also used the Elasticserach query DSL for alerts configuration as below mentioned.

• Created the alert name for e.g.  [metrics-dev-CPUUtilization].
• Set Trigger event for every 1 minute.              
• Select the index metrics_dev and set size as 100.
• Query to capture data for required metrics:

{

     “query”:

      {

      “bool”: {

              “filter”: [

                    {“match_phrase”: {“namespace: “AWS/EC2”}},

                     {“match_phrase”: {“metric_name”: “CPUUtilization”}},

                     {“range”: {“value.max”: {“gte”:90}}}]

          }

   }

}

• Configured the conditional statements
  • If the metrics utilization is above 90%
  • If the utilization persists more than 5 minutes
  • If both conditions are satisfied it will send an alert email
• Added the [Connector Name] in Actions [created before]
  • Run when – QUERY MATCHED
• Configured the Email Recipients to receive the alerts notification
  • Created the Alert subject as [ALERT]: [DEV]: High CPU usage detected!!
• Added below Conditions to display along with alerts:
  • {{alert Name}}
  • {{context.group}} is in a state of {{context.alertState}}
  • Reason: {{context.reason}}
  • Routed ELK link of the corresponding dashboard

We successfully configured all of the dashboards, and our customers are using them for real-time monitoring. The Indium team accomplished this in a short period of time, namely four months. Benefits of the solution include lower costs and less manual labour.

If you want more information or want to know how we do it, contact us. We are here to assist you.

Benefits

The customer benefits from the use of the centralised notification method. Here are a few standouts.

• The customer now has a Centralized Monitoring Dashboard through which they can receive resource utilisation and incident notifications via email.
• 75% less manual effort than the previous method of refreshing the Cloud Watch console every few minutes to see the logs.
• With the Kibana dashboards in place, this centralized dashboard provided a unified view of logs collected from multiple sources.
• The TAT and MTTR (Meantime to resolve) for incident resolutions have been reduced as a result of this.
• Opensource Stack was used entirely to create a low-cost monitoring solution.

The post Realtime Container Log-aggregation and Centralized monitoring solutions appeared first on Indium.

In a shift-left approach, DevSecOps is becoming popular, where security is introduced earlier in the application development life cycle. This facilitates a collaborative approach by integrating security with development with deployment and making security a shared responsibility. Security becomes the responsibility of all those who are part of the SDLC and the DevOps services: continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) workflow.

Read this amazing blog on: Shifting From DevOps to DevSecOps

Security with Speed and Quality

As the time to market shrinks, the need to deliver products quickly and with quality takes priority. By integrating security during the application development lifecycle using a DevSecOps approach, developers can deliver secure applications. DevSecOps encompasses the entire development life cycle from planning to designing, coding, building, testing, and release. Usually, security is added at the end, but fixing security issues post-production can be costly and time-consuming, not to mention delaying the release. DevSecOps prevents this by allowing testing, triaging, and risk mitigation to be incorporated into the CI/CD workflow. This way, security issues can be fixed in real-time in the code instead of being added at the end.

DevSecOps with Google Cloud Platform

Google Cloud’s built-in services enable the development of a secure CI/CD pipeline. Initially, the developers commit the changes to the code to a source code repository, which triggers the delivery pipeline automatically. It also builds and deploys the code changes into various environments, from non-prod environments to production.

The security aspect is also incorporated into the pipeline right at the beginning with open-source libraries and container images when building the source code. By integrating security safeguards within the CI/CD pipeline, the software being built and deployed can be free from vulnerabilities. This also helps determine the type of code/container image that should be permitted to be deployed on the target runtime environment.

Also read: 5 Best Practices While Building a Multi-Tenant SaaS Application using AWS Serverless/AWS EKS

The Google Cloud built-in services that enable the building of a secure pipeline include:

Cloud Build – A serverless CI/CD platform, it facilitates automating building, testing, and deploying tasks.

Artifact Registry – A secure service that allows the storing and managing of your artifacts.

Cloud Deploy – A fully managed Continuous Delivery service for GKE and Anthos.

Binary Authorization – Providing deployment time security controls for GKE and Cloud Run deployments.

GKE – A fully managed Kubernetes platform.

Google Pub/Sub – A serverless messaging platform.

Cloud Functions – A serverless platform for running the code.

The CI/CD pipeline can be set up without enforcing the security policy. But to integrate security with the design and development, the process involves:

• Allowing vulnerability scans to be performed on Artifact Registry and using the Binary Authorization service for creating a security policy.
• Deploying a specific image to the GKE cluster by the developer by checking in the code to a GitHub repo.
• Configuring a Cloud Build trigger to detect the checking in of any new code to the GitHub repo and begin the ‘build’ process.
• The failing of the build process and the triggering of an error message notifying the presence of vulnerabilities in the image.
• When a Binary Authorization policy is violated, an email is sent to a pre-configured email id about the deployment failure.

Cloud Build and Deply Capabilities of Google Cloud

GCP’s Cloud Build enables importing source code from different repositories and cloud storage spaces, executing a build based on specifications, and producing artifacts such as Java archives or Docker containers.

Cloud Build also protects the software supply chain as it complies with the supply chain Levels for Software Artifacts (SLSA) level 3.

Cloud Build features enable securing the builds using features such as:

Automated Builds: In an automated or scripted build, all steps are defined using build script or configuration, including how to retrieve and build the code. The command to run the build is the only manual command used. A build config file is used to provide the Cloud Build steps. Automation ensures consistency of build steps and improves security.

Build Provenance: The provenance metadata is a source of verifiable data about a build and provides details such as:

• Digests of the built images
• Input source locations
• Build toolchain
• Build duration

This helps ensure that the built artifact is from a trusted source location and build system. Build provenance can be generated in Cloud Build for container images with SLSA level 2 assurance.

Ephemeral Build Environment: Ephemeral environments or temporary environments enable a single build invocation, after which the build environment is deleted and leaves behind no residual files or environment settings. This prevents the risk of attackers injecting malicious files and content, reduces maintenance overhead, and decreases inconsistencies in the build environment.

Deployment Policies: By integrating Cloud Build with Binary Authorization, build attestations and block deployments of images not generated by Cloud Build can be verified. This reduced the risk of unauthorized software being deployed.

Customer-Managed Encryption Keys: Compliant customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK) is a default feature in Cloud Build that eliminates the need for users to configure anything specifically. The key is generated uniquely for each build by the encryption of build-time persistent disk (PD) with a temporary key generated every time. This key is destroyed and removed from memory after the completion of the build and the data protected by such a key is inaccessible forever.

Google Cloud Deploy: Google Cloud Deploy is a managed infrastructure deployment service for automating the creation and management of Google Cloud resources. It automates the delivery of applications to a series of target environments in a pre-defined sequence. It ensures GKE and Anthos Continuous Delivery, and once the build is ready, a Cloud Deploy pipeline is created. This will deploy the container image to the three GKE environments of testing, staging, and production. It requires an approval process to be implemented, ensuring security.

Indium–for DevSecOps with GCP

Indium Software is a leading software solution provider offering a comprehensive set of DevOps services to increase the high-quality throughput of new capabilities. The solutions offered include:

CI/CD Services: Create code pipelines free of blocks and with a smooth value stream flowing from development to integration, testing, security, and deployment

Deployment Automation: Automate deployment and free up resources to perform value-added tasks

Containerization: Packaged executables that allow build anywhere-deploy anywhere approach

Assessment & Planning: Establish traceable metrics to assess performance and achieve the desired state

Security Integration: Ensure end-to-end security integration with ‘Security as Code’ using DevSecOps

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