Advanced Computing in the Age of AI | Friday, March 29, 2024

DevOps Tool Targets Continuous Delivery of Apps 

Attacking what it calls "islands of automation" that are thwarting efforts toward continuous delivery of business applications, an IT and DevOps specialist is rolling out a framework to automate the release of business applications.

Automic Software Inc., Bellevue, Wash., said Monday (April 4) its application release automation tool seeks to mesh DevOps with existing IT infrastructure as a way for enterprises to achieve continuous delivery of business applications. Along with developing a roadmap to continuous delivery, the framework also includes visualization and open source tools along with a multi-tenant cloud "sandbox" that allows potential users to experiment with the tools.

The digital transformation of many enterprises is straining IT infrastructure as they struggle to keep pace with the delivery of, for example, digital consumer apps. Hence, the vendor argues, "IT is in danger of being pulled apart" as front-office teams embrace open-source tooling.

"This leads to tool chain sprawl and disparate islands of automation, while the back-office applications continue with slow yet reliable version rollouts," the company asserted.

That disparity has created a requirement to link front- and back-end development teams to deliver more timely updates. The Automic blueprint seeks to "scale continuous delivery across both back-office applications and the new digital front-office," Chris Boorman, Automic's chief marketing officer, noted in a statement.

Meanwhile, the visualization tool in the form of a dashboard plugin is designed to provide a window into the deployment and release steps of multiple DevOps teams and applications. The goal is to provide developers and IT personnel with a visualization of an entire deployment pipeline in order to gauge the impact and schedule implications of multiple concurrent releases of business applications.

Along with greater agility and speed in application delivery, the blueprint also seeks to scale the delivery of consumer applications while boosting reliability. Hence, the automation tool can be deployed to public or private clouds via a multi-tenant platform. That approach would allow enterprises and service providers to address multiple department and clients in isolation from one another on a shared platform. The isolation of applications in production settings is a key security measure.

The platform also can be test-driven in a private sandbox running in a multi-tenant cloud that includes examples of common use cases.

The company also noted that it structured the framework for scaling the delivery of applications according to a customer's current DevOps status, ranging from scripting and application deployment to orchestrating a tool chain up to continuous delivery.

"This approach allows customers not only to identify themselves on a competency level but they can actually build a roadmap for themselves with clear milestones for each step," Ron Gidron, continuous delivery evangelist at Automic, noted in a blog post.

The company added that the platform includes "differentiated packages" that include services and software for each stage. The application release automation tool and all plugins are available now. Pricing is available on demand.

 

About the author: George Leopold

George Leopold has written about science and technology for more than 30 years, focusing on electronics and aerospace technology. He previously served as executive editor of Electronic Engineering Times. Leopold is the author of "Calculated Risk: The Supersonic Life and Times of Gus Grissom" (Purdue University Press, 2016).

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