Kong announced the launch of the latest version of Kong AI Gateway, which introduces new features to provide the AI security and governance guardrails needed to make GenAI and Agentic AI production-ready.
There was a time in cybersecurity strategy when most IT leaders considered perimeter and endpoint guards like antivirus and authentication controls to be the sum of network protection. But as attacks continue to increase in frequency and sophistication, leaders and DevOps teams have been focusing on the role of backup and disaster recovery in mounting a strong defense.
By stockpiling copies of your data, backup and disaster recovery (BDR) is clearly the last line of defense when all other defenses fall to attackers. But today's solutions go beyond simple backups and can strengthen security in several ways:
■ Speed. Long delays in recovery are a security risk, with Ransomware being a clear example. If your attackers shut you down in a demand for money, you only have a short window in which to get back online and evade the attack. Downtime can also create additional security gaps and risky user workarounds. A good BDR solution lets you spin up a replica environment in minutes after any security, site, systems or storage failure – helping you maintain services while you deal with the breach.
■ Simplicity. A unified BDR solution can dispense with the chaos of multi-vendor solutions, giving your team time to focus on more important security work. A simplified failover process can accelerate recovery, while automation can further protect the availability and integrity of your backup data.
■ Encryption. Because criminals can steal backups like any other information, a good BDR solution will encrypt backup data to disguise it from unauthorized eyes. This can also help mitigate the cost and damage of notification laws after a breach, as HIPAA and other regulatory institutions will often lessen certain financial penalties and requirements when encryption is in place.
Modern BDR offers another security benefit that's particularly of interest to developers – testing.
The Challenge of DevOps Testing
Both DevOps and BDR teams have this in common: you both strive for speed. Just as developers want to move fast in testing and deploying products, a good BDR solution helps teams shrink downtime windows from hours to mere minutes. So it's no surprise that modern BDR solutions can now provide an advantage when it comes to DevOps testing.
Just about every dev manager wishes they could do more testing. It's the golden rule of software development: Always Be Testing. Wait for the end of the development lifecycle to check all your components and you've created a mountain of do-overs for the team. But ongoing testing helps you course-correct as you go along, hitting your target dates for successful development cycles. Without that adequate testing, the likelihood of security vulnerabilities grows to almost a certainty.
But if your dev team is typical, you're constantly heads down on your latest and greatest project. Time is usually in short supply. You know that you need to write and test your code in a perfect copy of the production environment, if you want your software to meet security requirements when it goes to production. But it's usually tough to find time to run the newest changes or do so in a virtualized workspace that can completely simulate a real-world environment.
This is when using a sandbox testing feature in modern BDR solutions helps.
The Value of Sandbox Testing
Today's next-gen BDR offerings can do double duty: they offer advanced backup and disaster recovery and act as a valuable development platform. A sandbox feature can offer a carbon copy of your environment running a critical production workload, helping you identify security and performance issues in an ideal testing ground. You can test on the fly, teasing out vulnerabilities without sacrificing speed or efficiency.
Because not every BDR solution will offer the right kind of sandbox testing feature, here's what to look for:
■ A sandbox with enough compute, storage, and flexibility to handle most of your DevOps initiatives
■ The ability to test patches, service packs, database migrations and other updates before deploying them into production
By turning a BDR sandbox into your newest virtual DevOps workspace, whatever you're testing is that much more likely to look like the finished product once the project goes live.
Stronger Defenses, Smarter Development
We all know that with numerous test phases comes more security. With the ongoing rise in cybersecurity, the importance of adequate testing is stronger than ever. Your DevOps team no longer needs to choose between timely development cycles and identifying security issues. When your team has the ability to fully vet a new platform, software or development initiative, you can feel confident that your product will be successful and secure. A BDR solution with a secure sandbox feature that's essentially a built-in DEV environment provides you with that ability – giving you safe and speedy disaster recovery, an easier dev cycle and a better-defended product in the end.
Industry News
Traefik Labs announced significant enhancements to its AI Gateway platform along with new developer tools designed to streamline enterprise AI adoption and API development.
Zencoder released its next-generation AI coding and unit testing agents, designed to accelerate software development for professional engineers.
Windsurf (formerly Codeium) and Netlify announced a new technology partnership that brings seamless, one-click deployment directly into the developer's integrated development environment (IDE.)
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation® (CNCF®), which builds sustainable ecosystems for cloud native software, is making significant updates to its certification offerings.
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation® (CNCF®), which builds sustainable ecosystems for cloud native software, announced the Golden Kubestronaut program, a distinguished recognition for professionals who have demonstrated the highest level of expertise in Kubernetes, cloud native technologies, and Linux administration.
Red Hat announced new capabilities and enhancements for Red Hat Developer Hub, Red Hat’s enterprise-grade internal developer portal based on the Backstage project.
Platform9 announced that Private Cloud Director Community Edition is generally available.
Sonatype expanded support for software development in Rust via the Cargo registry to the entire Sonatype product suite.
CloudBolt Software announced its acquisition of StormForge, a provider of machine learning-powered Kubernetes resource optimization.
Mirantis announced the k0rdent Application Catalog – with 19 validated infrastructure and software integrations that empower platform engineers to accelerate the delivery of cloud-native and AI workloads wherever the\y need to be deployed.
Traefik Labs announced its Kubernetes-native API Management product suite is now available on the Oracle Cloud Marketplace.
webAI and MacStadium(link is external) announced a strategic partnership that will revolutionize the deployment of large-scale artificial intelligence models using Apple's cutting-edge silicon technology.
Development work on the Linux kernel — the core software that underpins the open source Linux operating system — has a new infrastructure partner in Akamai. The company's cloud computing service and content delivery network (CDN) will support kernel.org, the main distribution system for Linux kernel source code and the primary coordination vehicle for its global developer network.