GitLab announced the general availability of GitLab Duo Self-Hosted.
DevOps is a reality for all companies that seek to digitize their businesses. Agile begat DevOps due to the increased number of applications and the speed at which applications are released. Agile breaks down the wall between the business and development; DevOps does the same to the wall between development and operations.
However, one part of the operations function is absolutely neglected by DevOps: the database. Ignore it at your peril. As such, every business should budget for automation tooling that will help the database team work more effectively and be part of the Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery cycle.
You are Paying for it Today
Today, as we accelerate the release of our applications with DevOps, we are overburdening DBAs with database changes. Datical DB customers tell us that 4 out of 5 application changes require a database schema change. But for most companies, these database schema changes are performed manually, and on top of the manual execution of SQL scripts, DBAs must review each one of these changes.
This burden does not exist for the compiled application. Developers have automation tools that DBAs do not, which rapidly accelerate their releases. Thus, DBAs are held to a standard they simply cannot reach.
Companies facing this challenge often think there are only two possible solution: hire more DBAs or have the existing DBAs work more. Our customers report that hiring DBAs is a very difficult task. Not only are they challenged with identifying talent, but they must also train and retain that talent. This linear scaling of resources – personnel - will never keep up with the speed of automation we have on the development side of DevOps. In the end, many companies are forced to pay for a solution that simply does not meet their needs today and in the future.
A much more efficient use of capital would be to use DevOps tools for the database and bring parity the database change management and deployment processes. In other words treat database deployments just like application deployments to speed the delivery of application releases. Automate where possible, yet rely on the world's most advanced computer (human brain) when needed. We must move our DBAs to perform higher value tasks instead of just pushing them SQL scripts to review.
You Will Pay for It Tomorrow
By accelerating the frontend of the application release assembly line, we create a bottleneck as the pace for manually reviewing and deploying database changes is far slower. As a result, many organizations are simply wasting money as they speed an application release that must still rely on manual reviews before it can see the light of day.
As companies scale the number of applications and releases, they will reach a point where every dollar invested in DevOps for the application will be a waste. Manual database processes cancel out speed gains made earlier in the SDLC. Sure, IT organizations will be able to cite evidence of how fast the compiled parts of the application are being released, but if the application is looked at holistically, we will see that the ROI will take far longer to reach. Remember applications only matters to the customer if the entirety is released. Any less, and companies are improperly evaluating their ability to deliver new functionality to their customers.
Now is the Time
As we reach the end of the year, our budget planning processes are in motion. Consider past investments in DevOps and decide whether you're really seeing the benefits you expected. As Puppet Labs' State of DevOps report tells us, DevOps adoption has a direct correlation to company valuation and market cap. We now have evidence that DevOps is not a vanity or pet project; DevOps provides the ability to reach new markets and customers faster and retain them better. Companies who have automated database processes have seen an 80% decrease in the time it takes to review, validate and deploy database changes. That means applications are being released faster and with greater frequency. There is real measurable value to be attained by bringing DevOps to the database. What are you waiting for? Go get 'em, Tiger!
Industry News
Tigera announced the introduction of several new innovations to Calico, including a new Ingress Gateway capability for Calico Cloud and Calico Enterprise, and the launch of Calico Dashboards.
Copado introduced three AI-powered DevOps apps for Slack.
Gearset announced that it now supports Salesforce's Agentforce.
Sonar announced the acquisition of AutoCodeRover, an autonomous AI agent platform for software development.
Faros AI announced a collaboration with Microsoft to deliver its AI-powered platform for optimizing engineering workflows on Azure.
Apollo GraphQL announced the general availability of Apollo Connectors for REST APIs and new GraphOS platform enhancements — giving enterprises a faster, more efficient way to execute their API strategies.
Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd.(link is external) announced that its Check Point CloudGuard solution has been recognized as a Leader across three key GigaOm Radar reports: Application & API Security, Cloud Network Security, and Cloud Workload Security.
LaunchDarkly announced the private preview of Warehouse Native Experimentation, its Snowflake Native App, to offer Data Warehouse Native Experimentation.
SingleStore announced the launch of SingleStore Flow, a no-code solution designed to greatly simplify data migration and Change Data Capture (CDC).
ActiveState launched its Vulnerability Management as a Service (VMaas) offering to help organizations manage open source and accelerate secure software delivery.
Genkit for Node.js is now at version 1.0 and ready for production use.
JFrog signed a strategic collaboration agreement (SCA) with Amazon Web Services (AWS).
mabl launched of two new innovations, mabl Tools for Playwright and mabl GenAI Test Creation, expanding testing capabilities beyond the bounds of traditional QA teams.
Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd.(link is external) announced a strategic partnership with leading cloud security provider Wiz to address the growing challenges enterprises face securing hybrid cloud environments.