{"id":7057,"date":"2022-01-27T00:20:06","date_gmt":"2022-01-27T00:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/01\/27\/weaveworks-empowers-developers-to-build-software-faster-with-gitops-model\/"},"modified":"2022-01-27T00:20:06","modified_gmt":"2022-01-27T00:20:06","slug":"weaveworks-empowers-developers-to-build-software-faster-with-gitops-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/01\/27\/weaveworks-empowers-developers-to-build-software-faster-with-gitops-model\/","title":{"rendered":"Weaveworks empowers developers to build software faster with GitOps model"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The pace at which technology moves can often be blindingly fast. A lifetime ago (in tech years), version control wasn\u2019t a particularly pressing consideration for organizations and their IT departments.<\/p>\n

Today, in addition to it being a core concentration area (with tools like GitHub), advancements are already being made to facilitate continuous deployment for cloud-native applications. This paradigm is known as GitOps, and it is taking the enterprise computing world by storm.<\/p>\n

At its core, the idea involves having a Git repository containing declarative descriptions at all times: firstly, of what is desired in the production environment and, secondly, of an automated process to bring the production environment to parity with the repository\u2019s described state. It is, in essence, an automated way to manage applications in production.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a sense, it is very much aligned with DevOps, because we want to bring teams together and\u00a0<\/span>help them to deploy their applications, clusters<\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0environments,\u201d said\u00a0Steve George<\/a> (pictured, left), chief operations officer at Weaveworks Inc. \u201c<\/span>And really with GitOps,<\/span>\u00a0we have a specific set of tools that we can use.<\/span>\u00a0What\u2019s nice about Git<\/span>\u00a0is \u2026<\/span>\u00a0lots of developers use it, the vast majority.<\/span>\u00a0And so what we\u2019re trying to do<\/span>\u00a0is bring those operational processes<\/span>\u00a0into the way that developers work.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Rather than supplanting it entirely, GitOps is simply an instantiation of DevOps, according to George. Basically, it is using Git to record what is required in a runtime environment and then instructing Kubernetes, referencing the configuration in Git, on what should be deployed.<\/p>\n

George and\u00a0Steve Waterworth<\/a> (pictured, right), technical marketing manager at Weaveworks,\u00a0spoke with David Nicholson<\/a>, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media\u2019s livestreaming studio, during the <\/span>AWS Startup Showcase: Open Cloud Innovations<\/span><\/a> event. They discussed Weaveworks\u2019 Kubernetes underpinnings<\/a>, its connection with Amazon Web Services Inc., and how these have combined to bring forth the GitOps computing wave. <\/span>(* Disclosure below.)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The AWS\/Weaveworks connection<\/h3>\n

Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Services, a managed service allowing organizations to run and scale their K8s applications on AWS, has been developed in close partnership with Weaveworks.\u00a0Alongside the two companies\u2019 collaborative efforts around Kubernetes, AWS is also an investor in Weaveworks, according to Waterworth.<\/p>\n

Earlier, during EKS\u2019 early days, Weaveworks helped conceptualize and develop its command line interface and ensure that its primary userbase (the dev community) found it intuitive and easy to work with. Leveraging this connection, both companies devised ways to integrate the GitOps approach into EKS. Because it\u2019s all open source, community members can get in on the action and provide their much-needed feedback and contributions.<\/p>\n

With a developer-centric operating model for Kubernetes, GitOps consolidates all of the commonly used developer services and systems into a familiar base, reducing the burden on them to switch between different tools.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor operations staff,<\/span>\u00a0one of the things that it does is it centralizes<\/span>\u00a0where all of this configuration is kept.<\/span>\u00a0And then you can use things like templating\u00a0<\/span>to make sure that you automate and go quickly,<\/span>\u00a0but you also do that in a way<\/span>\u00a0that is reliable, secure and stable,\u201d George explained.<\/span><\/p>\n

GitOps is a core component of Weaveworks\u2019 Kubernetes management value proposition. Thus, the company\u2019s technology has several in-built features that help organizations key into the GitOps paradigm.<\/p>\n

\u201cWeaveworks has an engine, a set of software,<\/span>\u00a0that enables this to happen,\u201d Waterworth explained.<\/span>\u00a0\u201cThink of it as a constant reconciliation engine.<\/span>\u00a0So, you\u2019ve got your declared state;<\/span>\u00a0your desired state is declared in Git.<\/span>\u00a0So, this is where all your YAML<\/span>\u00a0for all your Kubernetes hangs out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Weaveworks GitOps agent runs inside of Kubernetes and constantly compares the desired Git state with the actual state, within the container. Whenever a developer wants to make a change, they push that change to Git, and the reconciliation loop does the required comparisons.<\/p>\n

Now, here\u2019s where the real magic happens. Engineers and developers need not learn any new changes. The whole process functions the same as the usual action of pushing code into Git.<\/p>\n

Weaveworks and trusted application delivery<\/h3>\n

With cloud spending<\/a>\u00a0constantly rise, organizations are increasingly wary of adding new \u201cops\u201d to their IT processes, because they often imply diverting resources towards infrastructure. However, GitOps adds an increased level of efficiency to infrastructure deployment and usage.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the GitOps pipeline,<\/span>\u00a0one of the things that we can do<\/span>\u00a0is to put in various checkpoints<\/span>\u00a0to check that the policy is being followed correctly,\u201d George said.<\/span>\u00a0\u201cSo, are we deploying the right number of applications,<\/span>\u00a0the right configuration of an application?<\/span>\u00a0Does that application follow certain standards<\/span>\u00a0that the enterprise has set down?<\/span>\u00a0And that\u2019s what we talk about<\/span>\u00a0when we talk about trusted policy and trusted delivery.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Trusted policy and delivery will allow teams to work at high speeds with their new deployments, but also safeguard the work with \u201cautomated guard rails\u201d to maintain the application platform\u2019s reliability.<\/p>\n

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE\u2019s and theCUBE\u2019s coverage of the <\/span>AWS Startup Showcase: Open Cloud Innovations<\/span><\/a> event.<\/span> (* Disclosure: Weaveworks Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Weaveworks nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n