- CD-as-a-Service: Enabling GitOps for Continuous Deployment at Any Scale
- Introduction
- Dynamic Orchestration: Deploy Your Code to Multiple Environments with Ease
- Multiple Objects and Manifests
- Operational Flexibility and GitOps Best Practices: Declarative Deployment with GitOps Workflows
- Increase Reliability: Blue/Green Deployments, Canary Deployments, and Automated Rollbacks
- Traffic Management: Route the Right Amount of Traffic to New Application Versions
- Open Ecosystem Integration: Github, CLI, Webhooks, Prometheus, Datadog, New Relic, Jenkins, CircleCI, Spinnaker
- Secured Platform Features: Secret Stores, RBAC, Single Sign-on, Two-factor Authentication
- Reduced Administration Complexity: Dynamic Account Configuration and Automated User Management
- Conclusion
CD-as-a-Service: Enabling GitOps for Continuous Deployment at Any Scale
Introduction
Continuous deployment is a critical aspect of modern software development. It allows developers to quickly and reliably deploy code changes to production environments, ensuring that users have access to the latest features and bug fixes. However, continuous deployment can be complex, especially when dealing with large-scale applications and multiple environments. CD-as-a-Service aims to simplify this process by providing a platform that enables GitOps workflows, dynamic orchestration, operational flexibility, and open ecosystem integration. This article will explore the benefits of CD-as-a-Service in detail.
Dynamic Orchestration: Deploy Your Code to Multiple Environments with Ease
CD-as-a-Service provides dynamic orchestration capabilities that allow developers to deploy their code to multiple environments with ease. The platform tracks where the code has been deployed and what needs to happen next. Developers can deploy to production only if pre-production security scanners and automated tests complete successfully. They can also leverage existing test suites during deployment to verify application health. CD-as-a-Service makes it easy to package Kubernetes objects into a set of manifests that make sense for your application. You can deploy, analyze, and roll them back together, and deploy one or more copies to any number of namespaces or clusters.
Multiple Objects and Manifests
CD-as-a-Service understands that developers may need to work with multiple Kubernetes objects and manifests. The platform allows you to package your Kubernetes objects into a set of manifests that make sense for your application. You can deploy, analyze, and roll them back together. You can deploy one or more copies to any number of namespaces or clusters. This capability ensures that you can manage your deployments efficiently, even when dealing with complex applications.
Operational Flexibility and GitOps Best Practices: Declarative Deployment with GitOps Workflows
CD-as-a-Service enables declarative deployment with GitOps workflows. This capability increases productivity and agility by allowing developers to declare their targets and deployment strategy using the same development practices, like version control and change history. CD-as-a-Service provides a centrally defined environment that allows you to manage where each application’s operating environment is hosted so that your developers can focus on writing code. You can get started without installing CRDs.
Increase Reliability: Blue/Green Deployments, Canary Deployments, and Automated Rollbacks
CD-as-a-Service offers several features that increase reliability, including blue/green deployments, canary deployments, and automated rollbacks. Blue/green deployments reduce downtime and risk by running two versions of your application in parallel and controlling traffic between them. Canary deployments improve stability and avoid service outages by continuously verifying changes as they are deployed. Automated rollbacks save time, money, and lower your Mean Time to Recover. You can automatically execute a partial or complete rollback of a deployment to the last known working version and quickly recover from a service outage.
Traffic Management: Route the Right Amount of Traffic to New Application Versions
CD-as-a-Service allows you to route the right amount of your traffic to new application versions, regardless of application pod count. This capability ensures that you decrease any impact to your customer experience. You can also use this feature to test new features or changes before deploying them to all users.
Open Ecosystem Integration: Github, CLI, Webhooks, Prometheus, Datadog, New Relic, Jenkins, CircleCI, Spinnaker
CD-as-a-Service integrates with various tools and platforms, including Github, CLI, webhooks, Prometheus, Datadog, New Relic, Jenkins, CircleCI, and Spinnaker. You can fully automate your deployments and reduce lead time for changes by setting up the Armory GitHub Action to deploy on commit. Webhooks integrate with any existing system in your SDLC, so you can leverage your existing automation from within your deployment and only deploy if all automation passes. You can also use the data from observability tools like Prometheus, Datadog, and New Relic to automate verification and impact analysis.
Secured Platform Features: Secret Stores, RBAC, Single Sign-on, Two-factor Authentication
CD-as-a-Service provides several secured platform features, including secret stores, RBAC, single sign-on, and two-factor authentication. Secret stores allow you to safely share and version your configurations for faster, more reliable, and secure deployments. RBAC minimizes any risk of accidental changes by restricting deployment to each application’s environment and the specified team. Single sign-on improves the user experience for your developers and adheres to company compliance guidelines by authenticating using standard corporate credentials. Two-factor authentication adds a second security layer to re-confirm your identity, making potential attackers’ lives harder and reducing fraud risk.
Reduced Administration Complexity: Dynamic Account Configuration and Automated User Management
CD-as-a-Service reduces administration complexity by providing dynamic account configuration and automated user management capabilities. More automation and dynamic configuration mean less downtime and more time to focus on high-value tasks throughout your day. You can simply leverage SSO and your current security and compliance processes to automatically add users.
Conclusion
CD-as-a-Service enables GitOps workflows, dynamic orchestration, operational flexibility, open ecosystem integration, increased reliability, secured platform features, and reduced administration complexity. These capabilities make it easier for developers to continuously deploy software at any scale. With CD-as-a-Service, developers can declare their targets and deployment strategy, write their code and commit, and the platform will dynamically orchestrate the deployment across all their environments. CD-as-a-Service is a better way to grow and scale your business, enabling continuous deployment for all developers.