Read Part-1 Here : FinOps
Read Part-2 Here : CD-as-a-Service
Read Part-3 Here : CodeBase Automation

DevSecOps & Infrastructure Automation: Accelerating Time-to-Market with Built-in Security and Compliance

Trouble Finding and Hiring DevOps Engineers? Taking Months to Implement Compliance? Need to Create Standard Blueprints for your Developers? This article explores how DevSecOps platforms leverage automation tools to provide seamless end-to-end solutions for efficient cloud-native or hybrid application development with built-in security controls.

What is DevSecOps?

DevSecOps is a methodology that integrates security and compliance into the entire software development lifecycle (SDLC). It emphasizes collaboration between development, security, and operations teams to ensure that security and compliance are built into every stage of the SDLC. This approach helps organizations identify and remediate security vulnerabilities early in the development process, reducing the risk of costly data breaches and compliance violations.

In today’s fast-paced digital world, businesses need to be agile and responsive to remain competitive. One critical aspect of achieving this is having a robust DevSecOps process in place. DevSecOps combines development, security, and operations to ensure that applications are not only functional but also secure and compliant. However, implementing DevSecOps can be challenging, especially for organizations that lack the necessary expertise or resources.

This is where infrastructure automation comes in. Infrastructure automation refers to the use of software tools and frameworks to automate the provisioning, configuration, and management of IT infrastructure. By automating these tasks, organizations can reduce manual errors, improve efficiency, and accelerate time-to-market. In this article, we will explore how DevSecOps and infrastructure automation can work together to deliver secure and compliant applications faster.

Automated Provisioning and Cloud Orchestration: The Key to Efficient DevSecOps

In the world of software development, speed is a critical factor. Organizations that can release new applications and services quickly have a competitive advantage over their peers. However, the process of developing, testing, and deploying applications can be slowed down by manual infrastructure setup and management.

Engineering teams often dedicate a considerable amount of their time towards debugging tasks. There are several tools available in the market such as ELK, Sumo Logic, SignalFx, CloudWatch, DataDog and Sentry that efficiently perform these functions. However, it must be noted that these tools need to be orchestrated and configured appropriately within the application context since they are not part of the initial provisioning process. This can make data segregation and ingestion of application context challenging for developers at times.

To accelerate the time-to-market for new applications and services while ensuring security and compliance, organizations are turning towards DevSecOps practices. At the heart of this approach is automated provisioning and cloud orchestration.

Understanding Infrastructure Automation

Infrastructure automation allows developers to provision resources automatically without worrying about infrastructure setup or configuration. With DevSecOps practices in place, security considerations are integrated into every stage of the process – from provisioning through deployment.

The AIOps services takes high-level application specifications provided by developers or architects as input parameters such as scaling requirements based on expected traffic patterns, database size needs etc., then uses pre-programmed knowledge of hundreds-of-cloud-services across AWS (Amazon Web Services), Azure (Microsoft Azure), GCP(Google Cloud Platform) – virtual machines (VMs), databases like Elasticsearch/Redis/SQS/Kafka/Object stores/hybrid connectivity/availability zones/subnets/NAT gateways followed by guidelines following well-architected frameworks for secure infrastructure design; all this orchestrated together securely using AI algorithms built inside these platforms according to your organization’s IT architecture standards.

DevSecOps and Infrastructure Automation Benefits

By automating infrastructure provisioning tasks like observability & monitoring with 24×7 incident management capabilities ,organizations can achieve faster adoption rates for IaC(infrastructure-as-code) up to 10 times faster than traditional methods which also lead to lowering operational costs up to 35%.

Additionally, ongoing compliance monitoring ensures that applications remain secure and compliant 24×7.

The combination of DevSecOps practices with infrastructure automation provides several benefits to organizations:

Faster Time-to-Market: 

Automated provisioning accelerates the time-to-market for new applications, allowing organizations to be more competitive in their respective markets.

Reduced Operational Costs: 

Automation reduces the need for manual intervention in the provisioning and management of cloud resources, resulting in lower operational costs.

Improved Security and Compliance: 

By integrating security checkpoints at every stage of development (provisioning through deployment), organizations can identify & remediate potential vulnerabilities early on before they pose a risk to sensitive data or compliance guidelines.

Developer Self-Service: 

Infrastructure automation allows developers to self-service their resource needs, reducing operational overheads while empowering them with access to necessary infrastructure without delays from operations teams that are often overburdened by requests. 

Application Provisioning with Observability

Developers face significant challenges debugging complex application issues that arise when dealing with micro-services architecture. Observability comes into play here – it refers to insights gained from monitoring services interacting within an application such as databases, load balancers & virtual machines; making all this information available easily so developers can focus on building software rather than figuring out root causes for problems happening during runtime scenarios which is crucial because modern-day microservices-oriented architectures have become increasingly complex.

DevSecOps platforms offer integrations with popular open source tools like Prometheus, Grafana, Elasticsearch/ClamAV/Wazuh for observability purposes giving developers insights into running code environments quickly. They also seamlessly provision hybrid-cloud compatible clusters alongside fully-managed cloud-native infrastructures – providing a single interface across different IT landscapes regardless if you’re working entirely on-premise or leveraging public clouds like AWS/Azure/GCP etc., helping reduce developer burnout rates due to reduced cognitive loads managing multiple interfaces/tools simultaneously.

Compliance & Security Concerns Resolved

Compliance and security are among the most significant concerns in any DevSecOps process. However, implementing compliance controls on top of an existing infrastructure can be challenging when it wasn’t created with a secure design principle in mind from day one – this can lead to potential vulnerabilities that cybercriminals could exploit.

DevSecOps platforms solve these challenges by creating security controls during provisioning rather than as an afterthought. This ensures applications are secure and compliant from their inception.

The platform offers self-service capabilities for developers while automating low-level tasks like setting up proper firewalls, security groups, access control policies & installing tools necessary for your organization’s IT architecture guidelines during cloud-native application provisioning. Furthermore, the intelligent rules-based engine automatically follows all the guidelines of a well-architected design as it converts an application architect’s intent into underlying resources; ensuring compliance with relevant frameworks such as HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), PCI-DSS(Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard),SOC 2(Service Organization Control) NIST(National Institute of Standards and Technology), ISO(International Organization for Standardization) or GDPR(General Data Protection Regulation).

Built-in Audit & Reporting

In regulated industries such as finance or healthcare having built-in audit & reporting features is a critical part of IT governance requirements because auditors need proof-of-compliance reports generated regularly to conduct audits effectively across different departments within organizations at various levels.

DevSecOps platforms log every cloud-native action taken by users categorizing them accordingly which allows generating pre-built reports,Customer-facing Security white paper; easily making sure you’re always prepared for regulatory audits with minimal effort required on your end streamlining internal processes around audit procedures leading ultimately towards better cybersecurity posture reducing overall risk profiles significantly in today’s ever-evolving threat landscape where data breaches seem more common than ever before.

How DevSecOps And Infrastructure Automation Work Together

To achieve efficient DevSecOps practices using automated infrastructure provisioning through On-prem based systems or cloud orchestration engines/platforms like Amazon Web Services(AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform(GCP) or Kubernetes; the following steps are taken:

High-Level Application Specifications: 

At the outset of any project, it is essential to define clear and detailed high-level application specifications. This includes outlining requirements for scaling, security/monitoring needs, among other important factors. The more details that are provided at this stage will help ensure a smoother transition as the project progresses towards completion. This includes services like No-code web interface, Low-code Terraform provider.

Translation into Low-Level Details: 

Once all necessary high-level specifications have been defined, translating them into low-level details is critical. For fully managed cloud configurations using pre-programmed knowledge of hundreds-of-cloud-native-services across different providers such as AWS/Azure/GCP/Kubernetes – this translation process becomes automatic with no need for manual intervention.

Automated Provisioning: 

With low-level details in place, DevSecOps platforms automatically provision cloud-native infrastructure while incorporating best practices around security observability, availability & compliance standards. This ensures that applications meet all relevant guidelines before going live in production environments where cybercriminals lurk waiting to exploit any possible vulnerabilities they can find within apps/services running on these platforms/servers/etc..

Secure And Compliant Infrastructure: 

The resulting cloud-native infrastructure is provisioned with security and compliance built-in ensuring applications remain secure throughout their lifecycle. For example; AWS provides many services like identity access management(IAM), network security(virtual private clouds(VPC)), encryption(AWS key management system(KMS)) etc., which adds an extra layer of protection against unauthorized users accessing your resources/data.

Ongoing Compliance Monitoring: 

Finally, DevSecOps platforms provide ongoing compliance monitoring ensuring applications remain compliant even when regulations change over time – providing IT teams peace of mind knowing they’re always up-to-date with changing regulations while keeping pace with modern-day software development methodologies. For instance, GCP has a service named Google Cloud Security Command Center which helps to monitor compliance across different services used in the project and generate insights/recommendations for further improvements. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, automated provisioning through cloud orchestration engines/platforms has revolutionized software development by reducing operational costs while improving speed-to-market times. Developers can focus on building new features rather than worrying about infrastructure setup or configuration thanks to AI-driven automation tools that take care of these tasks quickly and efficiently without errors or delays caused by human error. Furthermore, DevSecOps practices ensure applications remain secure & compliant from day one leveraging intelligent rules-based engines making sure all necessary safeguards put in place during initial provisioning phases so your organization stays protected against evolving threat landscapes now moving towards a more distributed remote workforce paradigm due to recent global events affecting everyday life realities worldwide pushing many companies towards embracing agile principles wherever applicable.

Read Part-1 Here : FinOps
Read Part-2 Here : CD-as-a-Service
Read Part-3 Here : CodeBase Automation

Share it Now on Your Channel