2018 in review: Top 7 DevOps stories

1. New project alert: Jenkins X

Can Jenkins become more cloud-native? The answer is yes and it’s all thanks to Jenkins X, which is currently proposed as a sub-project within the Jenkins Foundation.

The difference between Jenkins and Jenkins X is that the latter focuses on automating CI/CD for the cloud using Jenkins plus other open source tools like Kubernetes, Helm, Git, Nexus/Artifactory etc. Learn more about this project here.

2. New technology rises: AIOps

AIOps is an emerging technology which focuses on bringing the benefits of artificial intelligence to Ops. However, AIOps is *not* designed to replace existing operations model as well as tools, rather unify and modernize them with algorithmic approach powered by machine learning and big data.

Earlier this year we had an interesting talk with Enzo Signore, CMO at FixStream about the benefits os AIOps, its tooling and much more. Check it out here.

3. In the world of DevOps, traditional AppSec is no longer enough

In the world of DevOps, traditional application security doesn’t cut it anymore, and relying on perimeter defenses is a reactionary measure… assuming you control the perimeter. The unprecedented use of open source, the speed of continuous integration and continuous delivery, containerization, and move to the cloud all mean that teams need a new approach to application security. DevOps teams cannot cede speed and agility for the sake of security.

JAXenter editor Gabriela Motroc caught up with Tim Mackey, technical evangelist for Black Duck by Synopsys at DevOpsCon 2018 to talk about how to do AppSec at the speed of DevOps in the age of open source. Check out this video interview here.

4. GitHub joins the CI/CD fray: GitHub Actions automates workflow

GitHub is a great place for code storage. But what about running that code? On October 17th, GitHub announced GitHub Actions. Actions utilizes Docker containers running on their servers to build, package, release, update, and deploy. It also supports multiple languages and provides access to the open sources libraries available on GitHub. Check out the details of the project here.

5. Jenkins community survey: Kubernetes usage rises 235%

While 2018 is almost over, it still has some cards up its sleeve! The fifth annual DevOps and Jenkins Community Survey brought some very interesting insights into some key trends among the Jenkins community including the technology environments they use, practices they are adopting and DevOps maturity levels within organizations.

The one thing that becomes evident from the participants’ responses is that cloud is going big with 78% of respondents reporting that they are now using cloud services to host Jenkins. Another huge trend that we observe in the report is the tremendous growth of Kubernetes with a usage increase of 235% since last year! Have a look at the survey highlights here.

6. “What DevOps was to cloud, GitOps is to cloud-native”

Initially proposed by Alexis Richardson, GitOps offers to be the new community of practice where we push code not containers and perform operations by pull request.

The most valuable concept that falls under the GitOps umbrella is the Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR). Simply put: If your system failed completely, how long would you take to get it up and running from scratch? Using GitOps, Alexis’ team can recover in five minutes. Five minutes. That underlines the ultimate promise of GitOps. Learn more about this technology from our interview with Tracy Miranda here.

7. Critical Kubernetes flaw discovered

Grim news from Red Hat – Kubernetes has identified its first major security flaw. This vulnerability affecting Kubernetes 1.10 and higher was publicly disclosed on GitHub last week. Basically, the flaw allows any user to escalate their privileges to access administrative controls through the Kubernetes API server. With this, they can create requests authenticated by Kubernetes’ own TLS credentials and mess with any container running on the same pod.

While there’s a patch up already, it looks like this flaw is going to cause some pretty significant soul searching (and log searching). Kubernetes is one of the most popular open source projects today; it’s estimated that around 70% of all enterprises have adopted Kubernetes containers. With such a large number of targets, it’s likely someone has already been hit. So, let’s get into the details and what this means for developers. Find out the details of this vulnerability here.

JAX DevOps Blind Bird Special

We have a special Christmas goodie to light up that holiday spirit!

JAX DevOps Blind Bird Special!

Yeah, that’s right! While we are revving up in preparation for Christmas we have the perfect offer for you to join JAX DevOps on the 14-17th of may 2019 in London. You can grab this opportunity to save up to £700 and free workshop days pass if you register by December the 20th!

The schedule has not been finalized yet but it is already filled with exciting keynotes, sessions, and workshops with topics ranging from cloud platforms and serverless to Docker and Kubernetes.

Grab your chance to get the special discount prices now! The Blind Bird ends TOMORROW!