Incorporating a GitOps Methodology to an Organization’s Continuous Software Delivery

Continuous delivery allows software developers to use automation for speeding up the release of a new code. It ensures that there is a process that will enable developer’s changes to be pushed to a container registry or code repository automatically.

Even though there are several ways to ensure the same, having an open-source option often feels the best as it allows developers to make the requisite change in a hassle-free manner. While organizations now encompass DevOps for swift delivery, one of its branches, GitOps, is at the forefront of continuous delivery.

This article discusses the basics of GitOps.

History of GitOps

All of it started in 2015 when Weaveworks, the organization credited with creating GitOps, started Redis as a service and developed Weave Net to fill in the gaps. But they soon realized the need for developers to continually manage and monitor containers in the cloud ecosystem, leading to the development of Weave Cloud. It was the start of continuous delivery and seamless Prometheus monitoring.

The Weave Cloud was container-based and required an orchestrator. But the company believed that it was inefficient and necessitated something better. So they went with Kubernetes, which had its fair share of issues but seemed more promising. In 2016, the SME’s ended up wiping their system but could recover everything within forty minutes. That was the unofficial birth of GitOps.

In 2017, soon after the incident, the team curated a list of principles that operated their Kubernetes system and filtered out the most important ones, and the idea was termed ‘GitOps.’

What Is GitOps?

GitOps is a code-based infrastructure and operational procedure relying on Git as a source control system. It treats Git as a source of truth and is an evolution of IaC
(Infrastructure-as-Code) and DevOps‘ best practices for creating, modifying, and deleting system architecture systematically.

At its heart, GitOps follows the anything-as-a-code methodology and is a process of implementing continuous deployment for cloud native applications focusing on curating a developer-centric experience by using Git and continuous deployment tools in unison. It has a Git repository comprising declarative descriptions of the current infrastructure and an automated process to ensure that the production environment matches the described state.

Components of GitOps

It is vital to understand that GitOps is not a plugin or a platform. The DevOps branch is, instead, a workflow that enables teams to manage their IT infrastructure most efficiently. It is essentially a sum of three core elements –
Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) – GitOps employs a Git repository for defining the single source of truth for infrastructure definitions.
Merge Requests (MRs) – It uses the merge requests feature for bringing about the change mechanism for all the requisite infrastructure-based updates. It commits to the primary or trunk branch and acts as an audit log to track all the pushed updates.
Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) – The presence of CI/CD enables GitOps to ensure automated infrastructure updates. The idea uses CI/CD pipelines to manage the desired state defined in Git.

How Does GitOps ensure Continuous Delivery?

GitOps is a culmination of Continuous Delivery with Cloud Native. It builds on the idea derived from DevOps and SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) and works to improve upon it. As IaC is usually a declarative approach, GitOps requires users to describe the desired state of the system declaratively.

The presence of CI/CD pipelines comes into the picture after being triggered by an external event. In addition, it uses pull-based deployments, which introduces an operator which takes over the responsibility of continually comparing the desired state in the repository with the actual state in the deployed infrastructure.

If it notices any differences, it introduces an update for the infrastructure to meet the environment repository’s state. Finally, the operator picks up the commit and pulls in the new state declaration from Git.

After achieving the desired state in the repository, developers can continue their standard workflow and CI/CD practices. Thus, it allows improved productivity and speed of deployments and developments while optimizing its stability and reliability.

Let iVedha Help You with Continuous Software Delivery with GitOps

GitOps doesn’t have a fixed path laid down for itself, and that can be its most significant advantage or disadvantage, depending on how it is deployed. So it requires a professional team like iVedha to ensure a clutter-free approach to development and updates.

We analyze your service delivery frameworks to identify improvement opportunities and ensure that they align with global standards. In addition, we also help organizations seamlessly adopt alternate delivery strategies best suited to their business landscape.