4 Methods GitOps can Make Easily Developers’ Life Easier

Developers must define how they want the workload to run at the core of a deployment — yes, there is some YAML. We can improve the current state of the art by improving the state of our CI/CD processes. GitOps can reduce the long-awaited learning curve and increase the number of operations-related problems that developers often face when deploying Kubernetes.

Git-centric application deployment is becoming more popular with developers. This makes it easier to create code for Kubernetes environments. GitOps allows developers to focus on creating apps while reducing the time spent configuring Kubernetes clusters and other operations-related tasks.

Developers must define how they want the workload to run at the core of a deployment — yes, there is some YAML. We can improve the current state of the art by improving the state of our CI/CD processes. GitOps can reduce the often-dreaded learning curve as well as the number of operations-related problems that developers face when deploying Kubernetes.

Developers will find that the GitOps learning curve is lower than other CI/CD platforms. This is because developers are familiar with Git. For GitOps Onboarding, the developer will likely have completed more than half the required learning. Commit requests, push and stash changes, etc. GitOps processes include committing requests, stashing and pushing changes, as well as GitHub. The developer, along with the entire DevOps group, can see faster deployments as well as other productivity improvements within CI/CD.

1. Developers can Rely on Git’s Immutability

Developers often have questions regarding deployments in production. This is especially true when there are issues. We might ask about the version deployed, when it was deployed, and what was in that deployment. GitOps keeps track of all elements that have been deployed to the cluster with Git. This provides a set of immutable “truths” for both the development and operations teams, including audit trails, Kubernetes cluster-configuration data, commits, etc. GitOps improves version control for developers and operations. This allows deployments to shift left. GitOps gives developers more control.

Configuration can be stored in git to simplify deployment. All dependencies and the entire workload are kept together. A single git commit is all that is needed to perform a new deployment. This is especially helpful because it allows us to easily move one change through each stage in the deployment pipeline (dev/staging/prod).

One of the problems with cloud-native architectures is how microservices can be interdependent and fail in complicated ways. Everything about deployment can be stored in git, which allows us to see what’s happening and how we can fix it. Whether it’s the service definition, the configuration process, or microservices-dependency management, the developer is able to suggest changes or just check how the process looks throughout any of the stages of CI/CD.

2. Suggestions for Changes are More Like Code Reviews

We make it easier for DevOps teams and their tools to work together by extending git into operations. Developers know how to manage their software code and have access to a variety of tools to make changes. GitOps uses the same tools for application deployment and operations. We keep software code in separate branches and use automated guardrails to limit access for certain individuals. GitOps allows for code collaboration at many levels, making it easy to work on the declared state.

3. GitOps will Capture All Information from Git

Git is not only the single source of truth, but also provides an audit trail. Although the developer does not need to rely as heavily on audit trails like DevSecOps and operations team members, they can still make use of the ability to see what changes were made and the motivation behind them. Everything is just a matter of a Git log for both the developer and all DevOps team members.

Developers can also access and easily look up audit trails in Git. Developers can access the entire history of the system in the Git system record.

4. More Freedom to Experiment

Fear of what might happen if something goes wrong is one of the main reasons development teams are unable to move quickly. Because they cannot afford to make mistakes, teams use complicated systems and processes to double-check and check their deployments. The answer is not to avoid errors at all costs, but to be able to quickly and easily fix them. GitOps makes it easy for developers to make mistakes. It’s easy to roll back to previous deployments and return to a good condition if there’s an error.

GitOps is a tool that helps prevent attackers or users from altering cluster configurations. This is critical for security and operations teams. Developers should not have direct access, through access control. This allows the cluster configuration to be “read-only” by the developer so that they don’t have to worry about damaging the cluster. GitOps makes it so that the user does not have to manually access the Kubernetes cluster and production environment.

The Right Tool Stuff

GitOps adoption is easy. Most teams have the tools and platforms they need — which GitOps supports. GitOps is compatible with CI and improves any CI system like Jenkins.

Next, we will add an open-source Weave GitOps core. This provides an easy on-ramp to deploy applications using GitOps. Weave GitOps Core stores the deployment YAML in git, so any containerized app can be bootstrapped with just a few commands. The workload can then be deployed to any Kubernetes environment. This includes a local Kubernetes installation (ie k3s), as well as a managed Kubernetes Cloud Environment (AWS EKS, Azure AKS, Google GKE) and on-premise options such Rancher or OpenShift. Once the workload has been defined and the target cluster identified, Weave GitOps will be able to deploy and operate it.

GitOps makes developers more productive by allowing them to deploy workloads quickly, efficiently, and without fear. GitOps makes deployments simpler and less involved. This helps us to avoid the “wall of YAML”, which can often cause so much friction. GitOps also provides a control mechanism that ensures that operations teams are not confronted with increased incidents or workload problems.