CloudBees, during an online event today, officially launched the first two modules of what will become a portfolio of software delivery management (SDM) tools delivered via the cloud.
The first two modules have been previewed for the last year, now are generally available. The first is the CloudBees Engineering Efficiency module, which provides a system of record to normalize data in a way that makes it possible to surface metrics, analytics and actionable insights.
Shawn Ahmed, senior vice president and general manager for software delivery automation for CloudBees, said the analytics application initially will pull data from CloudBees DevOps platforms and complementary third-party tools such as GitHub and Jira and eventually will expand to include data pulled from other continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) platforms. CloudBees Engineering Efficiency connects to more than 70 different DevOps tools. CloudBees is also making available an application programming interface (API) through which third parties can extend the module.
The goal is to enable DevOps teams to make decisions that are informed by data rather than just gut feel, said Ahmed, noting that data can then be employed to coach DevOps teams in a way that allows them to become more efficient.
The second module is CloudBees Feature Management, which gives DevOps teams control over how individual features are released. Organizations can manage features holistically by grouping and controlling sets of feature flags that determine what capabilities are exposed within an application. That capability makes it possible for organizations to de-couple the release of a specific feature from the rest of the delivery of an application.
At a time when organizations are accelerating the rate at which applications are being developed and deployed to drive their digital business transformation initiatives, the ability to control how features are rolled out has become a critical element of managing the overall end user experience.
SDM tools are part of what has become commonly known as value stream management applications. The debate that is currently occurring is to what degree these applications should be provided by the vendor that makes the CI/CD platform versus an independent software vendor (ISV) that aggregates data from multiple platforms. CloudBees is betting that as DevOps processes mature within organizations, more of them will prefer to deal with a single vendor capable of providing both the underlying DevOps platform and the tools required analyze and manage DevOps processes.
Longer-term, Ahmed said the infusion of predictive analytics capabilities enabled by advances in machine learning algorithms means it won’t be long before organizations will be able to know if a build will fail even before it runs.
It will be up to each organization to determine how they will apply analytics tools for DevOps processes. Ideally, the DevOps culture in place stresses collaboration and training. However, there may be some organizations that will look to use these applications to increase productivity by weeding out members of the DevOps team who lack the appropriate level of expertise. The applications being provide by CloudBees, however, are designed to identify issues in the aggregate rather than enable organizations to identify the faults of a specific member of the DevOps team, noted Ahmed.
Like it or not, analytics applications soon will be applied more broadly to DevOps processes. The challenge and the opportunity now is determining the next best course of action based on the insights they surface.
