Perforce Software has added a universal package manager, dubbed Helix Artifacts, to its portfolio that enables users of its Helix Core version control platform to store and track source code.
Gerhard Krüger, product manager for Helix Core digital asset management at Perforce Software, said the goal is to enable DevOps teams that employ Helix Core to access a package manager without having to exit Helix Core.
That approach also provides a more secure and cost-effective way to store, consume and distribute artifacts that also serves to improve developer productivity, he added. The ability to manage artifacts on top of a version control platform also means DevOps teams will not need to set up additional storage infrastructure or configure separate security permissions just to distribute software packages, noted Krüger.
Helix Artifacts is a self-hosted package manager that functions as a translator for packages such as NuGet, Maven or Docker that enables them to communicate directly with Helix Core as well as build systems and integrated developer environments (IDEs). Helix Artifacts is made available via a per-server subscription model that costs substantially less than rival approaches to managing artifacts, Perforce Software claims.
Most DevOps teams are trying to strike a balance between employing best-of-breed tools to build applications and the need to reduce complexity and, ultimately, cost. As such, any time a tool becomes a feature of another platform that a DevOps team uses, there will be a review of the processes being employed. Many DevOps teams are trying to reduce the amount of time they spent maintaining tool integrations.
There’s also now a lot more focus on software supply chain security. Each new tool generally creates yet another set of credentials that need to be protected as cybercriminals continue to aggressively attempt to inset malware into applications before they are deployed in a production environment. It’s not clear to what degree DevOps teams are looking to consolidate toolchains, but given those rising security concerns, it’s only a matter of time before security teams start to ask why the DevOps toolchain attack surface is so wide.
In the meantime, the number of organizations that have widely embraced DevOps best practices across the enterprise continues to steadily grow. Over the past decade, most organizations have had at least one application development team embrace DevOps. However, as the pressure to build software to drive digital business transformation initiatives has steadily increased since the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to apply DevOps best practices to accelerate application development has become more pronounced. As a result, more organizations than ever are looking to standardize their application development efforts on a smaller number of platforms to reduce friction.
It’s too early to say whether the rate at which applications are being developed and deployed since the start of the pandemic has actually increased. The one thing that is certain, however, is the bulk of organizations are now trying to accelerate like never before.
