DevOps is a methodology of iterative software development that embraces close collaboration between contributing software developers, QA and IT operations staff. When fully embraced, there are many valuable attributes to this iterative style of development including (much) shorter release cycles, faster time to market, less intrusive upgrades, and higher quality.
But to be successful and efficient, DevOps automation requires the right tools throughout the software development lifecycle. Embotics vCommander has a strong role to play here with its comprehensive automation, staging, and third party integration capabilities, providing the glue that holds your CI/CD pipeline and overall toolchain together.
vCommander® with its automated workflow engine and comprehensive third party integration capabilities can be a strong asset to companies focusing on DevOps automation across multiple use cases:
Test Lab Automation for Iterative Software Development
The vCommander catalog is populated with operating system master images coupled with Chef, Puppet or post-provisioning scripted workflows that install the latest version of application code for automated testing. These workflows can even be initially triggered automatically via CI events such as a Git commit.
Additionally, through integration with Jenkins servers, a full build of your latest code base can be built on a daily basis by executing a completion workflow via the vCommander REST API to delete the current test virtual machine from the previous day, and submit a service request to deploy a new VM, and install the most recent build of your software on the new VM.
Developer Sandboxing
When performing unit tests on complex applications comprised of multiple tiers or even microservices, it is often necessary to create private instances of all the related components and separate them behind an isolated virtual network. vCommander’s automation workflows and self-service provisioning can be a powerful tool for improving developer efficiency in creating and managing such developer sandboxes.
Chef Integration
If you use Chef as your IT automation platform, you can seamlessly integrate Chef with Embotics® vCommander™ to provision and manage Chef nodes. With vCommander, you can predefine your Chef node configuration right in the service catalog.
When you integrate a Chef server or a Chef organization, vCommander synchronizes with Chef to retrieve all of the configured roles, recipes and environments to be used during vCommander self-service provisioning and workflows.
Puppet Integration
If you use Puppet Labs® Puppet to deliver ITaaS, you can seamlessly integrate Puppet with Embotics vCommander to provision and manage Puppet nodes. With the vCommander Cloud Management Platform (CMP), you can predefine your Puppet node configuration right in the service catalog. Requested VMs can be automatically deployed and configured as Puppet nodes.
