Skip to content
CTP is part of HPE Pointnext Services.   Explore our new services here →
  • The Doppler Report
Cloud TP Logo
  • Thought Leadership
  • Clients
  • Services
  • Careers
  • Contact Us

Cloud Technology Partners

CLOUD SERVICES

  • The Cloud Adoption Program
  • Application Migration
  • Software Development
  • Infrastructure Modernization
  • DevOps & Continuous Delivery
  • Cloud Security & Governance
  • Cloud Strategy Consulting

TECH DOMAIN

  • Amazon Web Services
  • Google Cloud Platform

ABOUT US

  • Company Overview
  • Leadership Team
  • Partners
  • News & Recognition
  • Announcements
  • Weekly Cloud Report
  • Client Case Studies
  • Events

CAREERS

  • Join Us
  • Job Opportunities
 Cloud Technology Partners
  • Doppler Home
  • Client Case Studies
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • White Papers
  • Quarterly
  • Events
  • Subscribe

CIOps vs. GitOps: What’s the Difference?

Embracing a GitOps Model for Streamlined Infrastructure Automation.
Karthik Ramamoorthy Principal Cloud Architect
August 7, 2019 THE DOPPLER
Share this 
doppler_mail1

For more content like this, Get THE DOPPLER
email every Friday.
 
Subscribe here  chevron_right

While CI/CD has become synonymous with application deployments, end-to-end CI/CD for infrastructure is fragmented and challenging for many enterprises.

The pace of adopting a DevOps culture within the developer community seems more agile than within infrastructure operations, as developers reap immediate benefits, with unit testing and containerization significantly reducing bugs and time to market. Standards and patterns to reskill developers to fit their SDLC into the CI/CD model has been well established over the years, with a plethora of tools and training on the market.

But when it comes to full-stack infrastructure deployments, there is a lack of parity with application deployments and automation, due to the lack of robust APIs for network components, the usage of legacy hardware or the lack of DevOps skills across infrastructure teams. But this is evolving. Modern infrastructure built declaratively on platforms like Kubernetes, OpenShift, etc., and idempotent cloud management tools like HashiCorp’s Terraform, are making continuous integration and deployment on infrastructure a reality, and GitOps is an operating model to enable it.

 

Read now
Keep Learning
Check out the Doppler Quarterly for 80+ pages of our best cloud content.

 

CIOps vs. GitOps

In traditional CIOps, at the end of the CI process, an operator or CI pipeline deploys the target infrastructure before the application pipelines, with varying levels of maturity in terms of the automation of traceability, configuration, and secret management, least privilege access, etc.

Whereas the GitOps model’s emphasis on “Everything as Code” ensures Git is the “single source of truth” for both infrastructure configurations and application code, enabling a complete audit trail of system changes.

Operationalizing GitOps Patterns

GitOps powered pipelines mandate that any change to the desired state of infrastructure is done through a pull request. The pull request explains the collection of changes to the desired state of infrastructure. Once sent, interested parties can review and approve the changes for automated deployments across target environments.

GitOps Pattern for Infrastructure Deployments

Figure 1 explains a GitOps pattern to deploy cloud infrastructure using Terraform. It all starts with an operator pushing a feature branch to the config repo. CI pipelines trigger a Terraform plan and create a pull request for the approver, with the Terraform plan attached to the pull request description. On approval, the latest code gets deployed and merged with the master, with corresponding build tags.

GitOps Pattern for Kubernetes Deployments

GitOps patterns are nothing new in the world of Kubernetes. Products like Weaveworks Weave Flux, Jenkins X and Argo CD, are mature enough to automatically synchronize the state of a Kubernetes cluster to match the config in a Git Repo. This sync operator lives inside the cluster and triggers deployments if it detects new images in the config files, to ensure every change is atomic and auditable.

Conclusion

As enterprises are making significant strides towards establishing DevOps culture with the shift-left approach, there is no doubt the GitOps operating model has the potential to streamline infrastructure deployments and empower the operators and DevOps engineers to focus more on configuration and code, rather than on managing deployments.

Share this


Related articles

 

5 Steps to Building a Cloud-Ready Application Architecture

 

All in on AWS

 

Putting Ourselves Out of Business: How Kronos Reinvented Itself to Change the Future of Workforce Management

By Bill Bartow

Related tags

Cloud Strategy   DevOps   Software & Technology

Karthik Ramamoorthy

Karthik is a Principal Cloud Architect at Cloud Technology Partners (CTP), a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, focusing on Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services.

Full bio and recent posts »



Find what you're looking for.

Visit The Doppler topic pages through the links below.

PLATFORMS

AWS
CTP
Docker
Google
IBM
Kubernetes
Microsoft Azure
OpenStack
Oracle
Rackspace

BEST PRACTICES

App Dev
App Migration
Disaster Recovery
Change Management
Cloud Adoption
Cloud Economics
Cloud Strategy
Containers
Data Integration
DevOps
Digital Innovation
Hybrid Cloud
Managed Services
Security & Governance

SUBJECTS

Big Data
Blockchain
Cloud Careers
CloudOps
Drones
HPC
IoT
Machine Learning
Market Trends
Mobile
Predictive Maintenance
Private Cloud
Serverless Computing
Sustainable Computing
TCO / ROI
Technical "How To" Vendor Lock-In

INDUSTRIES

Agriculture
Energy & Utilities
Financial Services
Government
Healthcare
Manufacturing
Media & Publishing
Software & Technology
Telecom

EVENTS

CES
DockerCon
Google NEXT
Jenkins
re:Invent


 

Get The Doppler

Join 5,000+ IT professionals who get The Doppler for cloud computing news and best practices every week.

Subscribe here


Services

Cloud Adoption
Application Migration
Digital Innovation
Compliance
Cost Control
DevOps
IoT

Company

Overview
Leadership
Why CTP?
News
Events
Careers
Contact Us

The Doppler

Top Posts
White Papers
Podcasts
Videos
Case Studies
Quarterly
Subscribe

Connect

LinkedIn
Twitter
Google +
Facebook
Sound Cloud

CTP is hiring.

Cloud Technology Partners, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, is the premier cloud services and software company for enterprises moving to AWS, Google, Microsoft and other leading cloud platforms. We are hiring in sales, engineering, delivery and more. Visit our careers page to learn more.

CWC-blue-01

© 2010 - 2019 Cloud Technology Partners, Inc., a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. All rights reserved. Here is our privacy policy CTP, CloudTP and Cloud with Confidence are registered trademarks of Cloud Technology Partners, Inc., or its subsidiaries in the United States and elsewhere.

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

  • Home
  • Cloud Adoption
  • Digital Innovation
  • Managed Cloud Controls
  • The Doppler Report
  • Clients
  • Partners
  • About CTP
  • Careers
  • Contact Us
  • Most Recent Posts
  • All Topics
  • Podcasts
  • Case Studies
  • Videos
  • Contact
Our privacy statement has been changed to provide you with additional information on how we use personal data and ensure compliance with new privacy and data protection laws.  
Please take time to read our new Privacy Statement.
Continue