Emerging Tech Impact Radar: Software Engineering, 2023 Gartner® Report

[weaveworks]

Cloud-Native Applications Driving the Adoption of Software Technologies

The cloud-native ecosystem has steadily grown over the past decade with the promise of faster deployments, cost-efficient infrastructure, and auto-scalability, spurring its growth. Businesses are now developing and easily deploying scalable cloud-native applications faster and more efficiently, delivering value to their customers in days rather than months. About 73% of development and IT executives and developers have reported that this model has resulted in quicker development and rollout.

According to the CNCF 2022 Annual Survey, 64% of respondents were using Kubernetes in production and 25% were piloting/evaluating Kubernetes. A study by MarketsandMarkets suggests that the cloud-native application market is expected to grow from $5.9 billion in 2023 to $17 billion by 2028, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.7% from 2023 to 2028.

The continuous growth and adoption of cloud-native applications are fueling the implementation of new software engineering technologies. In this blog, we will zero in on GitOps, a software technology and paradigm that has revolutionized how companies develop and deliver cloud-native applications. We will also introduce a Gartner research report that brings to light the future potential impact and role of GitOps in software engineering.

GitOps Boosts Business Performance

What is GitOps?

GitOps, a term coined by Weaveworks in 2017, is an operational framework for developing, delivering, and deploying cloud-native infrastructure. GitOps takes DevOps' best practices, such as version control, collaboration, CI/CD tooling, and compliance, and applies them to infrastructure automation. It offers a path towards a self-service developer experience for managing applications and automating CI/CD pipelines.

“According to the canonical OpenGitOps standard, the state of any system managed by GitOps must be: (1) expressed declaratively, (2) versioned and immutable, (3) pulled automatically, and (4) continuously reconciled.”

GitOps offers many benefits that appeal to different organizations, including but not limited to greater developer productivity, enhanced developer experience, automated pipelines, and improved security and stability.

Unsurprisingly, organizations that have embraced cloud-native technologies are more likely to be using GitOps. Nearly 84% of respondents have adopted practices and tools that adhere to GitOps and its principles, according to the CNCF 2022 Survey.

Figure: Percentage of respondents adhering to GitOps practices - Source

Weave GitOps Enabling Continuous Application Delivery

Weave GitOps, a state-of-the-art GitOps platform, is powered by Flux, Flagger, and other leading open-source tools available today. It makes GitOps a reality by implementing the core principle of GitOps. Our GitOps - both enterprise and OSS versions - have enabled businesses to automate their CI/CD pipelines and simplified Kubernetes management and operations. Some of our customers include Deutsche Telekom, Fidelity Investments, National Australian Bank, HSBC, Orange Business Services, and more.

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