What Is GitOps?
GitOps is a way of using Git as a single source of truth for declarative infrastructure and application management. It involves using Git to store and version the desired state of an infrastructure, and using automated tools to ensure that the live infrastructure matches the state defined in Git. This approach allows for versioning, auditing, and rollbacks of infrastructure changes, and promotes collaboration and self-service among teams.
Why Are GitOps Tools Important?
GitOps tools are important because they make it easier for DevOps teams to manage their infrastructure in a consistent and predictable way. They also provide a way for teams to collaborate and self-service on infrastructure changes, which can speed up development and deployment.
Additionally, by using Git as the single source of truth for infrastructure management, GitOps tools provide a way to version, audit, and rollback infrastructure changes, which can help to reduce the risk of errors and increase the reliability of the infrastructure. DevOps teams can control infrastructure with a single tool, making it easier to manage applications and keep the current versions in sync with the target state.
GitOps Tools Market Outlook
According to a 2021 study by DORA (DevOps Research and Assessment), the most efficient DevOps teams achieve a low rate of change failures despite having frequent deployments. GitOps tools have surged in popularity because organizations are always looking to accelerate their application development cycles.
The rapid growth of GitOps
While GitOps only emerged in 2017, it has expanded rapidly. Open-source communities have increased support for GitOps since 2020, with projects like Argo CD and Flux. Already by 2021, nearly half of CNCF users were using or considering using Flux of Argo CD. Both these projects attained the highest level of maturity in November 2022.
More and more organizations are recognizing the benefits of using GitOps for infrastructure management. This growth is driven by factors such as the increasing adoption of cloud-native technologies, the need for automation and collaboration in infrastructure management, and the growing use of containers and Kubernetes in deployment. The Git-based development approach is also well suited to microservices-based architectures and serverless technologies.
Drivers of demand for GitOps tools
The growing adoption of DevOps practices and the increasing focus on continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) are also driving the demand for GitOps tools. As GitOps allows teams to work in a more collaborative and automated way, it helps to promote a culture of continuous improvement, which is a key aspect of DevOps. Likewise, standardizing the toolchain makes the DevOps process more efficient and less error-prone.
GitOps helps organizations implement GitFlow best practices, avoiding the issues associated with tooling silos, such as version conflicts. It also helps ensure compliance with standards like PCI DSS by allowing teams to treat requirements as code, enabling the automation and integration of compliance controls in the CI/CD pipeline.
Thus, the outlook for the GitOps tools market is positive, and it will likely continue to expand at least into 2025, when it's expected to reach USD 2.3 billion.
GitOps Challenges
Adopting GitOps can bring many benefits to an organization, but it also comes with its own set of challenges. Some of the main challenges of adopting GitOps include:
Complexity: GitOps can introduce additional complexity to an organization's infrastructure and application delivery process, especially if the organization is not already using Git for version control. Organizations will need to invest in training and resources to help manage the complexity of GitOps.
Tooling: GitOps relies on a set of specialized tools to monitor the Git repository for changes and to automatically update the infrastructure and application. Organizations will need to invest in these tools and ensure that they are properly configured and integrated with their existing infrastructure and application delivery process.
Security: GitOps relies on Git as a centralized source of truth for both the infrastructure and application code, this means that access to the Git repository needs to be properly secured to prevent unauthorized access or tampering. Organizations will need to ensure that the Git repository is properly configured and that access controls are in place to protect sensitive information.
Change management: GitOps relies on a declarative approach to infrastructure and application management, this means that changes to the infrastructure and application are made by modifying the code in the Git repository. This can be a significant change for organizations that are used to making changes to the infrastructure and application manually.
Continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD): Adopting GitOps requires organizations to implement a CI/CD pipeline, this can be a significant change for organizations that are not already using CI/CD, and it can be challenging to implement and maintain.
Cultural change: GitOps requires a cultural shift in the way infrastructure and application are managed, it requires a different mindset and way of working, this can be a challenge for organizations that are not used to treating infrastructure as code and using Git for version control.
While adopting GitOps can bring many benefits to an organization, it also requires a significant investment in terms of time, resources, and change management. It's important for organizations to carefully evaluate the costs and benefits of GitOps and to plan for a smooth transition to this approach.
Conclusion
The GitOps tools market is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years as more organizations adopt cloud-native technologies and move towards a DevOps culture. GitOps provides a way for teams to collaborate and self-service infrastructure changes, which can speed up development and deployment. Using Git as the single source of truth for infrastructure management can help to reduce the risk of errors and increase the reliability of the infrastructure.
However, GitOps is not without its challenges, such as the learning curve to use and understand the tools, and the need for skilled personnel to use them. Another challenge is the integration of GitOps with other tools and systems, such as monitoring, security, and compliance.
In order to fully realize the benefits of GitOps, organizations will need to invest in training and education for their teams, and work to integrate GitOps with their existing tools and systems. With the right approach and investment, organizations can leverage the power of GitOps to improve their infrastructure management practices and achieve more efficient development and deployment cycles.
