The ephemeral composable stack - Copado: Orchestrating cloud-connected DevOps
Copado might sound like some type of tropical fruit drink, but it is in fact a DevOps specialist organisation that embraces cloud-native computing for what it calls a ‘true multi-cloud DevOps’ world.
The latest summer ’21 release iteration of Copado presents open connectivity to any SaaS platform, a universal CI/CD engine and will support more than 12 clouds by the end of 2021, including Mulesoft, SAP and Veeva.
Increasingly, the Copado engineers say that its technology is being deployed by enterprises that engage their customers across multiple clouds and require DevOps automation and alignment across these disparate platforms. So, if you will… this is the advent of ephemeral composable DevOps.
While DevOps has transformed the way software is delivered it has been slow to be adopted across the major SaaS platforms where most of digital transformation is happening.
DevOps, cloudy-style
Copado claims to be the first low-code DevOps platform to address the needs of enterprise SaaS customers who need to optimise and secure the delivery of transformation projects across large, non-technical teams.
“Every customer-facing process now crosses multiple clouds and the ability to connect and orchestrate cross-cloud processes is an important value driver for our customers and partners,” said Federico Larsen, CTO and co-founder of Copado. Larsen says his company’s technology enables large digital teams to move fast, at scale, with the quality and governance required to safely connect and master a multi-cloud network.
Along with the launch of this platform, Copado is working closely with SoftBank Robotics, leveraging DevOps with robotics/automation to help optimise their clients’ businesses.
Epheremal composable questions
Andrew Leigh, CMO at Copado below answers some of the questions posed by the Computer Weekly Developer Network on our ephemeral composable stack series.
CWDN: We need to ask how an organisation should develop a strategy and culture where composability and ephemeral IT is the norm… and, further, how do these same companies encourage strategic partners to adopt (and integrate with) their composable assets in their own projects?
Leigh: Every company today is looking for both resiliency and agility to compete in today’s market. Composability is the goal of DevOps. DevOps is the biggest revolution of the IT department since the cloud and provides proven strategies and best practices for building teams that can deliver digital solutions to the market at the fastest and safest velocity possible. Digitalisation requires the automation of multiple delivery teams that cross projects, companies and geographies and DevOps platforms provide the technical orchestration to keep everyone rowing in the same direction.
CWDN: Once we do move closer to composable orbit and exist happily within it, how do we measure Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) on IT assets that are ephemeral?
DevOps Value Stream Management
Leigh: Everything we build must have a purpose and priority based on the expected value to the company. DevOps Value Stream Management is a methodology based on lean manufacturing that automates the process of moving software through the planning, building and deployment processes in the most efficient way. The Copado platform measures every step of the delivery process in order to allow our customers to continuously innovate both their products and their teams.
CWDN: In the core developer zone, how should you deal with dependencies when elements of IT need to be retired? Plus anyway, what are the best practices for taking into account obsolesce of ephemeral assets during their lifecycle?
Leigh: Technologies constantly change so the real challenge is how you build technology teams that are highly adaptable and work well together to quickly build high quality solutions. If you build a DevOps delivery methodology into your teams, you can rapidly move across different technologies because your development process works across everything.
CWDN: Perhaps finally (for now) how do we sell the concept of composable IT to a CEO or business chief who wants a quick ROI? So it’s time to think about composability in a neo-classical way and… what should our ethereal ephemeral ‘composer’-centric anthem be anyway?
Leigh: Today, every CEO has to transform his business into a digital business. The pandemic moved us into the future five years so digitalisation is no longer an option. Leading CEO’s have learned that their business success is tightly correlated to their IT team’s ability to rapidly produce high quality code. IT used to be a cost centre for the CEO. Today it represents the best opportunity to differentiate and disrupt the market. CEOs who do not make digitization strategic will not survive.
