The GitOps model for software development is a boon to productivity and software security. Companies that aren't embracing it are missing a huge opportunity to release better software faster and with lower risk. This benefits the entire organization by reducing the possibility of everything from buggy software to cyberattacks. Here's a bit of history to explain what GitOps is, how it has evolved, why developers love it, and why businesses should too.

DevOps was created about a decade ago to bridge the longstanding gap between software development and IT operations. Traditionally, these two groups worked in silos: developers focused on writing code and adding new features, while the operations team was responsible for deploying and maintaining the software in production environments. This separation often led to miscommunication, conflicting objectives, and delays. Developers aimed for rapid innovation, sometimes introducing changes that could destabilize the system, whereas operations prioritized system stability and uptime, often resisting frequent changes.

DevOps addressed these challenges by fostering a culture of collaboration and shared responsibility. By integrating development and operations practices, teams could work more cohesively throughout the entire software lifecycle -- from coding and testing to deployment and monitoring. Automation tools and continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines became central to this approach, enabling faster and more reliable software releases. This not only improved efficiency but also enhanced the ability to quickly respond to customer feedback and market changes.

Since its introduction, DevOps has grown from a niche practice into a cornerstone of modern software development and IT operations, which reflects the industry's need to deliver software more rapidly and reliably in an increasingly complex technological landscape. One significant development in DevOps has been the proliferation and maturation of tools that enhance automation and scalability. The introduction of containerization technologies like Docker in 2013 revolutionized application packaging and deployment, enabling consistency across different environments. Kubernetes, open-sourced by Google in 2015, became the standard for orchestrating containerized applications at scale. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools like Terraform and configuration management tools like Ansible and Puppet have allowed teams to manage and provision infrastructure programmatically, increasing efficiency and reducing errors.

The scope of DevOps has also expanded to incorporate additional disciplines. One of the most important of these is GitOps. Git-based workflows enable the management of software delivery operations and infrastructure. It treats infrastructure configurations as code that can be version-controlled and audited. This has created a single source of truth for infrastructure and application deployment, which has been critical to streamlining and automating the continuous delivery process for greater reliability and efficiency.

The principles of GitOps are clear and create a tightly controlled and reliable workflow:

The benefits of implementing these GitOps principles impact developers, security teams, business operations, and ultimately software end users. GitOps delivers:

While developers loved the ease and speed of initial GitOps deployments, the rest of the organization became afraid of the risks of bad or insecure releases getting into production. For example, in a typical workflow with a standard GitOps setup, developers check their code changes in Git, triggering a Jenkins build. Once the build is successful, the artifact is sent to the repository. Argo CD then detects this new build and automatically deploys the artifact to the production environment. This process ensures continuous deployment but lacks critical security checks.

Recently, businesses have begun adding Secure GitOps processes that impose guardrails on GitOps, with each release checked for security issues behind the scenes before it is deployed. In a secure GitOps workflow, when a new build is detected, a comprehensive security scan is triggered, and the results are evaluated against an organization's policies. If violations are found, the deployment is blocked, and the issue that needs addressing is sent to the appropriate team. This ensures that only secure and compliant code makes it to production.

While organizations increasingly recognize the value of DevOps practices for increased efficiency and reliability, it is really the GitOps model that provides the necessary framework that makes this possible. GitOps delivers greater developer productivity and software reliability, and when a secure GitOps workflow is added, the entire organization benefits from reducing the range of risks inherent in vulnerable software -- from user frustration to data breaches and regulatory fines.