Patching systems is not a new problem; this is something that organizations are very familiar with. Organizations have tried solving this issue in various ways by cobbling together multiple tools, processes, different teams, and more. Organizations are constantly trying to stay secure and keep their systems up to date, but patch management isn’t a simple process. In fact, applying the patch itself is just one part of the overall workflow, which involves multiple teams and various steps.

In classic Puppet deployment architecture, compile masters are widely used when the number of managed nodes goes up. Multiple compile masters sit behind a load balancer to take care of the additional workloads. It is not rare to see Puppet adopters launching the compile masters in the public cloud, such as Amazon Web Service (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform.

Many attempts to simplify programming lead to visual interfaces that provide approachable settings for common tasks. These simplifications may appeal to non-developers, but they send experienced coders running for the command line. Yet, no code tools are rapidly expanding. Zapier, Integromat, and Workato are becoming more popular options and some believe developers won’t be needed for most integrations in the future.

I am making a digital transformation during this novel work-from-home (WFH) era due to a COVID-19 quarantine. Many of you are going through the same and distractions abound while sharing a workspace with housemates, children, and pets. Moreover, we have to contend with an increased risk to cybersecurity, given recent attacks on work-related software such as Slack and Zoom.

Normally we would have launched our 2020 State of DevOps survey a couple of months ago instead of today. But with all of us adjusting to working from home, often with kids also at home or other loved ones to care for, we recognized that the last thing anyone should focus on was taking a survey. So we’re late. The additional time to plan, however, gave us the chance to consider some new and interesting pathways to explore.