What is GitOps?

by Josh Twist

Are you tired of manual deployments, infrastructure nightmares, and the constant struggle to keep your environments in sync? If so, GitOps is just what the doctor ordered.

In this blog, we'll discuss the what, why, and how of GitOps. We'll explore its core principles, benefits, and how it empowers different roles within your team. We'll also examine an example of a GitOps workflow and how to tackle challenges that might pop up along the way. Lastly, we'll examine how GitOps can help with API management. Let's get started by looking at the fundamentals.

What is GitOps?#

GitOps sometimes gets lumped into the buzzword battle we constantly fight as developers. Luckily, it stands out, offering a significant shift in how developers manage their infrastructure and application deployments. At its core, GitOps is a set of practices that leverages Git, the version control system, as the single source of truth for declarative infrastructure and applications. Building on Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles, It's essentially an infrastructure blueprint, version-controlled, and stored in a Git repository.

Definition and Key Components#

In simpler terms, GitOps uses Git pull requests to manage infrastructure provisioning, infrastructure updates, and software deployments automatically. Every change to your infrastructure or application is made through a Git commit, giving developers a complete audit trail and easy rollbacks if things don't work as expected.

Here's a breakdown of the critical components that make GitOps tick:

1. Git as the Source of Truth: Your system's desired state, from infrastructure configurations to application code, lives in a Git repository. This makes your infrastructure versionable, auditable, and easily replicable.

2. Declarative Infrastructure: You define your infrastructure and application configurations using declarative tools. The most commonly used tools include Kubernetes manifests, Terraform, or Ansible. These tools describe what the infrastructure should look like and how it should be configured once spun up.

3. Automated Reconciliation: GitOps agents continuously monitor your system's actual state and compare it to the desired state defined in Git. Any discrepancies trigger automatic reconciliation to bring your system back in line, helping to keep your environment consistent.

4. Pull-Based Deployments: Instead of pushing changes from your CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) pipeline, GitOps agents in your environment pull changes from the Git repository based on pull requests and merges. This enhances security by minimizing the attack surface of your production environment.

The GitOps set of tools and mindset is about embracing Git as the central hub for managing your entire system, automating everything that can be automated, and making infrastructure and code changes as simple and reliable as merging a pull request.

GitOps Principles and Benefits#

GitOps isn't just about using Git for version control; it's a philosophy that guides developers in managing their systems with specific tools and methodologies. To fully harness GitOps in your workflows, you'll want to understand the four commandments of GitOps and the benefits that adopting GitOps brings.

The 4 Commandments of GitOps#

There are four core components to adhere to when implementing GitOps. These include:

• Declarative Configuration: Your entire system's desired state, from infrastructure to applications, must defined declaratively in code and stored in Git. This means you describe the "what" (the desired end state), not the "how" (the steps to get there), since that is handled by the GitOps operators.

• Version-Controlled System: Every change to a system must be tracked and versioned in Git. This provides a complete audit trail and enables easy rollbacks to previous states.

• Automated Change Approval: Changes are applied to the system automatically, based on approvals in the Git workflow and the latest config being pulled.

• Continuous Reconciliation: Your environment should continuously monitor and compare the actual state of deployed infrastructure to the desired state defined in Git. Any deviations trigger automatic corrections to ensure your system always aligns with the infrastructure configurations in your code.

Advantages of GitOps#

Following the principles above lead to a host of benefits. Implementing GitOps properly can help to refine and supercharge your development and operations processes. Here are a few advantages you'll see after adopting GitOps:

• Increased Velocity and Reliability: GitOps enables faster, more frequent deployments with less risk. Rollbacks become trivial, and the declarative nature ensures your system is always in a known, consistent state.

• Improved Collaboration and Transparency: With all changes tracked in Git, everyone on the team has visibility into the system's evolution, making collaboration smoother and fostering a shared understanding of the infrastructure.

• Enhanced Security: Pull-based deployments reduce the attack surface of your production environments, making them less vulnerable to external threats.

• Stronger Audit and Compliance Capabilities: Git's complete history of changes makes auditing easy, helping you track and meet compliance requirements.

• Simplified Disaster Recovery: Since your entire system's state is versioned in Git, recovering from a disaster becomes as simple as reverting to a known good state.

In summary, GitOps empowers teams to deliver software faster, more reliably, and more confidently. Its consistency and automation streamline operations, strengthen collaboration, and give cloud-native environments a new level of control.

GitOps for Different Roles#

So far, we've focused on GitOps's impact on developers and those actively building the application. But GitOps isn't just for development and operations teams. It can benefit everyone involved in the software development lifecycle (SDLC). Let's explore how GitOps can assist some key roles in the software development and deployment process.

Developers#

As we have already covered, GitOps simplifies the development workflow by providing a source control system with a clear path for deploying code and infrastructure changes. Developers can focus on writing code, knowing that GitOps will handle the complexities of deployment and infrastructure management. With a version-controlled environment and easy rollbacks, developers gain more confidence in deploying changes frequently, delivering software more quickly.

Security Teams#

GitOps' strong emphasis on audit trails and version control provides an excellent foundation for security and compliance teams. Every change is tracked, making it easy to pinpoint the source of security issues and quickly revert to a known good state. Additionally, the pull-based deployment model minimizes the attack surface of production environments, enhancing overall security posture.

Business Stakeholders#

GitOps indirectly benefits business stakeholders by accelerating the delivery of new features and updates. Increased velocity and reliability in deployments translate to faster time to market, improved application stability, and a competitive advantage. The improved stability, continuous delivery, and reduced downtime of GitOps-managed systems also contribute to a more seamless user experience, a key to increasing revenue.

Implementing GitOps#

Bringing GitOps into your workflow can dramatically increase productivity through infrastructure automation. With developers expected to cover an increasing workload within the SDLC, infrastructure creation and maintenance have also become part of their plate. Luckily, GitOps can help alleviate some of this burden. It requires some initial setup, but the speed, efficiency, and reliability payoff is well worth it.

Example GitOps Workflow#

Let's walk through a simplified GitOps workflow to see it in action. Here's how things work at a high level:

1. Define Desired State: Developers create or modify declarative configuration files (e.g., Kubernetes manifests, Terraform code, etc.) that describe the desired state of their infrastructure and applications.

2. Commit to Git: These changes are committed to a Git repository, triggering a notification to the GitOps operator.

3. GitOps Operator Takes Over: The GitOps operator (Argo CD, Flux, etc.) detects the changes in the Git repository and pulls them into the target environment (e.g., a Kubernetes cluster).

4. Reconciliation and Deployment: The operator compares the desired state from Git with the actual state of the environment. If there are any differences, it automatically reconciles them by applying the necessary changes, ensuring the environment matches the desired infrastructure configuration.

5. Continuous Monitoring: The GitOps operator continuously monitors the environment and Git repositories for any changes. If any drift occurs, it automatically corrects it to maintain consistency across the environment.

Overcoming Common Challenges#

While we have seen that GitOps offers significant benefits, you might encounter a few challenges during implementation. Here are a few of them to be aware of:

• Cultural Shift: Adopting GitOps often requires a shift in mindset and processes. Teams must embrace Git as the source of truth and get comfortable with the skills required for declarative configuration.

• Tooling Selection: Choosing the right GitOps tools can be overwhelming, as several options are available. Consider your specific requirements and environment before deciding to implement one.

• Security Concerns: While GitOps enhances security in many ways by reducing an application's attack surface, it's crucial to secure your Git repository and the communication channels between the GitOps operator and the target environment.

• Complexity: Managing complex systems with GitOps can be challenging. Start with small, incremental changes and gradually expand the scope as you gain experience.

By being aware of these challenges, educating your team, and planning for them, you can successfully implement GitOps and experience the complete list of benefits. Although there is an initial investment in learning and adapting to GitOps workflows, it will pay off in the long run with improved productivity, faster deployments, and more reliable cloud infrastructure.

GitOps in API Management#

API management is another domain where GitOps shines. API infrastructure tends to be relatively complex, especially as an API portfolio grows. API management platforms aren't always the easiest to manage when versioning their configuration. GitOps offers a structured and automated approach to API management, ensuring consistency, reliability, and scalability.

GitOps + APIM with Zuplo#

If you're looking for an API management platform with GitOps built directly into its DNA,Zuplo is the perfect match. Zuplo seamlessly integrates Git workflows into API deployment and configuration processes.

Here's how Zuplo leverages GitOps to supercharge your API management game:

• API Configuration as Code: Zuplo treats API configurations as code, allowing you to define API gateways, routes, policies, and security settings in declarative configuration files stored in Git. Of course, we also offer a sleek UI to help build these configurations, so you don't have to type them out if you don't want to.

• Automated Deployments: With every change to your API configuration committed to Git, Zuplo automatically deploys those changes to your API gateway, ensuring the API available to users is always in sync with your desired state.

• Versioning and Rollbacks: Zuplo tracks API configurations in Git and provides versioning and rollback capabilities. If issues arise, you can quickly revert to previous API configurations in seconds, minimizing downtime and ensuring smooth operation.

• Collaboration and Review: Zuplo integrates with your Git workflow, allowing you to use pull requests and code reviews for API configuration changes. This ensures that changes are thoroughly reviewed by team members before deployment.

By combining GitOps principles with API management, Zuplo allows organizations to manage their APIs with the same rigor and automation as their other infrastructure and applications.

Conclusion#

GitOps is a game-changer for modern development teams. It revolutionizes managing modern cloud infrastructure, bringing automation, reliability, and collaboration to the forefront. GitOps empowers everyone involved in the software development lifecycle, from developers to security teams.

While the transition to GitOps might require some initial adjustments, the long-term benefits are undeniable. Increased velocity, reduced errors, and enhanced security of cloud-native applications are some improvements that development teams experience once they switch over.

GitOps and API management are also perfect pairings. If you're looking for a powerful platform to help you implement GitOps for your APIs, Zuplo should be at the top of your list. With its seamless Git integration, automated deployments, and built-in configuration versioning capabilities, Zuplo makes managing APIs with GitOps accessible by default.