California to accelerate devops adoption with GitLab

Devops has seen unprecedented growth in recent years, with Google reporting that 77% of companies say they rely on devops to deploy software, or plan to in the near future.

Adopting devops tools and processes means disrupting formerly siloed roles — IT operations, quality engineering and security — to produce better products and streamline processes.

GitLab granted software licensing program contract

Recently, GitLab, an open source code repository and collaborative software development platform, was awarded a software licensing reseller agreement with the State of California. The contract would allow any of its more than 200 departments to purchase GitLab software licenses at an agreed-upon discount.

“By having greater access to GitLab’s One devops Platform, organizations would be able to deliver software faster and more efficiently. We believe that this contract will expedite the broader adoption of devops in the public sector,” GitLab’s AVP of Public Sector, Bob Stevens, said.

Addressing the needs of department projects through devops

Agencies in the State of California require transparency and agility to fulfill their objectives. Currently, several departments are struggling with redundancy in tool sets, lack of resources and employee retention and recruiting. With the adoption of a devops platform, State of California agencies and departments can expect to see results similar to that of other states, including Illinois. 

For example, Chicago’s Cook County Assessor’s Office (CCAO) wanted to implement replicable and reportable software algorithms in order to have a single source of truth for future data. Their goal was to provide property owners with a more transparent digital platform that enabled them to view and understand how assessments are established.

After adopting GitLab, the CCAO now publishes all variable code information through the platform, making it accessible for public consumption.  CCAO data officers also use GitLab’s Git history, issue tracker, and milestones to document each project in real-time.

Why devops is in high demand

In order to implement a software platform, organizations often need to conduct audits to find and remove project-based tool sets. In part, this explains why the industry is moving towards a platform-based approach. By consolidating tool sets, more can be done with fewer resources while using the same platform. This is especially attractive to new workforce entrants.

Once the software has been successfully implemented, organizations see progress in the frequency of their code deployment, increase in security via continuous testing, improved trust in software, less context switching between tools, decrease in cycle review time and much more.

“With GitLab’s One devops platform, historically disparate teams have access to all DevOps tools natively integrated in a single application, which provides the automation to build better software faster and more securely. Teams can simplify continuous software compliance, improve collaboration and visibility, and accelerate their digital transformation in one application,” Stevens said.

He adds that as GitLab provides a single application for the entire devops platform, organizations no longer need to build an entire tool chain from scratch. And given GitLab’s robust partner program, Stevens says that GitLab can be integrated with many other companies that departments may have already invested in, making it easier than ever to set up the platform.