Cloudsmith has added a software distribution platform that streamlines the distribution of artifacts and provides access to analytics, through which DevOps teams can track how individual software packages are being consumed.
Company CEO Glenn Weinstein said Broadcasts additionally makes it possible for DevOps teams to set up portals for developers that can be tightly integrated with their continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, version management workflows and package creation tool.
Those portals can even be branded by DevOps teams serving multiple application development teams, he added.
The overall goal is to not only optimize the delivery of software but also provide application development teams with actionable insights that can be used to ultimately improve end-user engagement with application software, said Weinstein.
Cloudsmith has been making a case for a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform for managing software artifacts at the binary rather than source code level. As part of that effort, the company has set up more than 600 global points of presence to ensure optimal deployments of artifacts.
Instead of using the Python Package Index (PyPI) as a software repository, application developers must change a single line of code to redirect the artifacts they create to the Cloudsmith platform. Cloudsmith also makes available an Enterprise Policy Manager, a policy-as-code engine that enables organizations to programmatically apply rules and controls to how software artifacts are used and deployed.
Those capabilities will make it simpler for DevOps and platform engineering teams to unify the management of software distribution, said Weinstein. As compliance requirements involving software distribution become more stringent, many organizations are discovering to their chagrin that they have no centralized method for managing software binaries, he noted.
Of course, as compliance regulations become more stringent it’s only a matter of time before more organizations are required to track how software binaries are being deployed. More challenging still, the number of binaries that are likely to be deployed as artificial intelligence (AI) tools make it simpler to write code is about to exponentially increase, noted Weinstein.
Unfortunately, while most organizations are making extensive use of CI to build software, the level of adoption of CD is not nearly as high. As the volume of software that needs to be deployed continues to increase, many software delivery issues that have not been addressed will finally be forced.
In many cases, organizations are using multiple tools and platforms that could easily be rationalized to reduce total costs.
Ultimately, most organizations will need to modernize the way software is constructed. Many of the workflows used to create and deploy binaries are too fragmented to enable organizations to build and deploy software at scale. That’s critical because organizations are, more importantly, dependent on software to provide the digital customer experiences that drive revenue. If the software that drives revenue is regularly updated, it’s easier than ever for customers to move to a rival. As a result, once organizations start to lose customers, it won’t be too long before that issue is traced back to the way software is being delivered.
