July 13th, 2024 | Credo Systemz | Career Insights

Introduction

In today’s tech field, GitOps is the modern software approach to managing infrastructure and application configurations. It automates IT infrastructure by leveraging Git to deliver infrastructure as code. GitOps extends the principles of DevOps to manage infrastructure and application configurations declaratively.

Key Concepts of GitOps

In GitOps, Git is the single source of truth for dealing with infrastructure and application configurations. All changes to the infrastructure and application configurations are made through pull requests to the Git repository. The key concepts of GitOps includes:

• Declarative Configuration and descriptions
• Self healing systems
• Continuous Deployment and Reconciliation 

Declarative Configuration and descriptions 

GitOps relies on declarative configurations and descriptions. The desired state of the system is defined in a manifest file and described declaratively.  The manifest file is stored in a Git repository.

Self-Healing Systems

GitOps can be integrated with Kubernetes operators or other reconciliation loops. It compares the desired state with the actual state of the system. The changes trigger the automated deployment pipelines. If discrepancies are detected, the system automatically brings the actual state back in line with the desired state. It provides version control to track the changes and rollbacks.

Continuous Deployment and reconciliation

GitOps automates the process of deploying changes and monitoring to the infrastructure. The changes are merged into the Git repository, automated processes, such as CI/CD pipelines. This ensures that these changes are applied to the target environment. The live state is always aligned with the defined state in Git.

Benefits of GitOps

GitOps manages the infrastructure and applications by enhancing:

• Reliability
• Transparency
• Consistency
• Improved security
• Collaboration
• Auditability

Enhanced Collaboration and Transparency

As the single source of truth, git achieves better collaboration among team members. Every change is documented, and the history of modifications is traceable. This transparency helps in debugging issues. 

Improved Security

Every change goes through the Git repository. It is easier to enforce security policies, such as:

• Code reviews
• Automated testing

GitOps reduces the risk of unauthorized and untracked changes to the system.

Auditability and Compliance

GitOps provides a clear audit trail of information, such as who made what changes and when. This is invaluable for compliance purposes. It ensures that the infrastructure adheres to regulatory standards.

Consistency and Reliability

GitOps ensures that the environments can be reliably reproduced. It is possible by defining the desired state in a version-controlled repository. This consistency reduces the configuration drift and environment-specific issues.

Implementation of GitOps

The various steps involved in the implementation of GitOps are:

• Setting up the Git Repository
• Defining the Configuration Manifests
• Automating CI/CD Pipelines
• Continuous Reconciliation

Setup Git Repository

Begin the implementation process, by setting up a Git repository. It stores the declarative configuration files for the infrastructure and applications. Structure the repository by logically separating the different environments, such as: development, staging, production.

Define Configuration Manifests

To describe the desired state of the infrastructure and applications, Create YAML or JSON manifest files which includes: 

• Kubernetes manifests 
• Helm charts
• Other configuration management files

Automate CI/CD Pipelines

Implement CI/CD pipelines to automate the deploy changes when a pull request is merged. Tools used to manage the deployment process are,

• Argo CD
• Flux 
• Jenkins

Continuous Reconciliation

Set up reconciliation loops that compare the actual state with the desired state defined in Git continuously. The deviations are corrected automatically by tools, like Kubernetes operators, Argo CD and Flux.

Popular GitOps Tools

The popular Gitops Tools are:

• Argo CD
• Flux
• Jenkins X
• Weaveworks

Argo CD

Argo CD is a GitOps continuous delivery tool. It is used by Kubernetes for continuous monitoring. Argo CD running applications and compares the live state against the desired state stored in Git.

Flux

Flux is an open, extensible set of progressive delivery solutions for Kubernetes. It automates the deployment of workloads to Kubernetes, lifecycle management of applications using Git.

Jenkins X

Jenkins X is an open-source project that provides CI/CD solutions for cloud-native applications on Kubernetes. It supports GitOps principles by using Git for declarative configurations.

Weaveworks

Weaveworks provides GitOps-based tools and platforms for managing cloud – native applications and infrastructure. It enables teams to adopt GitOps practices for managing Kubernetes clusters and applications. Weaveworks includes various platforms and products, such as:

• Weave Kubernetes Platform
• Weave Flux
• Weave Net
• Weave Scope
• Weave Cloud

Conclusion

To sum up, GitOps is a transformative approach to managing infrastructure and applications. It offers enhanced collaboration, security, and reliability. By leveraging Git, GitOps achieve continuous deployment and self-healing systems. As organizations continue to adopt cloud-native technologies, GitOps stands out as a powerful methodology for modern infrastructure management.