Cloud computing must support applications efficiently, and cost-effectiveness is a part of that. Unfortunately, many Kubernetes deployments focus on technical operations capabilities and fail to consider the costs associated with their benefits. When cutting cloud costs, organizations must consider cost-management best practices, but Kubernetes deployments might require special attention.

Before digging too deep into cost management for Kubernetes deployments, consider the cost relationship among the ways your organization uses Kubernetes in the cloud. The most economical strategy for most enterprises is to deploy Kubernetes software and applications on cloud VMs. This gives organizations the most cost-control options and works just as well in the data center as in the cloud.

To learn how to reduce the cost of Kubernetes, we'll focus on how to approach Kubernetes with VM hosting. Managed container and Kubernetes services are likely to be higher in service costs, though they might save operations costs. Before you make any significant changes to your approach, see if a different Kubernetes hosting model would be a better option.

To start cost-management initiatives, decide on a Kubernetes cost-management tool. Most enterprises trying to analyze and reduce Kubernetes costs use Kubecost, an open source tool that analyzes the IT environment to recommend cost-reduction strategies. While Kubecost is a great enterprise strategy, it's overkill for smaller organizations or companies with limited Kubernetes use. Some users prefer other tools, such as CloudForecast. Kubernetes monitoring tools can also drive cost analysis and optimization, but require more work.

It's important that Kubernetes cost-management tools and practices accommodate chargeback and cost-review policies. Most organizations don't monitor cloud costs centrally if they're allocated to business units, and this can leave major holes in cost visibility. If Kubernetes deployments share components, it can be difficult to discern whether they're inefficient or used more widely than expected.

The next thing to consider to cut down the cost of Kubernetes is how applications use resources. Most cloud Kubernetes deployments on VMs are based on a combination of reserved and on-demand instances, and some include serverless components. A move from reserved to serverless brings higher costs when applications run, but is balanced by not paying for idle resources.

Kubernetes scaling might push IT orgs into on-demand instances, which means higher hosting charges. Function hosting can create even greater cost variations under load, so explore the duty cycle of the application set and allocate enough reserved instances to support your average workloads.

A related best practice is to optimize AWS Spot Instances. Spot Instances are the cheapest cloud resources, but they're not always available. If you have applications or components that are used rarely and can tolerate a delay in execution to check on spot instance availability, this can often cut costs significantly.

Another scaling problem that arises in redeployment of failed components is accidental border crossings. Nearly all cloud providers charge for ingress and egress traffic, and moving a component from its normal hosting point to somewhere across a border, such as into the cloud or across multi-cloud boundaries, will lead to additional costs. Tune Kubernetes through affinities, taints and tolerations to avoid stretching application workflows across a boundary where traffic charges will apply.

In addition to inefficient Kubernetes tuning, a significant source of cost overruns is not matching container resource requirements to node resources. There's a temptation to simplify a Kubernetes deployment by limiting the number of different resource classes used. Some pros believe that having multiple classes of resources will fragment the resource pool and lower efficiency.

But running a container with modest resource needs in a node that supplies more than enough of something wastes money. Look at how many resources are wasted by this kind of oversupply, and redesign container resource classes and Kubernetes deployment policies to better use nodes and reduce the excess.

A final logical step to lower costs is to explore other cloud provider options. There are often significant cost differences for Kubernetes deployments across cloud providers. All major providers have cost-estimation tools, and if you're trying to lower costs, rather than to estimate the cost of a new Kubernetes deployment, this will provide enough data to get a realistic cost estimate.

If your organization finds another provider whose estimator shows potential cost saving by switching, conduct a pilot test to validate the estimate and to calculate the potential cost to switch over applications. Generally, the more provider web services an application uses, the more expensive this will be.

Whatever measures your organization takes to lower its cloud Kubernetes bill, keep in mind that reducing cloud costs can result in increasing operations costs or affecting user quality of experience (QoE). Explore each measure fully to uncover any potential Opex or QoE impacts, or you could end up pushing costs down in one place only to increase them -- or reduce application benefits -- in another.

See more here:
How to reduce the cost of Kubernetes - TechTarget

Country

United States of AmericaUS Virgin IslandsUnited States Minor Outlying IslandsCanadaMexico, United Mexican StatesBahamas, Commonwealth of theCuba, Republic ofDominican RepublicHaiti, Republic ofJamaicaAfghanistanAlbania, People's Socialist Republic ofAlgeria, People's Democratic Republic ofAmerican SamoaAndorra, Principality ofAngola, Republic ofAnguillaAntarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S)Antigua and BarbudaArgentina, Argentine RepublicArmeniaArubaAustralia, Commonwealth ofAustria, Republic ofAzerbaijan, Republic ofBahrain, Kingdom ofBangladesh, People's Republic ofBarbadosBelarusBelgium, Kingdom ofBelizeBenin, People's Republic ofBermudaBhutan, Kingdom ofBolivia, Republic ofBosnia and HerzegovinaBotswana, Republic ofBouvet Island (Bouvetoya)Brazil, Federative Republic ofBritish Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago)British Virgin IslandsBrunei DarussalamBulgaria, People's Republic ofBurkina FasoBurundi, Republic ofCambodia, Kingdom ofCameroon, United Republic ofCape Verde, Republic ofCayman IslandsCentral African RepublicChad, Republic ofChile, Republic ofChina, People's Republic ofChristmas IslandCocos (Keeling) IslandsColombia, Republic ofComoros, Union of theCongo, Democratic Republic ofCongo, People's Republic ofCook IslandsCosta Rica, Republic ofCote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of theCyprus, Republic ofCzech RepublicDenmark, Kingdom ofDjibouti, Republic ofDominica, Commonwealth ofEcuador, Republic ofEgypt, Arab Republic ofEl Salvador, Republic ofEquatorial Guinea, Republic ofEritreaEstoniaEthiopiaFaeroe IslandsFalkland Islands (Malvinas)Fiji, Republic of the Fiji IslandsFinland, Republic ofFrance, French RepublicFrench GuianaFrench PolynesiaFrench Southern TerritoriesGabon, Gabonese RepublicGambia, Republic of theGeorgiaGermanyGhana, Republic ofGibraltarGreece, Hellenic RepublicGreenlandGrenadaGuadaloupeGuamGuatemala, Republic ofGuinea, RevolutionaryPeople's Rep'c ofGuinea-Bissau, Republic ofGuyana, Republic ofHeard and McDonald IslandsHoly See (Vatican City State)Honduras, Republic ofHong Kong, Special Administrative Region of ChinaHrvatska (Croatia)Hungary, Hungarian People's RepublicIceland, Republic ofIndia, Republic ofIndonesia, Republic ofIran, Islamic Republic ofIraq, Republic ofIrelandIsrael, State ofItaly, Italian RepublicJapanJordan, Hashemite Kingdom ofKazakhstan, Republic ofKenya, Republic ofKiribati, Republic ofKorea, Democratic People's Republic ofKorea, Republic ofKuwait, State ofKyrgyz RepublicLao People's Democratic RepublicLatviaLebanon, Lebanese RepublicLesotho, Kingdom ofLiberia, Republic ofLibyan Arab JamahiriyaLiechtenstein, Principality ofLithuaniaLuxembourg, Grand Duchy ofMacao, Special Administrative Region of ChinaMacedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic ofMadagascar, Republic ofMalawi, Republic ofMalaysiaMaldives, Republic ofMali, Republic ofMalta, Republic ofMarshall IslandsMartiniqueMauritania, Islamic Republic ofMauritiusMayotteMicronesia, Federated States ofMoldova, Republic ofMonaco, Principality ofMongolia, Mongolian People's RepublicMontserratMorocco, Kingdom ofMozambique, People's Republic ofMyanmarNamibiaNauru, Republic ofNepal, Kingdom ofNetherlands AntillesNetherlands, Kingdom of theNew CaledoniaNew ZealandNicaragua, Republic ofNiger, Republic of theNigeria, Federal Republic ofNiue, Republic ofNorfolk IslandNorthern Mariana IslandsNorway, Kingdom ofOman, Sultanate ofPakistan, Islamic Republic ofPalauPalestinian Territory, OccupiedPanama, Republic ofPapua New GuineaParaguay, Republic ofPeru, Republic ofPhilippines, Republic of thePitcairn IslandPoland, Polish People's RepublicPortugal, Portuguese RepublicPuerto RicoQatar, State ofReunionRomania, Socialist Republic ofRussian FederationRwanda, Rwandese RepublicSamoa, Independent State ofSan Marino, Republic ofSao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic ofSaudi Arabia, Kingdom ofSenegal, Republic ofSerbia and MontenegroSeychelles, Republic ofSierra Leone, Republic ofSingapore, Republic ofSlovakia (Slovak Republic)SloveniaSolomon IslandsSomalia, Somali RepublicSouth Africa, Republic ofSouth Georgia and the South Sandwich IslandsSpain, Spanish StateSri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic ofSt. HelenaSt. Kitts and NevisSt. LuciaSt. Pierre and MiquelonSt. Vincent and the GrenadinesSudan, Democratic Republic of theSuriname, Republic ofSvalbard & Jan Mayen IslandsSwaziland, Kingdom ofSweden, Kingdom ofSwitzerland, Swiss ConfederationSyrian Arab RepublicTaiwan, Province of ChinaTajikistanTanzania, United Republic ofThailand, Kingdom ofTimor-Leste, Democratic Republic ofTogo, Togolese RepublicTokelau (Tokelau Islands)Tonga, Kingdom ofTrinidad and Tobago, Republic ofTunisia, Republic ofTurkey, Republic ofTurkmenistanTurks and Caicos IslandsTuvaluUganda, Republic ofUkraineUnited Arab EmiratesUnited Kingdom of Great Britain & N. IrelandUruguay, Eastern Republic ofUzbekistanVanuatuVenezuela, Bolivarian Republic ofViet Nam, Socialist Republic ofWallis and Futuna IslandsWestern SaharaYemenZambia, Republic ofZimbabwe

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Insights on the Private Cloud Server Global Market to 2027 - by Hosting Type, Organization Size, Vertical and Region - ResearchAndMarkets.com -...

Japanese tape drive vendor Unitex has unveiled the first ever LTO-9 tape drive with a USB connection.

The aptly named UNITEX USB LTO-9 drive offers a native capacity of 18TB on one tape with transfer rates of up to 300MBps, far more than any cloud backup or cloud storage service could ever reach. The inclusion of a USB port, albeit a Type-A 3.0 model, means it has near universal compatibility, either by default or by using appropriate converters.

The device is a follow-up of the LT80H, an LTO-8 USB tabletop drive, and is likely to be sold at a significant premium; the LT80H costs $5,100 and the LTO version will probably reach $6,000. On the flip side, LTO-9 tapes are reasonably priced at less than $170, which is about half what an equivalent 18TB hard disk drive costs.

A spokesperson for Unitex confirmed that pricing is yet to be finalized. Interestingly, they also mentioned the company's tape-backup-as-a-service offering, which already exists in Japan. We are studying to expand the service to global customers at the moment, the spokesperson added.

Hardware-as-a-service is picking up steam in the creative industry, which generates enormous amounts of data, much of which needs backing up. For example, US-based OWC (a rival to Unitex) has introduced a scheme called Fast Forward that allows users to rent hardware for a fixed monthly fee.

Backing up to tape is one or more orders of magnitude faster than uploading to the cloud, especially for smaller outfits that do not have the setup to keep terabytes of data in a safe place. Backing up 18TB of data over USB would take about 17 hours, but far, far longer over broadband, plus tape offers a physical air gap that mitigates the risk of ransomware attacks.

The ability to rent an LTO-9 tape drive for a short period of time, every month, cannot therefore be overlooked. As a medium, tape is also more resilient, easier to store, takes up less space than hard drives and has a lower environmental impact on a per TB backed up, making it a useful component of any 3-2-1 backup strategy.

Read more:
This superfast USB tape drive could make cloud backup a thing of the past for you - TechRadar

With help from Lee Hudson and Rebecca Kern

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Morning Tech wont publish from Dec. 24 to Dec. 31. Well be back on our normal schedule on Tuesday, Jan. 4.

Editors Note: Morning Tech is a free version of POLITICO Pro Technology's morning newsletter, which is delivered to our subscribers each morning at 6 a.m. The POLITICO Pro platform combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the days biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro.

Jockeying for the new JEDI: Oracle and Google are lobbying for their pieces of the Pentagons new multibillion-dollar cloud contract.

Tick-tock of IA: Well walk you through what caused the dissolution of the Internet Association, once Silicon Valleys most important trade group.

Laying into Lofgren: Progressives want Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) to recuse herself from oversight of the DOJ and FTC, due to her ties to Silicon Valley.

HAPPY TUESDAY AND WELCOME TO MORNING TECH! Im your guest host, Emily Birnbaum. I wish I could say its beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but really its just looking quite gray out there.

You can reach out via @birnbaum_e or [emailprotected]. Got an event for our calendar? Send details to [emailprotected]. Anything else? Team info below. And dont forget: Add @MorningTech and @PoliticoPro on Twitter.

A message from Save Our Standards:

Technical standards like 5G and Wi-Fi have the power to transform industries, fuel the economy, and create high-quality jobs. But that only happens if owners of patents essential to standards honor their commitments to license all innovators to use those patents on fair and reasonable terms. A new draft Administration statement restores the balance vital to standards adoption and job creation. Support the Administration to promote American manufacturing and limit product bans on standard-essential patents.

REACHING FOR THE CLOUD: A month after the government announced that Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft and Oracle are eligible to bid on the successor to the Pentagons ill-fated JEDI cloud computing contract, the lobbying has begun.

Oracle last Tuesday sponsored a luncheon at the Army Navy Country Club in Arlington, Va., where Pentagon officials discussed their vision for the new Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability competition, POLITICOs Lee Hudson reports. The following day, a Google representative attended an Aerospace Industries Association happy hour. (ICYMI, the company last month proclaimed its a renewed commitment to doing business with the Pentagon.)

The Pentagon has already said it plans to award one JWCC contract to AWS and a second one to Microsoft, the department said in a notice to industry. But whether Google or Oracle will also receive awards depends on meeting Pentagon requirements. The government extended a formal invitation to the four cloud providers Nov. 19.

The feds hope selecting multiple vendors will prevent a repeat of the bid protests that doomed JEDI, a winner-take-all contract worth up to $10 billion that the Pentagon awarded to Microsoft in 2019, in the wake of heavy criticism of Amazon from then-President Donald Trump. Challenges by Amazon and Oracle tied up the contract, which the DoD ultimately abandoned in July. The Pentagon plans to make up for lost time by awarding contracts for JWCC no later than April.

BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE INTERNET ASSOCIATION: The Internet Associations decision last week to dissolve was driven by money, five people with knowledge of the groups inner workings told your host: The biggest tech companies just werent willing to put up more cash for a group they thought no longer served their interests.

IA had asked Microsoft to significantly increase its dues in the fall, according to one person familiar with the request, who spoke on condition of anonymity to relay private conversations. After that request, Microsoft executives looked into the companys return on investment and determined that the group, dominated by Microsofts major rivals, was no longer worth it. Microsoft, after all, has been increasingly agitating against Meta, Amazon and Google on issues ranging from antitrust to content moderation to news publishing.

Microsofts departure in November left a significant gap in IAs budget, according to two people familiar with the groups financials. IA had already been struggling financially, and was facing a shortfall of around 10 to 15 percent when Microsoft left, one of the people said.

At that point, IA leadership approached all the associations member companies to ask for more money especially Google, Meta and Amazon, the groups biggest funders. The Microsoft departure created a hole in the funding, which companies could have made up if they had decided it was worth funding the organization, said one person involved in the internal deliberations. But Google, Meta and Amazon decided the group wasnt worth the price, either.

Google and Amazon had been frustrated about IAs decision to stay out of the antitrust debates embroiling the industrys biggest players, and Meta has separated itself from its big tech peers with its proposals to change Section 230, while Google has remained more staunchly in support of its current form. Historically, IA has been a place where the platforms Google, Facebook and Amazon were able to dictate the agenda, said one person who has been involved with the association for years. Then, there was a reexamination of all of that. The companies used to having their way could no longer have their way. Google declined to comment; Amazon, Meta and IA did not respond to requests for comment.

Some big tech allies allies have complained that Microsoft dealt the final blow to its competitors major trade group. But the bad blood at IA goes back much farther the association has struggled from internal disputes over its direction for years.

FIRST IN MT: PROGRESSIVE GROUP PUSHES LOFGREN: In a letter to Democratic leadership, the watchdog group Revolving Door Project is demanding Lofgren recuse herself from oversight over the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission because of her financial investments in large tech companies, as well as recent reporting from the New York Post that her daughter works on Googles legal defense team. (Lofgrens daughter works on contract law at Google.)

Lofgren owns up to $15,000 in stock in each of several tech companies, including Googles parent company, Alphabet, as well as Apple and Meta, according to her 2020 financial disclosures. (Those investments are in joint stocks with her husband.)

Over the past decade, most Democratic lawmakers have become increasingly critical of Big Tech, the letter reads. Lofgren, however, has defied this trend and maintained a track record of opposing federal scrutiny of Big Tech, further calling into question her ability to be impartial in overseeing the DOJ or FTC. Lofgren is one of several California lawmakers who have opposed antitrust legislation aimed at the tech giants that passed out of the House Judiciary Committee earlier this year.

Lofgrens response: Lofgren in a statement to MT said that she makes decisions according to what is in the best interests of her constituents in California. It is sad, yet telling, when outside groups and/or colleagues turn to personal attacks and fear-based tactics when they cannot advance a policy matter, Lofgren said. When it comes to tech policy, I share the same desire as many of my colleagues to reform digital markets and increase competition, however, most of the bills that passed the House Judiciary Committee back in June are poorly-drafted, extreme and go beyond legitimate, real-world concerns with big tech companies.

Democratic California Reps. Anna Eshoo and Ro Khanna also came to Lofgrens defense, sending a joint statement to MT calling on the sponsors of the House Judiciary antitrust bills to immediately disavow the ad hominem attacks made against Representative Zoe Lofgren by outside groups.

FIRST IN MT: FALLOUT FROM RAIMONDOS COMMENTS CONTINUES: Twelve advocacy and anti-monopoly groups in a letter today are asking President Joe Biden for answers about whether his administration supports the European Unions big tech antitrust rules. Confusion arose about Bidens stance on the European Unions Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act after Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo criticized the proposed regulations and the U.S. warned they could threaten companies' intellectual property and trade secrets. Biden has supported similar antitrust efforts in the U.S.

The groups, including Demand Progress and Public Citizen, argue that the EU rules align with Bidens competition executive order and his administrations stance so far toward the big tech companies. They are asking for Biden to release administration documents shared with the EU about tech rules; confirm that Raimondos comments do not reflect administration policy; and renew his support for a whole of government approach to competition and antitrust policy.

META SUES OVER PHISHING: Meta has sued a series of unnamed defendants over phishing campaigns that try to lure users into sharing their credentials on fake versions of login pages for Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp, the social media company announced in a blog post Monday.

The defendants referred to as John Does in the federal lawsuit filed in California created more than 39,000 fake login pages, the filing asserts. Meta said the accused worked with one another knowingly to operate the phishing scheme. The company doesnt know how many people are involved or where they are located, but the suit is aimed at finding out, a company spokesperson told Rebecca.

A message from Save Our Standards:

The FCC today announced that it is committing $603 million in its latest wave of Emergency Connectivity Fund program support, which the agency said will connect over 1.4 million students in all 50 states plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.

The underbelly of online gossip: School-gossip Instagram accounts are providing a new forum for teen cyberbullying, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Meta pays up: Facebook is paying new employees what amounts to a brand tax to retain them, due to the companys troubled reputation, according to Business Insider.

E&C zeroes in: The House Energy and Commerce Committee is requesting briefings from search engines, web hosting companies, companies that run content delivery networks, and relevant social media platforms about websites encouraging suicide.

Haugen vs. Zuckerberg: Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen chatted with New York Times tech reporter Kara Swisher.

A message from Save Our Standards:

Support US Jobs. Stop SEP Abuse.

A new draft policy statement on standard-essential patents (SEPs) committed for licensing on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms was released jointly by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Department of Justice. The draft statement provides guidance on appropriate remedies in cases involving the use of these patents, and presents an approach to SEPs that strives to balance the interests of patent holders with the broad range of U.S. industries that use standards to protect the future of innovation.

Save Our Standards is a broad-based coalition working to end abusive practices in SEP licensing. We welcome the draft statement and support the Biden Administration for their leadership protecting U.S. competitiveness in charting out this balanced approach. Comments are being accepted through February 4. Support the Biden Administration to stop SEP abuse.

Tips, comments, suggestions? Send them along via email to our team: Bob King ([emailprotected]), Heidi Vogt ([emailprotected]), Emily Birnbaum ([emailprotected]), John Hendel ([emailprotected]), Rebecca Kern ([emailprotected]), Alexandra S. Levine ([emailprotected]) and Leah Nylen ([emailprotected]). Got an event for our calendar? Send details to [emailprotected]. And don't forget: Add @MorningTech and @PoliticoPro on Twitter.

TTYL!

Read this article:
Return of the JEDI cloud lobbying wars - Politico

Continuous integration and delivery platforms are paramount to the success of your development team. These are the best CI/CD platforms to check out.

Image: scyther5, Getty Images/iStockphoto

Continuous integration and continuous delivery have become mainstays in the development scene in the past few years, making them nearly a requirement for most development workflows. In recent years, new players have come into the market and brought new workflows and platforms to enable additional steps, automated testing and even automated deployment into the mix.

SEE: Hiring Kit: JavaScript Developer (TechRepublic Premium)

In this article, we'll explain what continuous integration and delivery is, discuss what CI/CD means to your company and developers, and take a look at the top platforms for continuous integration and delivery.

In the software development life cycle, developers push code into a Distributed Version Control System such as GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket or some other platform on a self-hosted system or other system. A continuous integration platform sits in between this, looking for changes pushed into the DVCS and executes builds on the codebase when certain triggers are met. Continuous integration triggers could be based around individual code pushes to a particular branch, merge of code from a pull request or based on a time-based schedule (nightly builds, weekly builds, etc.).

The continuous delivery aspect of CI/CD allows software teams to easily and safely get builds into production environments by building code, testing the code and then getting those build artifacts into the production environment. With continuous delivery, builds are typically triggered manually or on a time-based schedule, tests suites are run and results are reported if there are any issues with the code; then afterward, artifacts are made available to ship into a production environment.

SEE:What is CI/CD? (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

Continuous integration systems are typically hosted platforms, but these can also be self-hosted systems for enterprise customers; these platforms integrate with most popular DVCS platforms, including GitHub. Being remote means that builds can be consistently triggered and don't require local development machines to be configured with secret API keys or otherwise tied up running builds.

When you have a CI/CD system in place, developers automatically have test suites run, ensuring that each merge of a pull request has passed tests, which allows multiple developers to handle the build process and delivery to production more efficiently. All of these things ultimately lead to less buggy code and can result in less wasted time around rudimentary software development tasks when that time can be better spent on the development process itself.

CI/CD is an important aspect of any modern software development workflow, and it frees developers up to not worry about implementing build workflows on their development machines or need to worry about build actions it can all be done automatically.

Image: Jenkins

Jenkins is an open-source CI/CD platform that is based on Java and is by far one of the most popular options. It has a plugin architecture that means it is infinitely expandable to meet almost any CI/CD need you may have for your software development workflow. You can build web software, native software and mobile software projects on it, and it's capable of running on nearly any server architecture including Windows, Linux and macOS. It can also be run from a Docker container, if preferred.

Jenkins has an extensive legacy, and it supports many configurations and is highly flexible; however, it does require a bit more setup time and finessing than many software teams may enjoy doing. If you're willing to put in the time and effort of initially setting up Jenkins, it can prove to be a sustainable system that can do nearly anything you need for the cost of just operating a dedicated server for it. Ongoing maintenance is another cost that should also be figured in to any Jenkins setup that you may implement.

If you're running and operating a build system platform for a security-focused application, then having a self-hosted option like Jenkins means you can more tightly control the CI/CD pipeline instead of relying on a third-party hosted service.

This platform is free and can be downloaded and installed from the Jenkins website. With any free product like Jenkins, you should always factor in the initial setup, maintenance needed and server costs associated with running your own instance of the software; depending on your needs and usage, these costs could outweigh a commercially available and hosted product like the others I cover in this guide.

Which businesses and users might benefit most from using Jenkins?

Jenkins is an excellent platform for businesses and users who prefer to run their own CI/CD platform locally on their own equipment due to security or legal precedents, who prefer to manage their own hardware and software stack, or if the software being built and tested on the CI/CD platform has specific hardware/software stack requirements.

Image: GitHub

GitHub Actions is a newer CI/CD platform from Microsoft that tightly integrates with its GitHub-hosted DVCS platform and GitHub Enterprise. GitHub Actions is built into each repository page as a tab and can be easily set up and run remotely and is included automatically on your GitHub.com hosted account or onsite enterprise accounts.

With a GitHub enterprise hosted platform, you can more tightly control your build pipeline and not worry about security risks affecting apps and systems that are hosted publicly online. GitHub Actions supports Linux, macOS, Windows and ARM runners (runners are platforms where code can be built).

Because GitHub Actions is tightly integrated with the DVCS, it can do additional things that Jenkins and other CI/CD platforms can't. GitHub Actions can also run your code test suites automatically when pull requests are made and can be added as a check to ensure that a merge can only happen if and when a test has been run and passed successfully.

Pricing for GitHub Actions starts at the free tier for hosted GitHub accounts, and then goes up based on build minutes used and storage needed. Check the GitHub Actions pricing guide for more information on how to calculate pricing based on project needs.

Which businesses and users might benefit most from using GitHub Actions?

GitHub Actions is an excellent choice if your business has already committed to using GitHub as your DVCS, has all of your code stored in GitHub, and doesn't mind your code is being built and tested remotely on GitHub's servers (though an enterprise account is available if you prefer to run on your own hardware using GitHub Enterprise). GitHub can handle most common hardware/software stacks (such as macOS, Windows and Linux), but if you need a custom software/hardware stack that GitHub doesn't support, you may need to go with another solution for CI/CD.

If you're a nonprofit, GitHub has special pricing that you may be able to take advantage of that other CI/CD platforms may not offer.

Image: CircleCI

CircleCI is known for its ease of use for getting up and running with a continuous integration build system. The company offers cloud hosting or enterprise on-premise hosting and integration with GitHub, GitHub Enterprise and Bitbucket for the DVCS provider.

CircleCI touts its 24/7 support for enterprise customers, plus extensions and re-usable integrations called "orbs" that help you get up and running quicker with the continuous build systems and allow you to customize your build environments in a way that you can't with other platforms unless you're hosting yourself.

CircleCI can work with builds for Docker, Linux, macOS, Android, Windows or self-hosted runners on a platform of your choosing. Like GitHub Actions, CircleCI has a free tier that features 6,000 build minutes per month on Docker, Windows or Linux (including Arm); if you need to build on macOS, you'll need to upgrade to the $15 per month Performance Tier that includes unlimited build minutes and macOS support. For more details, read the CircleCI pricing guide.

Which businesses and users might benefit most from using CircleCI?

CircleCI is a great choice if you're already integrated with GitHub or Bitbucket and prefer a more straightforward pricing model instead of being charged by build minutes like other hosted platforms. CircleCI also integrates with the most common runners like macOS, Windows and Linux; plus, it provides an enterprise license if you prefer to integrate with your own hardware and infrastructure. Like GitHub Actions, if you need to build and test on a specific hardware or software stack, CircleCI may not work for you instead, you might need an alternative solution like Jenkins.

Feature

Jenkins

GitHub Actions

CircleCI

Pricing

Freely available

Linux $0.008/minmacOS $0.08/minWindows $0.016/min

Free plans to $15 per month, and enterprise options available

Support available

No

Yes

Yes

Self-hosted or on-premise hosting

Yes

Yes

Yes

Build environments supported

Docker, and any platform that can install Jenkins with a Java environment

Linux, macOS, Windows, Arm and containers

Docker, Linux, macOS, Windows, GPU and Arm

Jenkins, GitHub Actions and CircleCI are the strongest CI/CD platform options in the industry right now, and you really can't go wrong with any of them. Each of these CI/CD platforms has advantages and disadvantages depending on what your development team needs. These packages present myriad options available from self-hosted to cloud-based and a variety of supported platforms.

For longevity and hassle-free use, I recommend going with a cloud-based solution like GitHub Actions or CircleCI, but for a more security-conscious or do-it-yourself solution, Jenkins can't be beat.

From the hottest programming languages to the jobs with the highest salaries, get the developer news and tips you need to know. Weekly

Originally posted here:
CI/CD platforms: How to choose the right continuous integration and delivery system for your business - TechRepublic