Continuous Improvements
In the spirit of “continuous”, Flexagon has released a bunch of enhancements, usability improvements, and bug fixes over the past two month. FlexDeploy is our DevOps platform for CI/CD and release automation which automates and orchestrates the entire build, deploy, and release lifecycle. FlexDeploy is an open and extensible platform with lots of plugins for commercial and open source technology.
Here are some release highlights:
Cloud Enablement Platform Features – A variety of base platform features and plugins were delivered, including Cloud Accounts for more effectively managing configurations and properties associated with any cloud provider services. Cloud continues to be a big investment area for Flexagon and FlexDeploy supports the enablement of multi-cloud strategies such as Amazon, Azure, Google, and Oracle.
Cloud Enablement Plugins – A host of new plugins and enhancements to existing plugins have been delivered related to managing cloud infrastructure resources and the CI/CD process for platform services. The following plugins are examples of what’s been delivered in this space:
- Terraform
- Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
- Oracle API Platform
- Oracle Integration Cloud
- Google Apigee
Containers – Containers and Serverless/Functions are extremely hot technologies and impact many areas in software engineering. Flexagon continues to delivery platform features and plugins which increase the speed and efficiencies related to using these technologies. For example, FlexDeploy supports plugins for Docker, Kubernetes, and Helm while also providing platform features which hide the complexity of building Docker images, storing them in a repository, and deploying into Kubernetes running across any Kubernetes runtime. There are also Docker plugins provided for various technologies (such as JET) which make it extremely easy to build containers that include the application and all associated dependencies. These capabilities result in higher developer productivity by keeping the developers writing software rather than worrying about the underlying infrastructure, middleware, and deployment processes.
Oracle APEX and Database Plugins – APEX usage continues to increase rapidly and FlexDeploy make enabling the CI/CD process for APEX extremely fast and efficient. This includes APEX proper at the application and page level and other resources for managing database schema changes, ORDS, SODA, and other artifacts.
Oracle JET Plugin – JET is a popular open source JavaScript Extension Toolkit that makes it easy to build web and mobile applications. The FlexDeploy plugin for JET helps enable the full CI/CD lifecycle, integrate with source control systems, and provides full visibility to deployments across environments.
Ansible Plugin – Ansible is a popular tool for provisioning and configuration management, and the FlexDeploy plugin for Ansible makes it easy to orchestrate the use of Ansible as part of an end to end DevOps and CI/CD process.
Advanced Release and Pipeline Orchestration – The Release Level Continuous Integration feature in 5.1 makes it easy to set up a build schedule at the release level, enabling the automated build of all projects included in a release if changes are detected.
Data Fixes – Data fixes are a common challenge for many customers and the FlexDeploy support helps orchestrate the data fixes as part of the overall release pipeline. Those involved with data fixes (such as DBAs) now get a seamless process to describe what SQLs need to be executed and have the validation process seamlessly incorporated into their work activities. Other advantages include tracking of changes across environments and the ability to inject governance, such as approvals and schedules.
Platform Support – performance and scalability improvements with PostgreSQL and MySQL.
Usability and Ease of Adoption – We continue to look for ways to ease the evaluation, adoption, and ongoing care and feeding post-implementation. Here are a few example of FlexDeploy blog series which can be used by prospective and existing customers and partners.
- FlexDeploy Love Containers blog series
- FlexDeploy Loves APEX blog series
- JET CI/CD Made Easy Using FlexDeploy
- Integrate Ansible With FlexDeploy Workflows
- FlexDeploy Loves Oracle API Platform: Series Overview
For more details, please review the Release Notes.
