March 2023 Summaries

The Cloudsmith team has enhanced its integration with Datadog, a cloud monitoring solution, by introducing Security Scanning and Audit Logs features. This integration allows developers to leverage both solutions simultaneously, strengthening their security posture. The new features provide automatic vulnerability scanning of supported package types for CVEs upon package upload, as well as audit logs that monitor all activity performed in Cloudsmith, including creating or deleting repositories and modifying settings. These enhancements enable developers to stay on top of software package health and security with a single tool, reducing complexity and screen fatigue.

Containers and Microservices have become the primary platform for many organizations, but complexity and adoption continue to be a challenge. The discussion focuses on security concerns through the lens of the platform and network, highlighting the need for understanding where images are coming from and knowing that one is being used. Key areas for ensuring container optimization and speed include understanding security ramifications, how platforms enable the rise of containers and microservices, challenges introduced by containers and platforms, enhancements to networking, and observability. The conversation also touches on automation, people process, tooling, and the need for a collaborative effort in mitigating risks. It's emphasized that not everything can be containerized, and developers must accept this reality. The discussion concludes with announcements from Rancher and Cloudsmith, including an integration with Datadog and their presence at AWS Summit and Kubecon.

The Cloudsmith team is attending the AWS Summit in Paris, where they will be located on Level 2 of the expo hall, and can be met by Hillary Foster, Dave McConville, and Paul McKeever. The company aims to evolve the cloud-native supply chain, providing a secure source for end-to-end software delivery through universal artifact repositories. Attendees at the summit are eligible to win prizes, including an iPad 10th Generation, by stopping by the Cloudsmith stand and receiving their passport stamp. Additionally, attendees can book demos with Cloudsmith experts or register to attend the free AWS Summit event.

The Cloudsmith Team is attending KubeCon + CloudNativeCon 2023 in Amsterdam and invites attendees to visit their booth in the expo hall. The company's mission is to simplify software delivery through universal, cloud-native artifact repositories, addressing the need for trust, provenance, and security in supply chains. To make this more exciting, Cloudsmith has partnered with several sponsors to offer a passport program where participants can collect stamps from participating booths, leading to a chance to win prizes such as a PS5 or Apple Watch SE. The team members attending the event include Hillary Foster, Paul McKeever, and Dan McKinney, who are available for questions via LinkedIn.

The Rust team has announced version 1.68.0, which includes support for the new "sparse" registry protocol that has been stabilized as part of this version. This protocol allows Cargo to fetch package metadata via simple HTTP GET requests that return JSON for only the packages that the client requests, resulting in improved speed and reliability for builds. The sparse protocol was introduced to address issues with the previous Git-based transport, which had resource-intensive requirements and expected repositories to maintain a clean history. With this change, registries can handle larger sets of packages without maintaining long-lived state, and HTTP caching techniques can be used to further improve performance. Cloudsmith is supporting this new protocol, and customers are recommended to migrate to the new beta implementation as soon as possible to see these benefits. The sparse protocol will become the default for crates.io in the 1.70.0 release later this year.