June 2018 Summaries

Codefresh, the first Kubernetes-native Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) platform, has announced the completion of an $8 million Series B funding round led by M12, Microsoft's venture fund, along with contributions from Viola Ventures, Hillsven, and CEIIF, bringing its total investment to $15.1 million. As Kubernetes adoption surges across enterprises seeking more efficient cloud-native application deployment, Codefresh stands out by offering a platform specifically designed to ease the challenges of Kubernetes implementation, enabling faster development times and streamlined application deployment. The new funding will be used to expand Codefresh's engineering team and support, enhancing its platform with advanced deployment strategies using Kubernetes, Helm, and Istio. M12's investment underscores its interest in the Kubernetes ecosystem, reflecting the industry's recognition of Codefresh's innovative solutions in accelerating Kubernetes adoption. With over 20,000 users, Codefresh continues to pioneer automated pipelines that facilitate rapid and seamless software delivery, with its roadmap set for aggressive expansion and feature rollout.

The text provides a tutorial on how to launch and manage an Amazon EKS cluster using Codefresh. It explains the process of setting up a new EKS cluster from scratch, highlighting the use of two essential files, setup.yml and teardown.yml, to streamline the creation and deletion of the cluster. Users are guided through the configuration of their Codefresh account to integrate with Amazon EKS, including adding a repository, setting up pipelines, and managing necessary AWS credentials and cluster parameters. The tutorial emphasizes the importance of selecting the appropriate AWS region, recommending us-west-2 due to capacity issues in us-east-1, and concludes by detailing how to deploy and dismantle the cluster using the provided pipelines.

The text discusses the integration of Docker with Java applications, particularly focusing on the use of Maven plugins to streamline the development and deployment process. Initially, the challenges Java developers face with Docker due to the existing packaging formats like WAR and EAR files are highlighted, along with the benefits of incorporating Docker into the Maven build process. The article compares two Maven plugins for Docker: the minimalist Spotify plugin, which focuses on creating and pushing Docker images, and the more feature-rich Fabric8 plugin, which supports building and managing Docker containers. Additionally, the text explores a shift in paradigm where Docker controls Maven, enhancing flexibility and resilience against API changes by using Docker containers for the build process itself. This approach simplifies build environments, facilitates easy upgrades, and integrates well with CI/CD platforms like Codefresh, which supports Docker-based builds and multi-stage builds to efficiently handle application compilation and testing.

Codefresh's integrated Helm Repository, backed by ChartMuseum, allows users to store and manage Helm Charts efficiently, with each account provisioned with a default repository and the option to add more. The tutorial walks through the process of building Docker's Example Voting App, creating and deploying a Helm Chart to Kubernetes, conducting deployment verification with Selenium, and storing Pytest reports in Amazon S3. It then guides users on packaging the Helm Chart and storing it in Codefresh’s Helm Repository, utilizing Git best practices by creating a feature branch and a pull request process in GitHub. The tutorial also covers configuring environment variables, updating the Codefresh YAML file, and adding build steps to push the Helm Chart to the repository. It further explains how to create a new namespace and configure pull request secrets using the Codefresh UI, culminating in the installation of the Helm Chart into the test namespace for an ephemeral environment. The overall process illustrates the ease of managing Helm Repositories and deploying applications using Codefresh, encouraging users to explore these capabilities by creating a free account.

Codefresh announced its partnership with Amazon to support the launch of Amazon Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes (Amazon EKS), a scalable Kubernetes service on AWS, aimed at simplifying Kubernetes adoption and accelerating application deployment. As the first CI/CD platform specifically designed for Kubernetes, Codefresh's integration with Amazon EKS addresses key challenges in hosting production-ready clusters and deploying applications. This collaboration is part of a wider initiative involving several partners to enhance Kubernetes services on AWS, with Codefresh offering first-class support for related technologies like Helm. Founded in 2014, Codefresh provides a comprehensive container delivery toolchain that benefits both startups and enterprises by integrating CI/CD, image management, and on-demand staging environments.