December 2020 Summaries

In December, DigitalOcean introduced several new features including more scalable Load Balancer plans and the deprecation of Standard Droplet plans for new users. Additionally, Managed Databases for Redis 6 are now available with improved security and performance features. The "Deploy to DigitalOcean" button was also launched last month, allowing users to save time on app deployment. Furthermore, many preconfigured 1-Click Apps were added to the DigitalOcean Marketplace to help users save time and hassle when provisioning servers. Lastly, doctl, the official DigitalOcean CLI, received updates for container registry garbage collection and user confirmation before starting garbage collection.

In 2020, DigitalOcean focused on helping developers and businesses adapt to a work-from-home environment by launching new products such as App Platform, DigitalOcean Container Registry, Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Trust Platform, Load Balancers, and Storage Optimized Droplets. They also invested in developer education through tutorials, eBooks, Q&A sessions, Tech Talks, and their first global community conference, deploy. Additionally, they hosted Hacktoberfest for the 7th straight year and introduced Hub for Good to support projects addressing COVID-19 pandemic challenges and social/ racial injustice. DigitalOcean plans to continue supporting its customers and the developer community in 2021.

DigitalOcean has joined the Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security (MANRS) initiative, supported by the Internet Society, aiming to reduce common routing security threats. The MANRS initiative outlines actions network operators should take to improve the resilience and security of routing infrastructure. By joining the initiative, DigitalOcean agrees to follow specific guidelines to increase its routing security and help make the internet safer for both businesses and consumers. The technical steps MANRS outlines for cloud service providers include filtering, anti-spoofing, coordination, and global validation.

DigitalOcean's App Platform facilitates the development and deployment of component-based applications by utilizing industry-standard cloud-native technologies, enabling scalability and flexibility as applications grow in complexity. This approach allows developers to seamlessly incorporate various components, such as static sites, APIs, databases, workers, and jobs, into their application architecture, ensuring easy management and expansion. By leveraging a declarative specification for applications, the platform maintains consistency between staging and production environments, offering tools like Kubernetes and gVisor for isolation, and integrates with a range of services including Kaniko, Fluent Bit, and Prometheus for enhanced functionality. The platform is designed to support developers from initial deployment through to scaling their business, providing a seamless environment to innovate and iterate quickly while participating in community events like hackathons to foster creativity and engagement.

DigitalOcean has introduced new Load Balancer plans to cater to the increasing demand for more robust and scalable load balancers. The Medium Load Balancer is suitable for transaction-driven sites or services with moderate traffic, costing $30 per month. The Large Load Balancer is ideal for higher-traffic sites or API endpoints, priced at $60 per month. These new plans offer enhanced performance compared to the previous Small Load Balancer plan, which now costs $12 per month. DigitalOcean's Load Balancers are designed to help businesses save money by migrating bandwidth-intensive apps to their platform.

DigitalOcean has partnered with SolarWinds to improve customer experiences by enhancing application and infrastructure performance monitoring. The collaboration allows users to create application-level metrics, trace transactions, monitor individual processes, and identify problematic lines of code. DigitalOcean customers can access special discounts on SolarWinds products such as PaperTrail, AppOptics, Pingdom, and Loggly. These services complement DigitalOcean's existing monitoring capabilities and enable users to deliver exceptional customer experiences.