September 2017 Summaries

Forrester has recognized GitLab as a leader in Continuous Integration (CI) in their Q3 2017 Wave report, highlighting its ease of use, scalability, integration, and innovation. GitLab's CI/CD tools are designed to streamline software development by automating testing and deployment processes, thereby reducing the time and effort developers spend on maintaining tool chains and allowing them to focus on writing code and integrating customer feedback. The report awarded GitLab the highest score in the Current Offering category, emphasizing its user-friendly interface, platform support, analytics, and container capabilities, which facilitate seamless DevOps practices and collaboration. Additionally, GitLab received the top score in the Strategy category, reflecting its comprehensive market approach and support services. A key component of GitLab's strategy is its Auto DevOps feature, which automates the DevOps lifecycle, enabling faster and more efficient software releases. This integration fosters collaboration by minimizing context-switching and enhancing visibility, making it easier for teams to collaborate and iterate on products, ultimately allowing for quicker delivery of features that align with customer needs.

The author discusses changes and enhancements made to their GitLab CI/CD pipeline for deploying Golang microservices, focusing on improvements such as using GitLab's caching, splitting jobs into multiple steps, and employing Helm charts for application packaging. They abandoned the docker-in-docker approach and opted for using a cache for packages to improve efficiency. The CI/CD process involves setting up directories for Golang's strict project location requirements, caching dependencies in the vendor directory, and building binaries. The testing phase includes running Golang tests with coverage reports, while the deployment stage utilizes GitLab's CI/CD variables with base64 encoded Kubernetes configurations, allowing for flexible management of multiple cluster configurations without native Kubernetes integration. The deployment process can handle multiple application versions by checking and setting the app version in the Chart.yaml file, aiding in either deploying or upgrading releases as required.

Tasktop has introduced the GitLab Issues Connector, facilitating seamless bi-directional integration of GitLab issues with tools like JIRA, CA Agile Central, HPE ALM, and VersionOne, enhancing DevOps efficiency at scale. This integration works with both the Community and Enterprise editions of GitLab, allowing issues to flow into dedicated tools such as Agile planning systems, ensuring that issues remain up-to-date and visible across platforms. This is particularly beneficial for cross-functional teams, as it enables better collaboration and reduces context-switching by keeping all team members informed, regardless of the primary tool they use. Strong customer demand for GitLab led to this integration, which connects lightweight issue trackers with agile development tools to streamline defect management. GitLab's VP of Product, Job van der Voort, highlights that this integration accelerates the time to production by eliminating barriers between applications. The GitLab Issues Connector is available in all editions of the Tasktop Integration Hub, inviting users to explore its potential to solve context-switching challenges.

GitLab CEO Sid Sijbrandij's insights into managing a distributed team were shared during a "pick your brain" meeting, offering valuable lessons in remote work, organization, development processes, and leadership. GitLab's approach to remote work includes initiatives like virtual coffee breaks and all-team meetings to foster connection among employees across 38 countries, while also emphasizing the importance of documenting processes due to their distributed nature. Organizational strategies discussed included identifying team gaps, like the need for a frontend tech lead, and emphasizing fast, clear decision-making without relying on project managers. The development process at GitLab highlights the significance of quick iterations and effective coordination across teams, with a focus on finishing the flow first to maintain alignment. Leadership lessons pointed out the necessity of ambition for growth, encouraging companies to set higher goals and leverage their existing strengths, as evidenced by the experiences shared by FineTune, which aims to expand its impact in the EdTech industry and beyond.

In GitLab version 9.4, significant improvements were made to the navigation interface, informed by extensive user feedback and research. Key changes included a collapsible sidebar with icons to maximize screen space, a fly-out menu to reduce clicks for accessing sub-pages, and dropdown links in the top bar for quicker project access. Users can now customize navigation color themes, with options including Dark, Light, Blue, and Green, alongside the default indigo. Breadcrumbs were streamlined for consistency and space efficiency, with intuitive labels and improved navigation elements. The header was redesigned to reduce height and improve link visibility, while maintaining a bold style for active, hover, and dropdown elements. These enhancements, now standard as of release 10.0, aim to optimize user experience, with ongoing monitoring and iteration planned for future UX improvements.

Continuous Integration (CI) is a valuable practice for developers who frequently update their applications, enabling instant deployment, building, and testing of the app each time new code is pushed to a repository. This text focuses on setting up CI/CD for a Vue.js project using GitLab, which offers a visually appealing and free CI/CD service for personal projects. A key component of this setup is the creation of a .gitlab-ci.yml file that defines the pipeline stages—build, test, and deploy—executed by a GitLab Runner. The text provides an example configuration for the .gitlab-ci.yml file, including the use of Docker images and execution of scripts for each stage. Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of using a unique SSH private key for deployment tasks to ensure security. The reader is encouraged to explore further documentation and seek expert advice when necessary, particularly regarding security practices.

GitLab, a rapidly expanding remote and international company, has introduced the role of VP of Scaling to address the challenges of growth without the immediate ability to hire dedicated team members for new initiatives. This role involves acting as a full-time interim manager who rotates between different functions to build teams and scalable processes, ensuring that initiatives don't stagnate due to the time it takes to hire new employees. The VP of Scaling is responsible for quickly integrating into teams to address immediate needs while also planning for future scalability, such as designing self-guided onboarding processes and developing quantitative metrics to improve team communication. Despite the challenges of rapidly acclimating to various areas of the company and the emotional attachment to different teams, this role has been instrumental in spreading best practices and managing interteam interfaces at GitLab. The role emphasizes continuous learning, documentation, and adaptability, contributing to the company's success in handling its increased usage and customer demands.

Celebrating the contributions of GitLab Fan, an anonymous yet impactful community member who passionately supports and promotes GitLab, the post highlights their efforts in creating custom illustrations, stickers, and tutorials to engage with the platform's user base. Despite remaining incognito, GitLab Fan reveals their enthusiasm for GitLab through personal projects and teaching junior developers, sharing insights into their motivations and experiences with the platform. They express a desire for a built-in chat solution in GitLab to enhance project setup efficiency, reflecting their commitment to improving the user experience. The celebration includes a giveaway on Twitter, offering custom GitLab Fan merchandise to participants.

At Fleetster, a small team heavily relies on GitLab CI to manage numerous projects efficiently, resulting in over 13,000 commits across 25 projects in a month. To streamline their workflow and prevent code from being forgotten in branches, they implemented an automated script that utilizes GitLab APIs to create merge requests (MR) automatically when a commit is pushed. This script marks the MR as a work in progress, assigns it to the developer, and ensures the branch is not overlooked. Although the script has room for improvement, such as reducing API calls and managing secret tokens better, it exemplifies the power of Continuous Integration in enhancing productivity by automating repetitive tasks. The team at Fleetster continues to use CI for various tasks, including automated software versioning and deployment, while also exploring further automation opportunities. The blog post encourages readers to consider joining Fleetster and invites feedback and questions, highlighting the company's dynamic work environment and appreciation for the GitLab community's contributions.

With the release of GitLab 10.0 on September 22nd, deprecated runners relying on an outdated API will no longer be able to communicate with the system, necessitating an upgrade for any runners older than version 9.0 to avoid downtime. GitLab has been phasing out support for these older runners, as previously announced with the release of GitLab 9.0 and in subsequent communications. Users are urged to check their runner versions and upgrade them accordingly, especially before the release candidate's deployment around September 8th, which will render old runners inoperative if connected to GitLab.com. Admins can verify runner versions via the Admin area, while project Owners or Masters can check through project settings. Upgrading the runners to the latest version will ensure continued functionality and potentially improved performance.

GitLab.com has implemented changes to its subscription plans, introducing exclusive features for its Bronze, Silver, and Gold plans while maintaining free access to public projects to support open-source initiatives. As of September 1st, new accounts will access only the features specific to their chosen plan, while existing Free plan users will be transitioned to an Early Adopter Plan for a year, offering Silver plan features minus additional CI minutes or premium support. Existing Silver and Gold users remain unaffected, and Bronze users will lose temporary access to Silver features but will receive new Bronze features in future releases. The updated plans aim to enhance GitLab's support for the software development lifecycle, allowing users to upgrade their plans for access to future features.