April 2021 Summaries

PulumiUP featured an array of expert speakers discussing the evolution of DevOps and the future of cloud engineering, emphasizing the importance of cloud-enabled tools and processes for rapid delivery and team collaboration. Highlights included insights from industry leaders like Adrian Cockcroft and Justin Fitzhugh, who underscored the need for scalable, dynamic infrastructure supported by well-architected frameworks and automated processes. The event stressed the cultural shift towards integrated teams where infrastructure actions begin with code commits, requiring a transformation in hiring practices towards software engineers with a focus on infrastructure. The future of cloud engineering, as discussed by a panel including Dana Lawson and Charity Majors, involves adopting software engineering practices over DSLs, embracing languages like Go, and understanding the full application lifecycle. The panel also addressed the inevitability of testing in production, advocating for observability and controlled testing methods to manage software bugs. Reflecting on the DevOps legacy, they noted the blending of operational and development knowledge, emphasizing cross-functional training to overcome knowledge silos and ensure effective teamwork.

Pulumi has introduced a new type of package called native providers, designed to offer comprehensive and consistent interfaces for managing modern cloud infrastructure. These native providers, now available for Microsoft Azure and in public preview for Google Cloud, with AWS support expected later this year, are built automatically from the cloud providers' APIs, ensuring 100% coverage and same-day access to new features and updates. This approach overcomes the limitations of legacy infrastructure as code tools, which often struggle to keep pace with rapid cloud innovation. Pulumi's native providers also include open-source features, allowing users to contribute to their development. The Pulumi platform supports over 50 cloud providers and aims to provide a complete cloud engineering solution across multiple architectures and languages. With automated nightly updates, Pulumi ensures that all new resources and API changes are integrated promptly, enhancing the ability to build, deploy, and manage cloud resources efficiently.

Pulumi's CI/CD Assistant is a tool designed to simplify the integration of version control and continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) pipelines for cloud applications and infrastructure, enhancing production delivery security and efficiency. This tool, previously available only to Team and Enterprise offerings, is now accessible to all teams. It guides users through a four-step process to configure version control and a CI/CD system, allowing for streamlined deployment of infrastructure changes with features like code history tracking, rollback capabilities, and security enhancements such as temporary access keys and the Pulumi Secrets feature. The CI/CD Assistant supports over a dozen popular CI/CD services, and its integration ensures that each deployment is documented with metadata, including commit details, branch, pull request, and build numbers, providing seamless access to version control and CI/CD systems. The announcement was made during the PulumiUP event, with further resources available for users to explore.

Pulumi’s Cloud Engineering Platform enables teams to manage cloud applications and infrastructure by offering a comprehensive view of resources and their configurations through a unified interface, often referred to as a "single pane of glass." It integrates seamlessly with Identity Providers (IdPs) like Okta, Azure Active Directory, and Google Cloud Identity & Access Management, utilizing SAML for Single Sign-On (SSO) and SCIM for user and group synchronization to streamline identity and access management. This integration provides enhanced security by centralizing control over user access while simplifying administrative tasks. Pulumi supports a Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) model to enforce a least privilege access approach, which grants specific permissions to users based on their team roles. The platform’s enterprise features facilitate efficient user management by allowing organizations to control access and permissions through their IdPs, ensuring that the right team members have appropriate access to infrastructure resources. Pulumi’s offerings are aimed at enhancing productivity and security for organizations, with enterprise features like SAML SSO and SCIM available to help maintain a secure and efficient cloud environment.

Pulumi Packages are a central technology within Pulumi's cloud infrastructure provisioning framework that allows resources to be defined in one language and utilized across all Pulumi-supported languages. Initially, these packages were limited to low-level Pulumi Resources, but with Pulumi 3.0, they can now include high-level Pulumi Components, enabling multi-language support and broader usability. This advancement allows developers to create components in their preferred language, making them accessible to others regardless of the programming language they use. Users can easily integrate Pulumi Packages into their projects by finding and installing them via various registries such as npm, PyPI, or NuGet. Pulumi Packages can be native providers, bridged from existing ecosystems like Terraform, or custom components, expanding the variety of resources available to developers. The community is encouraged to author and share Pulumi Packages to enhance the platform's capabilities further, with ongoing improvements to simplify their creation and distribution.

At PulumiUP, the public preview of the Google Cloud Native provider was announced, offering Pulumi users enhanced support for Google Cloud by working directly with the Google Cloud APIs via the Google API Discovery Service. This approach ensures comprehensive coverage of 100% of Google Cloud resources and properties, surpassing the old provider by supporting more resource types and features. The new provider is always up-to-date, automating updates within hours of API changes and offering robust SDKs for all Pulumi languages. Users can run the new provider alongside the existing one, with migration guides to be provided later. The Google Cloud Native SDKs are open source and available across various platforms, making it easy for users to start new projects or integrate with existing ones. Pulumi encourages feedback from users, inviting them to contribute to the development process through GitHub and community channels.

Pulumi's Automation API elevates the infrastructure as code concept by offering a programmatic interface that allows organizations to dynamically create, update, configure, and destroy infrastructure, moving beyond command-line interactions. This API enables the creation of customized Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications that can provision unique infrastructure for each customer, addressing specific requirements for security and performance, particularly in regulated industries. By encoding infrastructure knowledge into self-service tools, Automation API facilitates streamlined access for application developers without exposing them to infrastructure complexity. It supports various programming languages, allowing developers to integrate it into custom platforms, developer portals, and CI/CD workflows, as seen in various applications like Mercedes-Benz Research & Development's platform and Pulumi's GitHub Action. The general availability of Automation API was announced at PulumiUP, highlighting its capability to transform infrastructure management and unlock new SaaS opportunities through unique, single-tenant infrastructure offerings.

Pulumi 3.0 marks a significant advancement for the Pulumi open-source project, introducing a comprehensive infrastructure as code platform that enhances cloud infrastructure management across various providers. The update introduces the Pulumi Automation API, which allows embedding Pulumi within applications using languages like Node.js, Python, Go, and .NET, thereby enabling new cloud infrastructure use cases such as self-service portals and custom CI/CD workflows. It also launches the Native Providers for Azure and Google Cloud, offering 100% platform coverage and consistent resource models, while Pulumi Packages and Multi-Language Components facilitate the use of reusable infrastructure components across different programming languages. Improvements to the Go and Python SDKs enhance developer productivity by simplifying APIs and improving build times, and the Pulumi Service now includes new dashboards, CI/CD integration tools, and enhanced security features. Overall, Pulumi 3.0 aims to provide cloud engineers with powerful tools and practices for maximizing the value of their cloud platforms.

The author reflects on nearly a decade of managing field events and user conferences, expressing a longing for in-person interactions, which have shifted to virtual formats due to ongoing circumstances. Pulumi, recognizing the fatigue associated with prolonged virtual events, has opted for a concise 2-hour keynote session titled PulumiUP, scheduled for April 20th, focusing on best practices and real-life applications in modern cloud engineering. The event will feature insights from industry leaders such as Joe Duffy of Pulumi, Adrian Cockcroft of Amazon, and others, offering perspectives on building cloud applications and reducing costs while empowering developers. The event aims to engage both seasoned cloud engineers and newcomers, anticipating a return to in-person gatherings in the future. Pulumi encourages interested individuals to register for the keynote and additional workshops taking place in April and May.

Pulumi has announced Pulumi Interstellar, a suite of resource providers designed to support the development of a space-faring, multi-planetary future. This initiative aligns with current space industry priorities, focusing on reaching new planets and making them habitable. The Pulumi Rocket Provider allows for resource deployment and planetary travel by enabling users to configure rocket fuel requirements and reserve seats for interplanetary journeys. Additionally, the initiative includes Terraforming As Code, aimed at establishing dome-based communities and utilizing advanced terraforming techniques, like nuclear missiles, to make planets livable. Pulumi's resources can be configured using familiar programming languages such as JavaScript, Python, and .NET, and are billed through Dogecoin, requiring users to provide a wallet address for transactions. Pulumi is collaborating with leading space companies to realize the dream of a multi-planetary existence.