Best DevOps tools for 2019

Tags: devops, agile, testing, qa
Published: 2020-03-06 11:16:18

we have seen a host of innovative DevOps tools that help enterprises meet the needs of this new culture and practices.

Whether you are already a seasoned DevOps player or new to the practice, it helps to know the best-of-breed tools used by DevOps professional for continuous delivery, testing and source code management. Here’s our list of the top DevOps tools:

1. Jenkins

Jenkins is an open source automation server written in Java that helps automate the non-human part of the software development process. CI is considered a vital component of DevOps that is used to integrate its various stages. Jenkins is essentially a CI tool that can build and test your projects continuously. This helps developers to integrate changes to projects and makes it easier for team members to obtain a fresh build.

It also enables continuous delivery of software by integrating with a large number of testing and deployment tools.

Further, Jenkins can also be distributed to work across multiple machines so that users can develop builds, execute tests and deploy across a number of platforms. Since Jenkins has a plugin architecture, it can be extended to a multitude of CI and CD tools.

2. GitLab

GitLab is described as a full DevOps tool. It is a single application for the entire DevOps cycle. Ranging from project planning, source code management to CI/CD, monitoring and security, it covers everything. The creators behind GitLab claim that the tool can accelerate the cycle by 200%.

GitLab facilitates what is known as Concurrent DevOps which speeds up the software lifecycle.

3. Jira

Jira is the leading tool used by DevOps and Agile teams for issue and project tracking. It enables shift left by making ‘test early and test often’ philosophy true. This is because Jira is a single tool that team members can use to collaborate, plan, track and release their products.

Using Jira, teams can create user stories and issues, plan sprints and distribute tasks across DevOps teams. Jira also helps in prioritization and enhances performance by providing real-time, visual data.

As Atlassian say, “Jira Software acts as the single source of truth for development information across your DevOps workflow.

You get complete visibility and traceability of work across teams and can surface information and data from your integrated toolchain to the right people at the right time. Whether you’re a team lead, dev manager, release manager, or a tester, this visibility ensures everyone in the DevOps workflow always knows what’s in development and what’s supported.”

4. WhiteSource Bolt

This is a free open-source security tool by WhiteSource, that finds and fixes open source vulnerabilities in GitHub or/and Azure DevOps environment.

WhiteSource Bolt provides real-time alerts on known vulnerabilities. It offers actionable suggested fixes so you can resolve the issues. WhiteSource Bolt supports over 200 programming languages and package managers and tracks multiple vulnerabilities databases such as NVD and many others.

5. Vagrant

Vagrant is a DevOps tool developed by HashiCorp. It allows building and managing virtual machine environments within a single workflow and focuses on automation. Vagrant lowers development environment setup time and increases production parity. It integrates with various configuration management technologies like Chef, Puppet, Ansible and Salt. Further, it works seamlessly across Mac, Linux and Windows.

6. Worksoft

Worksoft Certify provides unparalleled support for web and cloud applications with pre-built, out-of-the-box optimizations for more than 250 commonly used cloud and web apps. Certify’s ecosystem of solutions covers the entire DevOps and CD pipelines for enterprise applications.

Worksoft is recognized as the global leader in DevOps testing for packaged applications. It provides automated business process discovery, documentation, compliance, testing, risk analysis and RPA to support critical applications by supporting continuous change.

7. GitHub

GitHub is a web-based development platform that allows users to access public and private code repositories. Users can team up with other developers on GitHub to create and review code.

However, GitHub can also be extended via many apps available on the GitHub marketplace or by integrating with your preferred tools like Slack or Circle using APIs.

Additionally, you can protect your code repository by limiting access using protected branches and granular permissions and authentication with the help of SAML/SSO.

8. BitBucket

Bitbucket is a Git repository management solution from Atlassian designed for DevOps teams. It offers a central hub to manage git repositories, collaborate on source code and guide teams through the development flow. Some of its key features include Access control to restrict access on source code, workflow control to implement team or project-based workflows, pull requests with in-line commenting for collaboration on code review, Jira integration and full Rest API that enables custom features for the workflow. Bitbucket is available for cloud, server and datacenter.

9. Chef

Chef is a configuration management tool for dealing with machine setup on physical servers, virtual machines and in the cloud.

It helps companies to transform infrastructure into code. Chef is again an open source tool and support multiple platforms like AIX, RHEL/CentOS, FreeBSD. It is easy to integrate with cloud-based platforms and enjoys the support of a fast-growing and active community base.

10. QMetry

The QMetry Digital Quality Platform is built for Agile and DevOps teams with test management, test automation and software quality metrics.

QMetry Test Management is an end-to-end test management tool with a powerful feature set. But its superpower is continuous monitoring.

QMetry renders easy-to-read dashboards that show testing process and progress. These dashboards are continuously synced with the database and rendered up-to-date to provide you with real-time analytics beforehand.

Further, the dashboards are shareable and help in keeping all the stakeholders updated, encouraging collaboration. This allows quick access and faster decision making. QMetry Test Management offers a wide range of reports and complex visual analysis.

The visual analysis offers high-level yet easy-to-use interface that you can use to create your customized reports in the best-fit charts for report data automatically.

QMetry Automation Studio

QMetry Automation Studio is an IDE that leverages open source automation frameworks like Selenium and Appium to bring structure, efficiency and reusability to automated testing.

QMetry Automation Studio completes the most challenging aspect of Continuous Delivery with its continuous testing capabilities.

It offers seamless integration with other testing tools enabling the CI/CD pipeline. For example, it integrates with test management tools like QMetry Test Management and also Jira, Git and SauceLabs. This ensures that your automation team can work from a single interface to automate the scripts.

Further, Agile teams can centrally create, edit and execute test automation from QMetry Automation Studio itself.