What Is GitOps? An Introduction to the Framework

Every team is looking for a silver bullet to streamline their processes, deliver faster, and keep environments stable. One approach that has seen high adoption in recent years is GitOps. While the word might seem like yet another trendy DevOps term, it represents a groundbreaking change in how teams manage infrastructure and deployments.

In this article, we’ll discuss GitOps, what it entails, and how it differs from traditional DevOps solutions.

What Is GitOps?

GitOps is a framework in which Git-based workflows are used for infrastructure automation and application deployment. At its core, it takes the same principles and practices developers use to control software changes and applies them to operations. To put it simply, GitOps is a practice where a Git repository is the single source of truth, changes or modifications are made via pull requests, and an automated system takes care of applying those changes to the target environment.

Key Principles of GitOps

The main features of GitOps include the following:

Git as the Source of Truth

Everything, including infrastructure, configurations, and application deployments, must be stored in a Git repository. This allows you to keep everything under control. Clusters read and apply the configuration, deployment configurations, and environment management tools from the Git repository. Tools help to track changes; if a change is detected in the repository, the tools will automatically apply this change.

Declarative Infrastructure

It means you need to define the declared state of everything in the system using YAML or JSON. Tools will then compare that state with the actual one and do everything possible to bring it in line with the declared state.

Automation and CI/CD

Changes made to Git repositories should automatically run the operation. This can be, for example, Jenkins, ArgoCD, or Flux, which will automatically deploy new configurations or versions of the application to ensure that the system matches the state of the repository. The “CD” part of the acronym is especially important, as changes should appear continuously and as quickly as possible.

Self-Healing and Continuous Reconciliation

GitOps tools usually have a way to monitor the system and determine whether what it sees is consistent with what is stored in the repository. If any divergence is found, the tools will solve the so-called “healing” environment by changing it back to what is described in the repository.

The Transition From DevOps to GitOps

Before delving into the specifics of GitOps and how it contradicts DevOps, it is crucial to appreciate the contribution of classic DevOps. DevOps refers to managing development and operations teams in a way that enhances collaboration while optimizing automated processes like testing, deployment, and infrastructure provisioning. 

In general, DevOps procedures include adopting tools such as Jenkins, Kubernetes, Docker, and Ansible to develop continuous integration continuous delivery (CI/CD) processes within the software development life cycle, thus enhancing the speed of software delivery.

Where Does GitOps Fit In?

GitOps builds on these DevOps evolution principles but in a more structured fashion. It integrates Git approaches into Day 2 operations in a more advanced manner rather than being an add-on affair. 

While working with the traditional DevOps techniques, there is a high likelihood that different and several teams may be working on infrastructure and application code at the same time, which may lead to risks. All these activities are performed under Git; there is also infrastructure, and any changes, no matter how small, are equally version-controlled.

Benefits of Adopting GitOps Workflows

Enhanced Security and Compliance

One of the benefits of having a version-controlled Git repository as the only way to interact and make changes to the infrastructure and applications is that it generates a verifiable audit trail.

Enhanced Developer Experience

Developers can use tools they are already familiar with, like Git, to perform infrastructure management. By allowing developers to use the same tools for managing the infrastructure, GitOps eliminates the need for extra tooling and makes it easier to adopt a GitOps workflow.

Quick Rollbacks and Disaster Recovery

One of the challenges with many traditional DevOps pipelines is that they can be susceptible to rolling back changes. GitOps allows you to roll back the whole system to any previous state by checking out an earlier version of the repository. This can drastically reduce recovery time in disaster scenarios.

Uniformity and Consistency Across Environments

Git is the source of truth, which ensures that whatever is in Git — from a development branch to a production branch — should resemble the state of the system. No more saying, “It works on my machine.” Different configurations in different environments are a typical deployment issue when changes are made manually.

Scalability

GitOps is more scalable than a traditional configuration management solution. It introduces the concept of being declarative rather than imperative. Rather than changing the environment in one place, with GitOps, you describe the environment once. The tool then continuously ensures the environment is correct and builds machines to meet that description across all systems.

How GitOps Transforms DevOps Practices

GitOps is an entirely new shift to the left in DevOps CI/CD tools and processes. Here’s how a few leading traditional DevOps solutions are adopting GitOps now or plan to incorporate GitOps practices in the future:

1. Infrastructure as Code

It is essential for DevOps to be able to create and manage infrastructure and possibly automate these procedures. A DevOps master may use tools like Terraform or CloudFormation, but another expert may execute the same scripts to create an entirely different environment. This is where Infrastructure as Code comes into play. It primarily means storing all IaC configurations in Git. In this system, everything is automated and, more importantly, continuously checked.

2. CI/CD Pipelines

In traditional DevOps workloads, CI/CD pipelines automate testing, building, and deploying the code. However, with GitOps, the CI/CD pipeline is also used to deploy infrastructure changes. Tools like ArgoCD and Flux enhance the conventional CI/CD pipeline by monitoring the Git repository and automatically updating the environment whenever a change is pushed to it. Thus, the pipeline does even more for the developer and speeds up the cycle.

3. Monitoring and Observability

GitOps focuses on monitoring and observability, which makes it more reliable. The tools used in GitOps continuously monitor the live environment and compare it with the state defined in Git. Therefore, the system can roll back automatically if it drifts from the defined state. The automatic roll-backs quickly restore problematic environments, minimize downtime, and enhance system reliability.

Conclusion

In conclusion, GitOps is not merely a buzzword but a powerful approach that can transform traditional DevOps practices. By treating infrastructure and deployments as code, GitOps eliminates the need for manual operations and ensures the desired state across all environments. 

For teams thinking about modernizing DevOps CI/CD services, adopting GitOps workflows is a way to accomplish desired results more efficiently and reliably. With tools like ArgoCD and Flux, GitOps has a bright future and can become a predominant part of the future DevOps landscape.