GitOps is arguably the hottest trend in software development today. It is a new work model that is widely adopted due to its simplicity and the strong benefits it provides for development pipelines in terms of resilience, predictability, and auditability. Another important aspect of GitOps is that it makes security easier, especially in complex cloud and containerized environments.

GitOps can connect smoothly to the traditional practice of Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR), however, it requires some changes to the DFIR approach.

What is GitOps?

GitOps is a new development paradigm that promises to achieve simple, continuous deployment for cloud-native applications. Git is described as:

“an open source version control system—to infrastructure configuration. Git is used to version and store the necessary infrastructure configuration files,often in a Git repository, such as GitHub, GitLab, or a private Git repository.”

This new model provides a developer-centric experience, allowing development teams to operate and deploy infrastructure using tools they are already familiar with, such as continuous deployment tools, and with no assistance from IT.

The core idea of GitOps is to have a Git repository that always contains a declarative configuration which represents a desired state of the production environment. An automated process monitors the Git repository and matches the production environment to this desired state. To deploy a new application or update an existing one, developers simply update the repository, and automated processes take care of everything.

GitOps tools and work processes are growing in popularity. The GitOps model shows great promise because it can improve software reliability, reduce the danger of “configuration drift”, makes it easier to manage complex containerized environments, and improves auditability and security of production environments.

What is Digital Forensics and DFIR?

Digital forensics is a branch of forensic science that focuses on recovery and (Read more...)