Why is configuration management so important in 2020?

The best companies have shifted from monolithic software development to microservices, and yours will be next. But what does that mean, and are you ready for the shift from managing a datacenter to a Deathstar?

Yes, a Deathstar. How are you planning to navigate yours?

With a modern architecture, there’s a Kubernetes cluster with nodes and pods running individual containers. Each execute a microservice, talking via APIs. That alone opens up a ton of questions we need to address. Where are our applications, which version of a service is the application using, and lastly who is using my microservice? In other words, microservice configuration management just became critical.

In the monolithic world, software configuration management is performed mainly at the version control and compile step. Source objects were stored in version tools, then a compile/link process put it all together and we automated with continuous integration. In microservices, all the linking is done at runtime, and source becomes small snippets that need no branching and merging. It can be a right mess.

What then is the solution?

There are a few products out there for working with microservices but not all offer a full set of tools. You need to find one that catalogs, versions, tracks and deploys independent microservices to the applications that consume them. Such as? Well, there’s our product, both a free Team version and an Enterprise Pro option. Yes, DeployHub creates a single source of truth, exposing which microservices are being used, if they need to be deprecated, and/or which applications are using them. In short, version tracking, catalog and release with confidence and clarity. You’ll need a full map of your applications and the services on which they depend. With DeployHub making it easier to migrate to and manage your shared microservices, you can navigate that Deathstar. You’ll have the tools to manage your configurations in this evolving software architecture and that can only be a good thing for all of us.

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