Best Practices for Enhanced DevOps Productivity & Security

Developing microservices destined to run in Kubernetes presents a unique set of challenges. In this blog post, we’ll explore a new approach leveraging Codezero in order to enhance both productivity and security.

1. Setting Up Your Local Development Environment

Best Practice: Use fast Kubernetes distributions like civo.com or Kubernetes namespaces for local development.

Codezero Integration: Codezero Teamspaces is a Secure Identity-Aware Overlay Network (SION) that allows development teams to harmonize a live Kubernetes environment together with the local environment, and use traffic shaping to instantly interact with and test changes to local services against the live environment.

Using Codezero, developers leverage the full power and resources of the cluster wherever it’s located - cloud, neighbor’s laptop, etc. - and can spin up isolated instances of their application in a true-to-production Kubernetes setup. This allows for more accurate performance testing and debugging, reducing the discrepancies between local development and production environments - without worrying about maxing out the local machine. 

2. Simplifying Configuration Management

Best Practice: Stop using localhost in configurations for local development and then have a different set of configurations for develop, staging, UAT, production, and other environments

Codezero Smart-DNS: Codezero sets up a smart local DNS so that your local configuration is in sync with the in-cluster kube-dns. This allows developers to use the same set of service names that are used in live environments. Not having to change configuration across these environments reduces errors caused by using the wrong set of values as well as ensures minimal configuration drift across these environments.

3. Streamlining Development Workflows

Best Practice: Develop with a focus on modularity using microservices.

Now that local resources like CPU, memory, and storage no longer constrain development teams, individual developers are freed from having to spend time setting up their development environment when starting on a new feature branch. Developers can simply run the few services they are working on locally and leverage the rest of the blast radius of the application using in-cluster services.

4. Implementing Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD)

Best Practice: Automate deployment processes with robust CI/CD pipelines.

Automation is key in modern development practices. CI/CD pipelines help automate your testing and deployment to Kubernetes, ensuring consistent and error-free deployments. Tools like Jenkins, GitLab CI, and GitHub Actions can be integrated with Kubernetes to handle these workflows. Before Codezero, having long-running pipelines that either set up infrastructure to run automated integration tests meant slow development cycles for developers. Using Codezero, developers can test their code without having to first deploy. CI/CD pipelines are now free to expand - ensuring broader code coverage need not slow down the development cycle.

5. Ensuring Security from the Start

Best Practice: Use Kubernetes walled-off network can remain closed

Security is paramount, especially when developing locally, as it's easy to overlook the security configurations that will be necessary in production. Implementing network policies and using RBAC from the start of your development cycle will help you secure your applications against unauthorized access.

Codezero Integration: Codezero's built-in security ensures that developers no longer need credentials to the Kubernetes cluster and do not have to engage in shadowy temporary workarounds to get access to services running in the cluster during development. Codezero Teamspaces delivers the full power of Kubernetes to the local machine to fully mirror production in a secure and isolated environment. 

Conclusion

Whether you're developing a simple or complex microservices application, developing with Kubernetes locally can be simple thanks to Codezero. Integrating Kubernetes into your local development workflow can enhance productivity, streamline collaboration, and ensure your development processes are secure and efficient.