Latest news with #Puppet
Techday NZ
23-05-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
Perforce introduces AI features for DevOps, boosts efficiency & testing
Perforce Software has announced the launch of Perforce Intelligence, a new tool designed to integrate artificial intelligence across its DevOps product lines and bridge gaps between security, development, and operations teams. Perforce Intelligence is embedded within the company's continuous testing, infrastructure automation, and diagramming solutions, aiming to help customers save time and costs, expand test coverage, and address data silos that typically exist in technology teams. The integration of AI within existing Perforce products challenges the effectiveness of generic AI approaches. The company is also announcing enhancements to Puppet Enterprise Advanced, which are intended to help teams learn, optimise, and better understand their infrastructure changes without requiring specialist skills in the Puppet language. Jim Mercer, Program Vice President, Software Development, DevOps & DevSecOps at IDC, commented on the complexity of implementing AI successfully in technology teams. He said, "AI is not easy to implement among teams, and we've seen pockets of success but also still a ton of confusion and need for understanding of how and where to embed AI within the DevOps lifecycle. It will be important for companies and institutions to partner with organizations that provide them with high value and low risk when it comes to AI." Jake Hookom, Executive Vice President of Products at Perforce, outlined the company's aim to act as a multiplier for AI adoption in business. He said, "At Perforce, we understand that every organisation, regardless of size, has AI ambitions. Our approach to AI is to act as a strategic multiplier, helping businesses adopt AI in a way that delivers value and produces measurable outcomes from our products and within their larger DevOps ecosystem. With security and compliance top of mind for enterprises, those customers are affirming our approach to AI every week with stories on the positive impact we're having on their DevOps teams." Perforce Intelligence claims to differentiate from other testing tools by eliminating the need for scripts and frameworks, aiming to simplify the process for teams to deliver secure applications across various platforms or devices. The tool uses visual and contextual validation to ensure applications adapt dynamically without requiring human intervention, reportedly providing customers with 50% efficiency gains and a 20% increase in test coverage, according to the company. Byron Chan, Digital Delivery Quality Assurance Lead at Servus, commented on the product's potential: "We are excited about where this can go. I see tremendous potential because eventually you could come up with test cases in this prompt format before development even starts, and then once developed/deployed, you could potentially avoid manual testing and automation test development because it's already done." Puppet Enterprise Advanced, part of Perforce's infrastructure automation portfolio, will include a new feature in June 2025 called Puppet Infra Assistant. This is a chat interface that enables users to interact with their infrastructure in natural language, providing visibility into configuration, compliance, and operational status without needing specialist skills. Margaret Lee, Manager of Product Management for Perforce Puppet, highlighted the role of natural language AI: "Puppet has a trove of data to help customers make smarter decisions, but we haven't previously had the means to make it readily accessible for Puppet stakeholders or adjacent teams – like security and development teams - who would really benefit from it. Natural language AI unlocked this potential." "Teams can quickly and easily understand what's happening, make meaningful decisions, and take action to align with their desired business outcomes. Early customers have responded very positively, with one noting that a task that used to take three hours now takes seconds with Puppet Infra Assistant." Perforce Puppet is positioned as an infrastructure automation solution designed to streamline operations, improve security and compliance, and enhance visibility across varying infrastructure environments. For software diagramming, Gliffy, Perforce's diagramming platform for Confluence, now incorporates AI to accelerate the creation of sequence and class diagrams, with the company stating this makes the process three times faster and helps teams represent complex concepts more efficiently. Looking ahead, Perforce outlined several upgrades planned for 2025 as part of the broader Perforce Intelligence roadmap. These include advances for creative workflow acceleration, the provision of compliant and masked data for AI and machine learning projects, maintenance-free testing automation approaches that remove legacy scripting, and agent-to-agent orchestration for infrastructure change management and ongoing compliance.
International Business Times
05-05-2025
- Business
- International Business Times
Driving DevOps Evolution: How One Engineer Is Transforming Enterprise Automation and Resilience
The DevOps sector is experiencing significant growth, with projections indicating an expansion from $10.4 billion in 2023 to $25.5 billion by 2028, reflecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.7%. This surge is driven by the increasing demand for faster software delivery and enhanced quality standards. As organizations navigate complex digital transformations, professionals like Mohit Thodupunuri are instrumental in implementing DevOps practices that streamline operations and foster innovation. Accelerating Enterprise Automation and Infrastructure Optimization Mohit Thodupunuri has played significant role in modernizing the DevOps infrastructure of one of the largest telecommunications and content delivery companies in the U.S. His role has been crucial in replacing manual deployment pipelines with scalable, automated systems powered by Jenkins, Docker, and Puppet. This automation shift drastically cut down release cycles and elevated system uptime, enhancing both developer agility and end-user satisfaction. Thodupunuri also led a complex upgrade of Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) from version 6.3 to 6.5, which went far beyond a version update. He tackled dependency conflicts, integrated external systems, and re-engineered parts of the platform's backend all while ensuring zero disruption to ongoing content operations. This optimization allowed marketing and content teams to roll out digital assets faster and more reliably across diverse consumer channels. One of his standout achievements includes guiding a seamless migration of core APIs to Amazon Web Services (AWS). By meticulously validating the environments pre- and post-migration, he established a secure, scalable foundation that has significantly reduced long-term maintenance overhead and ensured performance continuity across critical services. Enhancing Performance, Security, and Customer Experience Thodupunuri's impact goes beyond backend optimization his efforts have tangibly improved the experience for millions of users accessing digital services from this enterprise. His reconfiguration of Akamai's content delivery network (CDN) played a crucial role in decreasing page load times during peak demand. By implementing custom caching strategies and fine-tuning edge behaviors, he substantially improved cache hit ratios, leading to enhanced responsiveness across the company's web portals and mobile platforms. Security was also a major focus. He spearheaded a Java vulnerability remediation campaign that covered nearly 200 servers. Through custom scripting and automated remediation pipelines, he eliminated critical flaws without compromising application performance keeping systems audit-compliant and shielding them from emerging threats. Thodupunuri also engineered a custom traffic control solution using Akamai as a middleware layer between AEM and AWS. The innovation introduced bandwidth throttling, dynamic routing, and application-layer security using a Web Application Firewall (WAF). The result was a robust infrastructure that automatically adapted to fluctuating traffic loads while maintaining high security standards and optimal performance. Rapid Crisis Management and Recognized Excellence Thodupunuri's real-time problem-solving skills have proven essential during operational crises. When a production-level API outage threatened to disrupt services, he rapidly deployed an Akamai-based workaround that rerouted traffic and restored functionality without touching the application's codebase. This emergency response prevented customer-facing disruptions and preserved brand trust—an outcome praised by internal leadership. In recognition of his exceptional contributions, Thodupunuri received a CEO commendation in late 2023 for his leadership during a platform release that went live without a hitch. He was also acknowledged for his behind-the-scenes role in enabling the successful onboarding of a high-profile strategic partner, reflecting his cross-functional collaboration skills and technical foresight. His systematic and composable approach to DevOps practices has also helped reduce mean time to recovery (MTTR) and drastically improved incident management. As a result, engineering teams have become more agile and self-sufficient, while business units have enjoyed fewer service interruptions. Building the Future of Intelligent DevOps Looking ahead, Thodupunuri is positioning himself at the forefront of DevOps innovation by exploring how generative AI can revolutionize observability and automation. He has initiated early discussions and prototypes aimed at integrating AI into log analysis, error prediction, and self-healing infrastructure. These exploratory projects are intended to make enterprise systems more intelligent, reducing manual monitoring while improving service resilience. He's also active in knowledge-sharing initiatives. His published article, "Unlocking the Power of Akamai Caching for Enhanced Web Performance," breaks down real-world strategies for CDN optimization and has gained attention across the DevOps community. By sharing such insights, he's helping elevate industry practices and mentor the next generation of cloud engineers. Thodupunuri's work reflects a rare blend of hands-on technical mastery, strategic thinking, and forward-looking innovation. As enterprises across the technology and communications sector face mounting pressure to modernize securely and quickly, professionals like him are proving to be the catalysts of that transformation.
Techday NZ
24-04-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
Perforce launches upgraded Puppet to cut cyber risk downtime
Perforce Software has released an updated version of its Puppet Enterprise Advanced platform, targeting faster vulnerability remediation and improved collaboration between infrastructure and security teams. The platform update arrives amid growing concerns over rapidly evolving cyber threats, attributed in part to the increased use of artificial intelligence in attack methodologies. Recent figures from Statista indicate that vulnerabilities in software systems now persist for an average of 229 days before remediation, heightening the risk to organisations and their customers. This delay has been exacerbated by challenges such as rapid infrastructural scaling, inefficient operations, and a global shortage of skilled cyber professionals. Perforce states that the new features in Puppet Enterprise Advanced will help businesses address security risks more swiftly by embedding remediation processes directly within infrastructure automation workflows. This approach is intended to break down silos between operations and security, allowing for a more integrated understanding of organisations' overall security posture while reducing manual cross-team handoff delays. "Vulnerabilities continue to increase, with around 40,000 known vulnerabilities in 2024. Because of this explosion in vulnerabilities, the mean time to remediate continues to increase, leaving companies extremely vulnerable to attacks. Enterprises must combat this by integrating security with infrastructure automation to shorten the vulnerability remediation cycle," said Tzvika Shahaf, Vice President of Product Management at Perforce. "Our new release empowers organizations to unlock a collaborative DevSecOps environment by shrinking the opportunity window for attackers. In future Puppet releases, the pace will quicken further with human-in-the-loop, AI-driven automation." The updated platform features several enhancements designed to streamline responses to identified security threats. Integration with security scanners, with Tenable Nessus included by default, enables automated identification and remediation of vulnerabilities. The platform's open API framework and extensible architecture allow additional scanners to be incorporated, increasing flexibility for organisations with diverse environments. Users of Puppet Enterprise Advanced can now manage patching workflows from within the tool's graphical user interface. Additional support for maintenance and blackout scheduling is included, aimed at minimising disruption to normal business operations. Enhanced dynamic patching group capabilities are designed to improve efficiency in managing hybrid infrastructures commonly found in enterprise settings. The platform enforces continuous alignment of system configurations with established security policies through its desired state enforcement feature. Any deviation from policy triggers an automatic remediation process and generates necessary documentation for audit purposes, a capability expected to assist organisations in maintaining regulatory compliance. Another enhancement is the pre-built, reusable policy as code (PaC) modules, which ensure systems automatically remain in line with industry-standard security baselines. These modules can be updated as best practices evolve, reducing the manual effort required from in-house teams. Self-service workflows and increased cross-functional visibility are intended to improve collaboration between traditionally siloed operations and security teams. These features are designed to help decrease the mean time to remediate vulnerabilities, decrease operational risk, and improve cost efficiency for organisations seeking to manage increasingly complex technology estates. Perforce reports that its approach allows platform teams to better support security teams, thereby boosting resiliency and reducing the mean time to remediate vulnerabilities. According to the company, these capabilities enable risk reduction, process efficiency gains, and savings on operational costs through automation and improved collaboration.
