Modern application development requires a cloud native platform that can operate in and across multiple cloud providers. GitLab has partnered with Oracle to enable customers to run GitLab’s DevOps platform on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).
With OCI, organizations can accelerate migrations of existing enterprise workloads, deliver better reliability and performance for all applications, and offer the complete services customers need to build innovative cloud applications. With GitLab’s DevOps platform and OCI, businesses can create a resilient, high-performance DevOps environment. OCI also supports automatic operating system patching and zero trust architecture, which aligns with GitLab’s focus on application security.
The benefits of pairing GitLab and OCI
Pairing GitLab’s DevOps platform and OCI provides many benefits, including the following:
- performance
- platform breadth
- security
- value
- hybrid and multi-cloud environments
- GovCloud regions
Performance
OCI provides a high-performance, resilient foundation for cloud services. Customers can quickly provision instances that feature the latest-generation processors via API, SDK, command line, Terraform, or the console. Workloads can scale up and/or out based on their requirements and compute-intensive workloads can leverage GPU shapes for hardware acceleration of AI/ML workloads. At the same time, GitLab runners can be configured to leverage Nvidia GPUs for various executors to take advantage of GPUs and AI/ML workloads.
Platform breadth
GitLab’s DevOps platform has the ability to integrate with Kubernetes service like OKE via GitLab Kubernetes agent. Leveraging GitLab’s Kubernetes agent will unlock GitOps workflow and CI/CD workflow for cloud native development. And the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure also offers a wide variety of platform services that allow customers to run workloads without having to manage infrastructure. Customers can run workloads on compute instances, in containers with Oracle Kubernetes Engine (OKE), or even as serverless functions. Services like object storage and events can be leveraged to build applications without managing infrastructure at all. For a complete list of these services, please click here.
Security
The second generation of OCI has been redesigned from the ground up to be a secure cloud. Oracle designed OCI architecture for security of the platform through isolated network virtualization, highly secure firmware installation, a controlled physical network, and network segmentation. GitLab’s DevOps platform is not only an ODIC provider but the platform integrates with other identity providers to support single sign-on capabilities. The platform’s permission model follows similar approaches used by OCI around separation of concerns and role-based access to resources.
Value
Mission-critical and revenue-generating applications demand more than just availability from their cloud infrastructure. Mission-critical workloads also require consistent performance and the ability to manage, monitor, and modify resources running in the cloud at any time. OCI offers end-to-end SLAs covering performance, availability, and manageability of services.
GitLab’s DevOps platform uses the same code base for the SaaS offering as well as self-managed instances. Having the same code base allows customers to adopt the mission-critical DevOps platform in heavily regulated industries such as financial services and healthcare.
Support for hybrid and multi-cloud environments
Even though many enterprises are moving workloads to the cloud, the reality is this is a multi-cloud world, and many enterprises still maintain infrastructure locally. Oracle has entered into strategic partnerships designed to make it easier for customers to operate in a hybrid and multi-cloud environment.
Oracle has partnered with VMware to create the Oracle Cloud VMware solution that allows customers the ability to use their existing tools and processes to manage a VMware environment in OCI. This allows enterprises to accelerate cloud adoption without having to re-architect their applications.
GitLab’s DevOps platform can be deployed on vSphere infrastructure using the GitLab omnibus install method. The platform can be installed on-premises or in the cloud. GitLab can be deployed on VMs and the GitLab runners can extend CI capabilities into other cloud environments and cloud-native hybrid deployments.
GovCloud regions
OCI can provide government customers with the stringent security standards necessary to protect the federal government's data. Oracle has obtained a P-ATO from the Joint Authorization Board for FedRAMP High in its U.S. Government Cloud regions. Varying levels of DISA authorizations are also available but vary by services. Find an up-to-date list here. Meanwhile, GitLab is pursuing a FedRAMP moderate certification and working on activities related to FedRAMP-ready designation.
Get started with the GitLab DevOps platform and OCI
Organizations looking to run GitLab’s DevOps platform on OCI can leverage the supported Oracle Linux package for the platform install. Alternatively, they can leverage the helm chart or GitLab Operator to deploy to Oracle Kubernetes Engine (OKE), which will provide a cloud-native hybrid approach of the GitLab DevOps platform on OCI.
GitLab’s DevOps platform, delivered as a single application, can run on multiple clouds and has the capability of supporting various official Linux packages. Besides Linux packages, GitLab’s platform also supports deployments on Kubernetes using helm charts and Kubernetes GitLab Operator.
If you would like to learn more about the GitLab DevOps platform and OCI, please access the LiveLabs.
Kelkar is GitLab's Director of Alliances. Swank is Distinguished Cloud Architect and Cloud CTO at Oracle.
