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  • Techstrong Group Opens Nominations for the DevOps Dozen 2025 Awards

    Techstrong Group Opens Nominations for the DevOps Dozen 2025 Awards

    Nominations are open through October 17 for the DevOps Dozen 2025 Awards, honoring outstanding achievements and contributions in the DevOps community.

    Boca Raton, FL, September 8, 2025 — Techstrong Group, the power source for people and technology, today announced that nominations are open for the DevOps Dozen 2025 Awards, celebrating the individuals, organizations, tools, and services driving excellence in DevOps. The program features 24 categories across Community Awards (9) and Tools & Services Awards (15).

    “The DevOps Dozen are not about trophies or vanity. They are about momentum and validation. These awards honor the people, practices, and products that shaped the community and moved it forward over the past year,” said Alan Shimel, Founder and CEO, Techstrong Group.

    This year, Agentic AI and Generative AI each get their own category, while Platform Engineering has a dedicated slot as the practice matures from trend to table stakes. Supply Chain Security Solution also earns standalone recognition, reflecting how software integrity, attestations and provenance have shifted from ‘nice to have’ to ‘non-negotiable.’

    Important Dates

    • Nominations close: October 17, 2025
    • Finalists announced and public voting opens: November 10, 2025
    • Public voting closes: December 31, 2025
    • Winners announced: January 2026 at the Predict 2026 Virtual Summit

    Awards Process and Eligibility

    There are no nomination fees in the Community Awards category, though commercial vendors are not eligible for the following three: Top DevOps Community Evangelist, DevOps Enterprise Leader of the Year, and Best Application of AI in Enterprise DevOps Practices. Tools & Services Award nominations carry a $300 fee to ensure serious entries and discourage spam. Fees are refunded for those not advancing to the finals. Vendors may nominate themselves.

    Public voting will account for 40% of each winner’s total, while judges’ scores will account for 60%. There is a limit for finalists at 10 per Tools & Services category to keep the field competitive and focused.

    DevOps Dozen 2025 Awards Categories

    Tools & Services Awards

    1. Best DevOps Industry Implementation
      Many organizations have transformed their business by successfully adopting and implementing DevOps principles, practices and solutions. This award recognizes those enterprises that have successfully achieved DevOps success and have worked with their solution partner to do so.
    2. DevOps Industry Leader of the Year
      Tool & Service providers play a critical role in bringing innovative tools, platforms and services to the market. This award recognizes a strong Tools & Services leader who guides their company through the challenges of developing and bringing to market innovative DevOps technologies and services.
    3. Top DevOps Vendor Evangelist
      DevOps solution providers typically are on the leading edge of new DevOps strategies, tools and practices. This award recognizes the individual that does the best job of informing the DevOps community about new and exciting tools and practices to deliver DevOps success and business value.
    4. Best End-to-End DevOps Platform
      Consolidation in the DevOps space has led to a greater selection of platforms offering end-to-end solutions with increasing feature sets. This award honors the platform with the most diverse and robust solution for DevOps teams.
    5. Best application of Generative AI in a DevOps Tool/Platform (Updated for 2025)
      Generative AI is transforming DevOps by automating tasks, improving code quality, and enhancing efficiency. It leverages AI models to generate code, automate deployments, and streamline workflows, ultimately leading to faster development cycles and more robust software. This award honors the best use of Generative AI in a DevOps Tool or Platform.
    6. Best application of Agentic AI in a DevOps Tool/Platform (Added for 2025)
      Agentic AI refers to autonomous AI capabilities in a DevOps tool or service that can plan, reason, and act to complete DevOps tasks with minimal human oversight. This involves perception, decision-making, and execution, creating a value stream lifecycle where the AI agent interacts with the DevOps environment. This award honors the best use of Agentic AI in a DevOps Tool or Platform.
    7. Best DevSecOps Solution
      This award honors the best DevSecOps solution, which enables security to be included earlier and continuously throughout the SDLC.
    8. Best Supply Chain Security Solution (Added for 2025)
      Software supply chain security refers to the measures taken to protect the integrity and security of software throughout its entire development and delivery lifecycle, from initial code to final deployment. This award honors the best solution for ensuring that the software is trustworthy and hasn’t been tampered with at any point in its journey.
    9. Best Observability Solution
      This award recognizes the best observability solution for observing and monitoring to understand the performance of individual components, systems and entire applications.
    10. Best Platform Engineering Solution
      This award recognizes the best platform engineering solution enabling self-service capabilities for software engineering organizations in the cloud-native era, covering the operational necessities of the entire lifecycle of an application.
    11. Best Testing Service/Tool
      Testing is a mainstay in the DevOps toolchain, and this award recognizes the best testing tool for ensuring the quality of code.
    12. Best DevOps for Mainframe Solution
      Mainframes are far from being the dinosaur of the IT world. This award recognizes the best solution for implementing DevOps practices in mainframe environments and hybrid environments.
    13. Best DevOps for DataOps/Database Solution
      Databases often have been left out of the DevOps conversation, but that is changing. This award recognizes the best database related solution for DevOps and DataOps.
    14. Best New DevOps Tool
      This award recognizes the best tool that has brought innovation to the DevOps space in the past year (less than 24 months old).
    15. Best New DevOps Service Provider
      A DevOps services provider helps organizations implement and manage DevOps practices through consulting, implementation, and ongoing support. Typically they offer a range of services, including DevOps consulting, CI/CD pipeline implementation, infrastructure automation, and DevSecOps services, to streamline software development and delivery. This award recognizes a service provider that excels in delivering quality services to the DevOps community.

    Community Awards

    1. Best DevOps-Related Video or Audio Podcast
      Podcasts are popular ways for DevOps leaders and practitioners to keep current. This award recognizes the most educational, informative and inspirational DevOps video or audio podcast series — those with the most engaging and highest-quality content that keeps listeners coming back for more.
    2. Best devopsy.kinsta.cloud Article of the Year
      devopsy.kinsta.cloud publishes multiple new articles every day. This award recognizes the best article from this year. Let us know so we can recognize the author.
    3. Best DevOps Book of the Year
      Each year sees a number of well-crafted DevOps-related books. This category recognizes the most popular and best read of the year.
    4. Top DevOps Community Evangelist (No vendor nominees)
      Every community has those who stand out as leaders in their field who spread the DevOps gospel every day. This award recognizes the individual whom peers in the DevOps community recognize for outstanding leadership, knowledge, and communication.
    5. DevOps Enterprise Leader of the Year (No vendor nominees)
      An organization’s leadership plays a critical role in shepherding its team through innovation and change. This award recognizes a strong DevOps leader who guides their team through the challenges of developing and implementing DevOps strategies, policies, culture, and practices to improve software development and delivery.
    6. Best DevOps Survey/ Research/Report (Updated for 2025)
      Ongoing research in the application of DevOps tracks trends and provides standards that organizations can use to measure themselves. This award recognizes industry research, reporting and analysis that has significantly and positively impacted the DevOps community.
    7. Best DevOps Event of the Year
      Events and conferences are an important part of IT life. This category includes both in-person and virtual events. Which DevOps event stands out from the others and delivers the best content, speakers and attendee experience?
    8. Most Innovative DevOps Open Source Project
      Open source software is an important part of every organization’s set of development assets promoting innovation, velocity, quality and efficiency. This award recognizes the open source project that delivers the greatest value through a community of people who work on and with the open source technology and support each other.
    9. Best Application of AI in Enterprise DevOps Practices (No vendor nominees)
      Leading enterprises are integrating the use of AI within their DevOps practices at an incredible pace. This award recognizes the organization that has applied AI in the most interesting and productive way to accelerate and improve various aspects of software delivery, leading to increased efficiency, higher quality, and faster time-to-market.

    Finalists receive badges and recognition across the Techstrong network; winners receive trophies and the full spotlight they’ve earned.

    For more information about award categories and nomination forms, please visit the DevOps Dozen website. For questions regarding entry process, timing, or technical issues, please contact us at DD@devops.com.

    About Techstrong Group

    Techstrong Group is the power source for people and technology. Techstrong Group accelerates understanding of technologies that drive business. With a broad set of IT-related communities and offerings, Techstrong Group is the only media company serving the needs of IT leaders and practitioners with news, research, events, education, and professional development. Our focus is DevOps, cybersecurity, AI, digital transformation, cloud and cloud native. Techstrong Group business units include: Techstrong Media (devopsy.kinsta.cloud, Security Boulevard, Cloud Native Now, Techstrong.ai, DigitalCxO, PlatformEngineering.com, Techstrong.IT, Techstrong TV and Techstrong Group Podcasts), and Techstrong Learning. For technology providers, Techstrong business units offer many ways to share their stories, expand their audience and grow their business.

    Techstrong is part of Futurum Group, a leading technology research and advisory firm, expanding its capabilities in research, advisory, and media.

    Techstrong Group is based in Boca Raton, Florida. For more information, visit our website and follow us on LinkedIn.

    ###
    Veronica Haggar
    veronica@techstronggroup.com

  • Techstrong Group Opens Nominations for the DevOps Dozen 2024 Awards to Celebrate the Most Exceptional Leaders and Innovators in DevOps

    Techstrong Group Opens Nominations for the DevOps Dozen 2024 Awards to Celebrate the Most Exceptional Leaders and Innovators in DevOps

    The DevOps Dozen Awards mark their tenth year, recognizing outstanding achievements and contributions in the DevOps community.

    Boca Raton, FL, September 9, 2024 — Techstrong Group, the power source for people and technology, has officially opened nominations for the tenth annual DevOps Dozen Awards. Nominations will be accepted now through October 18, 2024. This year, we have updated and refined our categories to better reflect the evolving landscape of DevOps, introducing new recognitions that highlight both commercial and community-driven innovations

    DevOps Dozen Community Awards: Celebrating individuals, organizations, and projects that have significantly contributed to the DevOps community, these awards recognize the people, content, and events that are driving DevOps forward. There are no nomination fees in this category, but it is not open to commercial vendors.

    DevOps Dozen Tools and Services Awards: These awards recognize the most innovative companies and tools that are shaping the DevOps industry. With categories focused on end-to-end platforms, AI in DevOps, observability, DevSecOps, and more, these awards spotlight the solutions that empower developers, IT operations, and DevOps teams to excel. A nominal fee is required for entries in this category to reduce spam and cover administrative costs, with refunds available for non-finalist entries in highly competitive categories. Vendors may nominate themselves. 

    “The DevOps Dozen² Awards celebrate the outstanding contributions and innovations within the DevOps community,” said Alan Shimel, founder and CEO at Techstrong Group. “This year, we’re excited to honor the trailblazers who are advancing the field and setting new benchmarks for excellence in DevOps.”

    Important Dates and Deadlines

    • Nominations for all categories via public vote or vendor registration starts on September 9, 2024.
    • Nominations and voting for the nominations phase will close on October 18, 2024 at 5pm ET.
    • Finalists will be announced and public voting starts on November 11, 2024.
    • Public voting ends on December 31, 2024.
    • DevOps Dozen winners will be announced at the Predict 2025 Virtual Summit in January (exact date to be announced).

    DevOps Dozen 2024 Awards Categories

    DevOps Dozen Tools and Services Awards

    • Best DevOps Industry Implementation
      Many organizations have transformed their business by successfully adopting and implementing DevOps principles, practices and solutions. This award recognizes those enterprises that have successfully achieved DevOps success and have worked with their solution partner to do so.
    • Best DevOps Survey/Analysis/ Research
      This award recognizes industry research and analysis that has significantly and positively impacted the DevOps community.
    • Best End-to-End DevOps Platform
      Consolidation in the DevOps space has led to a greater selection of platforms offering end-to-end solutions with increasing feature sets. This award honors the platform with the most diverse and robust solution for DevOps teams.
    • Best application of AI in DevOps Tool/Platform
      AI is changing and improving DevOps Tools and Platforms at a rapid pace.. This award recognizes the DevOps Tool or Platform that has applied AI in the most interesting and productive way to improve or accelerate the application of DevOps principles.
    • Top DevOps Vendor Evangelist
      DevOps solution providers typically are on the leading edge of new DevOps strategies, tools and practices. This award recognizes the individual that does the best job of informing the DevOps community about new and exciting tools and practices to deliver DevOps success and business value.
    • Best Value Stream Management
      Value stream management is an important tool for measuring the business value of DevOps and application development. This award recognizes the value stream management tool that most effectively helps visualize the value stream, track metrics and measure improvement.
    • Best Observability Solution
      This award recognizes the best observability solution for observing and monitoring to understand the performance of individual components, systems and entire applications.
    • Best DevSecOps Solution
      This award honors the best DevSecOps solution, which enables security to be included earlier and continuously throughout the SDLC.
    • Best Platform Engineering Solution
      This award recognizes the best Platform Engineering solution enabling self-service capabilities for software engineering organizations in the cloud-native era covering the operational necessities of the entire lifecycle of an application.
    • Best Testing Service/Tool
      Testing is a mainstay in the DevOps toolchain, and this award recognizes the best testing tool for ensuring the quality of code.
    • Best DevOps for Mainframe Solution
      Mainframes are far from being the dinosaur of the IT world. This award recognizes the best solution for implementing DevOps practices in mainframe environments and hybrid environments.
    • Best DevOps for DataOps/Database Solution
      Databases often have been left out of the DevOps conversation, but that is changing. This award recognizes the best database related solution for DevOps and DataOps.
    • Best New DevOps Tool
      This award recognizes the best tool that has brought innovation to the DevOps space in the past year. (less than 24 months old)
    • Best New DevOps Service Provider
      This award recognizes the best new service provider that has brought innovation to the DevOps space in the past year. (less than 24 months old)

    DevOps Dozen Community Awards

    • Best DevOps-Related Video or Audio Podcast
      Podcasts are popular ways for DevOps Leaders and Practitioners to keep current. This award recognizes the most educational, informative and inspirational DevOps video or audio podcast series – those with the most engaging and highest-quality content that keeps listeners coming back for more.
    • Best DevOps Book of the Year
      Each year sees a number of well-crafted DevOps-related books. This category recognizes the most popular and best read of the year.
    • Top DevOps Evangelist
      Every community has those who standout as leaders in their field who spread the DevOps gospel everyday. This award recognizes the individual whose peers in the DevOps community recognize for outstanding leadership, knowledge and communication
    • Best DevOps Event of the Year
      Events and conferences are an important part of IT life. This category includes both in-person and virtual events. Which DevOps event stands out from the others and delivers the best content, speakers and attendee experience?
    • Most Innovative DevOps Open Source Project
      Open source software is an important part of every organization’s set of development assets promoting innovation, velocity, quality and efficiency. This award recognizes the open source project that delivers the greatest value through a community of people who work on and with the open source technology and support each other.
    • Best Application of AI in DevOps Practices
      AI is changing the world in which we live and work at an incredible pace. This award recognizes the organization that has applied AI in the most interesting and productive way to improve or accelerate the use of DevOps.
    • DevOps Enterprise Leader of the Year
      An organization’s leadership plays a critical role in shepherding its team through innovation and change.This award recognizes a strong DevOps leader who guides their team through the challenges of developing and implementing DevOps strategies, policies, culture and practices to improve software development and delivery.
    • Best devopsy.kinsta.cloud Article of the Year
      devopsy.kinsta.cloud publishes multiple new articles every day. This award recognizes the best article from this year. Let us know so we can recognize the author.

    Additional Resources

    For more information regarding entry process, awards, timing or any technical issues regarding the website, please contact us at DD@devops.com.

    About Techstrong Group

    Techstrong Group is the power source for people and technology. Techstrong Group accelerates understanding of technologies that drive business. With a broad set of IT-related communities and offerings, Techstrong Group is the only media company serving the needs of IT leaders and practitioners with news, research, analysis, events, education, certifications and professional development. Our focus is DevOps, cybersecurity, AI, digital transformation, cloud and cloud native. Techstrong Group business units include: Techstrong Media (devopsy.kinsta.cloud, Security Boulevard, Cloud Native Now, Techstrong.ai, DigitalCxO, Techstrong ITSM, Techstrong TV and Techstrong Group Podcasts), Techstrong Research and Techstrong Learning. For technology providers, Techstrong business units offer many ways to share their stories, expand their audience and grow their business.

    Techstrong Group is based in Boca Raton, Florida. For more information, visit us on the web and follow us on LinkedIn.

    ###
    Veronica Haggar
    veronica@techstronggroup.com

  • DevOps Dozen 2024 Nominations Now Open

    DevOps Dozen 2024 Nominations Now Open

    We are thrilled to announce that nominations for the DevOps Dozen 2024 are officially open! Now in its tenth year, the DevOps Dozen continues to spotlight the standout contributors, projects, and companies driving the DevOps community forward.

    This year, we have updated and refined our award categories to better reflect the evolving landscape of DevOps and embrace the latest industry innovations. Some categories celebrate the commercial DevOps solutions making waves in the market, while others highlight the dynamic community and open-source efforts that power DevOps.

    The nomination process remains as rigorous as ever, with two stages: Nominations for finalists are open now and will close on October 18, 2024. Finalists will be announced on November 11, 2024, after which public voting will take place. This year’s winners will be determined through a combination of public votes (40%) and expert evaluations from our esteemed panel of judges (60%). Our panel of judges will be announced soon on the DevOps Dozen website.

    As with previous years, a nominal fee will be required for commercial category nominations to reduce spam and help cover administrative costs. To ensure a fair process, if a category receives more than 10 submissions, we will refund the fee for those entries that do not make it to the finalist stage. Community nominations remain free, but any spamming attempts will result in disqualification.

    Without further ado, here are the categories for the DevOps Dozen awards:

    DevOps Dozen Tools and Services Awards

    • Best DevOps Industry Implementation
      Many organizations have transformed their business by successfully adopting and implementing DevOps principles, practices and solutions. This award recognizes those enterprises that have successfully achieved DevOps success and have worked with their solution partner to do so.
    • Best DevOps Survey/Analysis/ Research
      This award recognizes industry research and analysis that has significantly and positively impacted the DevOps community.
    • Best End-to-End DevOps Platform
      Consolidation in the DevOps space has led to a greater selection of platforms offering end-to-end solutions with increasing feature sets. This award honors the platform with the most diverse and robust solution for DevOps teams.
    • Best application of AI in DevOps Tool/Platform
      AI is changing and improving DevOps Tools and Platforms at a rapid pace.. This award recognizes the DevOps Tool or Platform that has applied AI in the most interesting and productive way to improve or accelerate the application of DevOps principles.
    • Top DevOps Vendor Evangelist
      DevOps solution providers typically are on the leading edge of new DevOps strategies, tools and practices. This award recognizes the individual that does the best job of informing the DevOps community about new and exciting tools and practices to deliver DevOps success and business value.
    • Best Value Stream Management
      Value stream management is an important tool for measuring the business value of DevOps and application development. This award recognizes the value stream management tool that most effectively helps visualize the value stream, track metrics and measure improvement.
    • Best Observability Solution
      This award recognizes the best observability solution for observing and monitoring to understand the performance of individual components, systems and entire applications.
    • Best DevSecOps Solution
      This award honors the best DevSecOps solution, which enables security to be included earlier and continuously throughout the SDLC.
    • Best Platform Engineering Solution
      This award recognizes the best Platform Engineering solution enabling self-service capabilities for software engineering organizations in the cloud-native era covering the operational necessities of the entire lifecycle of an application.
    • Best Testing Service/Tool
      Testing is a mainstay in the DevOps toolchain, and this award recognizes the best testing tool for ensuring the quality of code.
    • Best DevOps for Mainframe Solution
      Mainframes are far from being the dinosaur of the IT world. This award recognizes the best solution for implementing DevOps practices in mainframe environments and hybrid environments.
    • Best DevOps for DataOps/Database Solution
      Databases often have been left out of the DevOps conversation, but that is changing. This award recognizes the best database related solution for DevOps and DataOps.
    • Best New DevOps Tool
      This award recognizes the best tool that has brought innovation to the DevOps space in the past year. (Less than 24 months old)
    • Best New DevOps Service Provider
      This award recognizes the best new service provider that has brought innovation to the DevOps space in the past year. (Less than 24 months old)

    DevOps Dozen Community Awards

    • Best DevOps-Related Video or Audio Podcast
      Podcasts are popular ways for DevOps Leaders and Practitioners to keep current. This award recognizes the most educational, informative and inspirational DevOps video or audio podcast series – those with the most engaging and highest-quality content that keeps listeners coming back for more.
    • Best DevOps Book of the Year
      Each year sees a number of well-crafted DevOps-related books. This category recognizes the most popular and best read of the year.
    • Top DevOps Evangelist
      Every community has those who standout as leaders in their field who spread the DevOps gospel everyday. This award recognizes the individual whose peers in the DevOps community recognize for outstanding leadership, knowledge and communication.
    • Best DevOps Event of the Year
      Events and conferences are an important part of IT life. This category includes both in-person and virtual events. Which DevOps event stands out from the others and delivers the best content, speakers and attendee experience?
    • Most Innovative DevOps Open Source Project
      Open source software is an important part of every organization’s set of development assets promoting innovation, velocity, quality and efficiency. This award recognizes the open source project that delivers the greatest value through a community of people who work on and with the open source technology and support each other.
    • Best Application of AI in DevOps Practices
      AI is changing the world in which we live and work at an incredible pace. This award recognizes the organization that has applied AI in the most interesting and productive way to improve or accelerate the use of DevOps.
    • DevOps Enterprise Leader of the Year
      An organization’s leadership plays a critical role in shepherding its team through innovation and change.This award recognizes a strong DevOps leader who guides their team through the challenges of developing and implementing DevOps strategies, policies, culture and practices to improve software development and delivery.
    • Best devopsy.kinsta.cloud Article of the Year
      devopsy.kinsta.cloud publishes multiple new articles every day. This award recognizes the best article from this year. Let us know so we can recognize the author.

    Good luck to all the nominees for the DevOps Dozen Awards 2024. We look forward to seeing your contributions and innovations recognized. Finalists will be announced on November 11, 2024—stay tuned!

  • Sustainable IT and Data Innovation: Driving the Future of DevOps

    The worlds of sustainable IT and data innovation are converging, and two upcoming events are set to showcase the latest developments in these critical areas of sustainable IT and data innovation. The SustainableIT Impact Awards & Symposium and the DevOps + Data Impact 2024  promise to bring together industry leaders, experts, and practitioners to explore how technology can drive positive change in both business and society.

    Inaugural Impact Summit & Awards, SustainableIT.org

    Sustainability Takes Center Stage

    Sustainable IT has become a key focus for organizations across the globe, as the environmental impact of technology comes under increasing scrutiny. The SustainableIT Impact Awards & Symposium will be held in Austin, Texas. It aims to celebrate the institutions and individuals who are leading the way in this field. The event, organized by the nonprofit SustainableIT.org, will feature a range of awards, including the Environmental Award, which recognizes success in reducing energy consumption and emissions across technology infrastructure, and the Governance Award, which celebrates institutions that have woven sustainability into their decision-making processes.

    Meanwhile, the DevOps + Data Impact 2024, presented by Perforce and Delphix, also in Austin, will dive deep into the world of data management and its role in driving innovation. As enterprises grapple with the challenges of managing and leveraging vast amounts of data, the conference promises to offer valuable insights and solutions. Attendees can expect to learn about the latest trends in data analytics, security, and compliance. Plus they will gain insights on strategies for optimizing data management to drive business success.

    Perforce’s Acquisition of Delphix: Driving Sustainable Data Management

    Perforce’s recent acquisition of Delphix, a leading provider of DataOps solutions, reflects the growing importance of data management in the DevOps landscape. This strategic move aims to help customers automate and accelerate their DevOps pipelines while promoting sustainable IT practices. As Perforce CEO Jim Cassens noted, “Data is at the heart of how enterprises operate today and essential for successful software development, but accessing and managing that data is extremely challenging. Many teams do not have rapid access to solid, high-quality test data.”

    By integrating Delphix’s capabilities, Perforce seeks to address these challenges and enable more efficient and sustainable data management practices. As Cassens stated in a blog post announcing the acquisition, “Another unique ability of the Delphix platform is how it virtualizes data and ultimately reduces storage footprints, which is good news for sustainability and operational costs.”

    Bridging Sustainable IT and Data Innovation

    The convergence of these two events points to a broader trend in the DevOps world: the need to balance sustainable IT and data innovation. Organizations are increasingly recognizing that sustainability efforts can drive efficiency and innovation. Accordingly, robust data management can support environmental goals.

    As the DevOps landscape continues to evolve, look for more initiatives that emphasize balance with AI-driven energy management in data centers, sustainable IT and software development practices, and circular economy approaches to IT hardware. Certainly, the upcoming events in Austin serve as a barometer for these trends, offering a glimpse into how industry leaders are navigating the complex intersection of technology, data, and sustainability. By attending these events and engaging with the insights they provide, DevOps teams can position themselves at the forefront of sustainable innovation, driving both business success and positive environmental impact.

  • Techstrong Group Announces the 2023 DevOps Dozen² Awards Honorees

    Techstrong Group Announces the 2023 DevOps Dozen² Awards Honorees

    Techstrong Group announces the recipients of the ninth annual DevOps Dozen2 Awards in recognition of outstanding leadership and service to the DevOps community.

    Boca Raton, FL, January 18, 2024 —  Techstrong Group, the power source for people and technology, has published the list of honorees for the 24 categories of the 2023 DevOps Dozen² Awards. The DevOps Dozen Awards highlight the most agile and distinguished individuals and companies who have demonstrated exceptional performance and commitment to the DevOps community.

    As we’ve done the last two years, the awards program has been expanded to include a tools and services section and a community section with 12 categories in each class.

    Through their exceptional efforts, the DevOps Dozen honorees have not only propelled their businesses and communities forward, but have also played a pivotal role in advancing the entire industry. In a landscape characterized by continuous innovation and evolution, these trailblazers stand out as true champions, making significant contributions to the ongoing progress and excellence within the DevOps realm.

    “It is an honor to present these awards to the individuals, projects and organizations ​​that serve as true inspirations in the DevOps landscape,” said Alan Shimel, CEO of Techstrong. “Their dedication to driving innovation and their positive impact on the community make them the epitome of DevOps excellence. Congratulations to all the honorees and to the finalists for making our community better through their leadership and service.”

    DevOps Dozen² 2023 Awards Honorees

    Here are the names of the 2023 DevOps Dozen² Awards honorees:

    DevOps Dozen Tools and Services Awards

    • Best End-to-End DevOps Tool/Service: JFrog Software Supply Chain Platform
    • Best DevOps Repo/GitOps Tool/Service: gitStream by LinearB
    • Best CI/CD Tool: CloudBees CI/CDRO
    • Best Value Stream Management Tool: ValueOps by Broadcom
    • Best Observability Solution: Grafana Cloud Free Tier
    • Best DevSecOps Solution: GitLab
    • Best Testing Tool/Service: Tricentis Mobile
    • Best Kubernetes Platform/Service: Rafay Systems
    • Best Cloud-Native Security Solution/Service: Sysdig Secure
    • Best DevOps for Mainframe Solution: BMC AMI DevX tool suite
    • Best DevOps for DataOps/Database Solution: Percona
    • Best New DevOps Tool/Service Provider: New Relic Grok (now New Relic AI)

    DevOps Dozen Community Awards

    • Best DevOps Industry Implementation: St James’s Place DevOps Implementation
    • Best DevOps Survey/Analysis/Research: Accelerate State of DevOps Report by DORA
    • Best DevOps-Related Video Series (video): DevOps Exchange YouTube Channel
    • Best DevOps-Related Audio Podcast Series: DevOps Paradox
    • Best DevOps Book/eBook of the Year: Industrial DevOps: Build Better Systems Faster by Dr. Suzette Johnson and Robin Yeman
    • Top DevOps Evangelist: Fatima Sarah Khalid, Developer Evangelist at GitLab
    • Best DevOps Transformation (non-vendor): Pera People Science B.V
    • Best DevOps Event of the Year: swampUP by JFrog
    • Most Innovative DevOps Open Source Project: Jenkins
    • DevOps Executive of the Year (non-vendor): Garima Bajpai, Founder of Canada DevOps Community of Practice
    • Best DevOps Presentation of the Year: It’s Time to Rip Off the Training Wheels and Enable End-to-End Automation (BMC Software)
    • Best devopsy.kinsta.cloud Article of the Year: DevSecOps: The Fusion of Security and DevOps for Enhanced Software Security by Muneesh Sharma, Neem Consulting Ltd.

    Winners have been chosen from among the finalists, with public voting weighted for 40% of the final total and our judges’ selections for 60% of the weighted total.

    The DevOps Dozen Awards winners will receive digital and physical trophies and badges to celebrate their achievements.

    For more information regarding the entry process, awards, timing or any technical issues regarding the website, please contact us at DD@devops.com.

    About Techstrong Group

    Techstrong Group is the power source for people and technology. Techstrong Group accelerates understanding of technologies that drive business. With a broad set of IT-related communities and offerings, Techstrong Group is the only media company serving the needs of IT leaders and practitioners with news, research, analysis, events, education, certifications and professional development. Our focus is DevOps, cybersecurity, AI, digital transformation, cloud and cloud native. Techstrong Group business units include: Techstrong Media, Techstrong Associations, Techstrong Research and Techstrong Learning. For technology providers, Techstrong business units offer many ways to reach IT professionals and tell their stories.

    Techstrong Group is based in Boca Raton, Florida. For more information, visit us on the web and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram.

    ###

    Veronica Haggar
    Techstrong Group
    veronica@techstronggroup.com

  • DevOps Dozen² Awards 2023 Nominations Now Open

    DevOps Dozen² Awards 2023 Nominations Now Open

    We are excited to announce that the DevOps Dozen² 2023 nominations are now open. Now in its ninth year, the DevOps Dozen once again highlights the leading innovators in the DevOps world. 

    As we’ve done the last three years, there are actually 24 award categories. Twelve are aimed at the many great commercial DevOps solution categories in the market. The other twelve are aimed at the vibrant community and open source ecosystem which powers the DevOps movement. 

    As in years past, the selection process has two tiers. Nominations for finalists are open now and will close on October 20, 2023. We will announce the finalists on November 13, 2023. After the finalists are announced, open voting will be conducted to determine the winners in each category. Public voting accounts for 40% of the weighted final count, with 60% coming from the votes of this year’s panel of judges.

    This year’s judges are myself, Alan Shimel, CEO of Techstrong Group, Mitchell Ashley, CTO of Techstrong Group, Sharon Florentine, managing editor of devopsy.kinsta.cloud, and John Willis, DevOps luminary and author. As we’ve done in past years, we are asking the 12 companies that receive commercial category nominations to pay a nominal fee to cut down on spam submissions and help cover the cost of tracking the nominations, trophies and other administrative expenses. Community awards remain free to nominate but spamming nominations will result in disqualification.

    We have not changed the categories from last year, though we did consider adding a category for AI in DevOps. Perhaps next year. Without further ado, here are the 24 categories for the DevOps Dozen awards:

    DevOps Dozen Tools and Services Awards

    • Best End-to-End DevOps Tool/Service
      Consolidation in the DevOps space has led to a greater selection of platforms offering end-to-end solutions. This award honors the platform with the most diverse and robust solution for DevOps teams.
    • Best DevOps Repo/GitOps Tool/Service
      GitOps has become an integral part of the DevOps toolbox. This award is presented to the most outstanding code repository/Git/GitOps tool.
    • Best CI/CD Tool
      This award recognizes the best CI/CD tool that helps teams to deliver quality code faster.
    • Best Value Stream Management Tool
      Value stream management has come into its own as an important tool for measuring the business value of DevOps and application development. This award recognizes the value stream management tool that most effectively helps organizations visualize the value stream, track metrics and measure improvement.
    • Best Observability Solution
      This award recognizes the best observability solution for understanding the performance of individual components, systems and entire applications.
    • Best DevSecOps Solution
      This award honors the best DevSecOps solution, which enables security to be included earlier in and continuously throughout the SDLC.
    • Best Testing Tool/Service
      Testing is a mainstay in the DevOps toolchain. This award recognizes the best testing tool for ensuring the quality of code.
    • Best Kubernetes Platform/Service
      The adoption of containers has paved the way for an entire solutions ecosystem. Kubernetes is perhaps the most widely recognized and utilized tool for container orchestration. There are many platforms and services that offer Kubernetes-based solutions. This award honors the best Kubernetes platform/service available.
    • Best Cloud-Native Security Solution/Service
      The cloud-native movement has taken the IT world by storm due to the depth and breadth of the solutions available and the benefits of building applications and services specifically for cloud-native environments. This award recognizes the best cloud-native tools, solutions and services.
    • Best DevOps for Mainframe Solution
      Despite their age, mainframes are a mainstay in the IT world, and a variety of solutions are available for enabling DevOps practices in mainframe and hybrid environments. This award recognizes the best of them.
    • Best DevOps for DataOps/Database Solution
      Databases often have been left out of the DevOps conversation, but that is changing  as the concept of DataOps is gaining greater traction. This award recognizes the best solution in the database and DataOps space.
    • Best New DevOps Tool/Service Provider
      This award recognizes the best new service provider or tool that has brought innovation to the DevOps space in the past year (must be less than 24 months old).

    DevOps Dozen Community Awards

    • Best DevOps Industry Implementation
      This award honors organizations that have successfully adopted and implemented DevOps principles and practices.
    • Best DevOps Survey/Analysis/Research
      This award recognizes research that has significantly and positively impacted the DevOps community.
    • Best DevOps-Related Video Series (video)
      This category highlights the most entertaining, educational and inspirational DevOps video series—those with the most engaging and highest-quality content.
    • Best DevOps-Related Audio Podcast Series
      Which is your favorite DevOps podcast from this year? This category celebrates the many great DevOps podcasts driving discussions about everything from CI/CD and testing to DevSecOps, Kubernetes, containers and more.
    • Best DevOps Book/eBook of the Year
      Each year sees a plethora of well-crafted DevOps-related books and ebooks. This category highlights the most popular and  most-read of the year.
    • Top DevOps Evangelist
      This category is one of our favorites! There are so many great evangelists who spread the DevOps gospel, but we want to know who does it best. Nominees can work within the DevOps space or outside of it.
    • Best DevOps Transformation (non-vendor)
      In a year marked by continued digital transformation, we want to know which organizations stood out in their efforts to transform their business through DevOps.
    • Best DevOps Event of the Year
      Virtual events became the norm throughout  the pandemic. But as more people crave face-to-face interaction, in-person events have slowly made a comeback. Which DevOps event stands out from the crowd?
    • Most Innovative DevOps Open Source Project
      Open source projects are meant to promote innovation and increase efficiency, velocity and quality. While there are many great open source projects out there, the best ones are those that create a community of people who work on and with the technology and support each other.
    • DevOps Executive of the Year (non-vendor)
      This category celebrates excellence among DevOps leaders at the C-suite (or equivalent) level.
    • Best DevOps Presentation of the Year
      This category recognizes the best DevOps-themed presentation from the many (virtual) conferences that took place this year.
    • Best devopsy.kinsta.cloud Article of the Year
      This category celebrates excellence among DevOps leaders at the C-suite (or equivalent) level.

    Good luck to everyone nominating for the DevOps Dozen² Awards 2023. We will update finalists on November 13.

  • The Dog Ate My DevOps Dozen

    The Dog Ate My DevOps Dozen

    As the new Techstrong Group team member, I wasn’t familiar with the DevOps Dozen awards. The basics: It’s a cool program that recognizes excellence across a number of categories in the DevOps world. The winners will be announced during our Predict 23 conference on January 12. I have to tell you that the submission process was interesting. 

    It’s not surprising that many of the submissions came in on the last day. Some within the last hour of the last day. But what was surprising were some of the excuses we got when companies inevitably asked for extensions.

    No one actually used the “dog ate our submission” excuse—mostly because, well, it’s an online submission process so, unless the dog swallowed a computer, that’s not really a thing anymore. It seemed that honesty prevailed this year. We got a bunch of folks that said they were working on a major launch; others said they’d been consumed with getting ready for KubeCon and asked for a little more time.

    We were somewhat sympathetic since we also were getting ready for KubeCon and totally understand the all-hands-on-deck push required to get ready for a major event. We also encountered some issues with our payment processor which prevented the completion of some submissions. We’ve fixed the issue and we’ve learned from that experience, so it won’t be a problem next year.

    In terms of the categories, unsurprisingly the top three that attracted the most submissions were “Best DevSecOps Solution,” “Best End-to-End DevOps Tool and Service” and “Best New DevOps Tool/Service Provider”. Given the move to integrate security into the DevOps environment and the move to integrate the variety of DevOps tools onto a platform, the popularity of those two categories was expected. 

    The next wave of categories included “Best Observability Solution,” “Best Cloud-Native Security Solution/Service” and “Best CI/CD Tool” to round out the top six. Again, less strategic and more tactical in this second group.

    If you are looking to go where the crowds aren’t, the least-crowded three categories in terms of submissions were “Best DevOps-Related Video Series (Video),” “Best DevOps Transformation (non-vendor)” and “Best DevOps Presentation of the Year.” Maybe those aren’t the sexiest, most buzzworthy categories, but the competition is minimal.

    So what did we learn from this year’s submission process? Try not to wait until the last minute and that the most competitive categories are those that deal with hot issues. Keep an eye out for the beginning of public voting, and we’ll see you at the awards ceremony during Predict 23!

  • MediaOps, Boca Code Award ‘Engineer the Change’ Scholarship

    MediaOps, Boca Code Award ‘Engineer the Change’ Scholarship

    I am really proud to announce that, in partnership with Boca Code, MediaOps has awarded a scholarship for the Fall 2021 term to the Software Engineering Career Course, a 10-week rigorous and fast-paced coding boot camp from Boca Code. Alina Maliuk, a first-generation immigrant from Ukraine, is the recipient.

    The Engineer the Change scholarship was initiated by MediaOps to help foster diversity in the local tech industry and empower individuals from underserved communities to develop the skills needed to succeed in IT. Boca Code offers comprehensive training in software development to enable course attendees to develop these skills. 

    Need for Diversity in STEM fields

    Research shows a staggering lack of diversity in STEM fields, most noticeably within computer and engineering positions. The tech industry is predominantly white and male, which appalls me (yes, even though I am a white male), and I wanted to do something to encourage more diversity across our industry. Gender and race inequity are glaring workforce disparities that require both recognition and responsibility from those at the highest levels in the tech world to create a more diversified and equitable workforce.

    Two Full Scholarships Awarded Annually

    MediaOps sponsors two $10,000 scholarships each year to enable students to enroll in Boca Code’s flagship Software Engineering Career Course. The full-time, 10-week intensive course combines theory and hands-on, project-based learning to prepare students for a career in software engineering. As part of their coursework, students take on development projects for local businesses, providing the students immediate, hands-on experience with real projects.

    The Engineer the Change scholarships combine two goals that are core to the MediaOps team and me. The first is doing our part to make South Florida a world-class hub for the tech industry. The second is providing opportunities for individuals from disadvantaged communities to acquire the skills they need for a successful career in tech. My hope is that we also serve as an inspiration to other local companies to fund similar programs in support of these worthy goals.

    About Our Winner, Alina Maliuk

    Alina Maliuk scholarship
    Alina Maliuk, Engineer the Change scholarship winner

    Alina hails from Ukraine, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in management. After college, she married and had her first son. During her maternity leave in 2012, her family emigrated to New York. Being first-generation immigrants, they had to start their life here in the United States from scratch. For the first few years, Alina and her husband worked in entry-level jobs. In 2018, now a mother of two, Alina took several online classes in web development and rediscovered her love of learning—particularly software development. Now a resident of Boca Raton, Alina found Boca Code and attended a workshop in web development.

    Alina was energized by that workshop, which furthered the continuing education she had already begun. Through that initial course, the Boca Code team inspired her to go even further. She is ready to move on to her next career, which she wants to be in software engineering. Thanks to the Engineer the Change scholarship, she will now have an opportunity to accelerate her tech career. At the same time, she is demonstrating to other female immigrants in Florida that if you can dream it and work hard to achieve it, you can make it happen.

    Alan Shimel

    CEO, MediaOps

    Additional Resources

  • MediaOps and DevOps Institute Earn Inc. 5000 Honors

    MediaOps and DevOps Institute Earn Inc. 5000 Honors

    I am really proud to announce today that both MediaOps and DevOps Institute have been honored by Inc. and earned inclusion in the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing companies in America.

    For MediaOps, this is the second year in a row we have earned this honor. For DevOps Institute, it is the first year they have been honored. First of all, congratulations to all of the great people who work at and make both MediaOps and DevOps Institute the great companies they are. None of the success of these companies would be possible without their talent, skills, hard work and dedication. Thanks to all of you.

    Secondly, as the founder/co-founder of both of these organizations, I can’t tell you how proud I am that both of these companies have not only had the success they have (as evidenced by this honor) but that they have done so in the middle of a global pandemic. It really makes all of the hard work and the long days and nights worthwhile.

    For anyone who has ever started a business, you know that you put a certain amount of your blood, sweat and tears into any venture you are involved in. It is no different here! Since 2014 I have put everything I could into growing MediaOps into the company it is today. For DevOps Institute, I was lucky to have my partner Jayne Groll, DevOps Institute CEO, take the lead in making DevOps Institute the leading member organization/certification authority in the DevOps space today.

    Yes, you hope the monetary rewards of founding a company make it all worthwhile. But this kind of recognition is also very gratifying. It gives you the extra spring in your step and makes the load lighter.

    These awards also highlight something else. The ascendancy of technology. It is no coincidence that both of these companies play in the digital transformation space and have seen such success. Digital transformation is driving the world right now. Software is driving digital transformation, and DevOps, cybersecurity and cloud are driving software.

    At the end of the day, it is a great honor to have not one but two companies you started win this award at the same time. I think it speaks volumes about the future of both of these organizations. More news on that front is coming, so stay tuned for more great things coming from MediaOps and DevOps Institute!