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  • Datical Announces Support for Liquibase™ Workflow, Making Enterprise Database Release Automation Capabilities Accessible to Liquibase Users

    Market Leader’s Move Makes Critical, Enterprise-Class Database Release Capabilities Readily Accessible to Millions

    AUSTIN, Texas – Nov. 28, 2018 – Datical, the leading provider of database release automation solutions, today announced a new feature to allow Liquibase users easier access to its enterprise-class platform for automating database releases. The millions of software professionals that use the Liquibase open source project can now seamlessly upgrade to an enterprise-class solution offering greater efficiency, speed and risk reductions for all database deployments without having to change their existing process or workflow.

    With more than five million downloads, Liquibase is the leading open source solution helping application teams version and track database changes. While the versioning and tracking provided by Liquibase is sufficient for small teams and projects, as organizations grow and look for an enterprise-scale database release automation solution, Liquibase is not enough. Organizations are left with two options: 1) dedicate resources to expand, customize, integrate and maintain Liquibase or 2) shift to an enterprise, commercial offering, such as Datical.

    “The database release process is a critical piece to the agility of an overall business, no matter the size. Liquibase was a great first step. However, as our enterprise needs grew, we needed more. At the time, we were faced with two difficult options – either diverting a ton of time, money and resources from customer-facing applications to expanding and customizing Liquibase, or disrupting our development workflow with a commercial solution,” said Russell Webster, senior manager of Development and Test Services at Zions Bancorporation. “Now our teams have the flexibility to retain the development workflow they are used to with Liquibase while taking advantage of the enterprise-class database release automation solution from Datical and getting the commercial support and capabilities they need. It’s a win-win.”

    Datical is built on top of Liquibase and is the primary maintainer of the open source project. Datical brings important enhancements to Liquibase, including pipeline-based workflows, out-of-the-box integrations with all major application release automation solutions, and a powerful rules engine and change simulator that enable application teams to safely automate database code through the software pipeline just like application code.

    The world’s largest organizations rely on Datical to efficiently and effectively manage their database releases. Many customers, including Athene, MedImpact and Zions Bancorporation, originally started with Liquibase and moved to Datical when needs changed and teams expanded.

    “Increasingly it’s application developers who have to make database code changes, and most strongly prefer working with an object model for database changes instead of writing SQL,” said Nathan Voxland, founder of the Liquibase open source project and architect at Datical. “With the latest release, the millions of developers that have come to rely on the XML changeset model that Liquibase provides can continue efficiently working with the same model while taking advantage of Datical when their needs expand.”

    Liquibase users can benefit from a number of functional capabilities by moving to Datical:

    Enterprise-class support

    By upgrading to Datical, Liquibase users can go from: a public online forum to dedicated phone and email support; reading online documentation to having a dedicated implementation and training team; from making one-off pull requests or internally forking and maintaining an open source project to relying on Datical for key features and fixes as a part of the ongoing subscription. 

    Enterprise scale

    As organizations scale, so do their needs. Manually checking what has been deployed to a given environment with Liquibase can become a nightmare as teams and environments grow. By moving to Datical, users benefit from automatically generated reports and can easily access a centralized web interface that tracks what database changes have been deployed across all environments. As an added bonus, Datical’s web interface has rich features for searching and filtering on a variety of parameters so that any stakeholder can quickly trace or troubleshoot issues with database deployments.

    Enterprise automation

    While Liquibase can collect changes from developers and apply changes to a database to get it to the next version, it lacks rigorous validation that can lead to lots of rework and major deployment issues as teams and environments scale. Datical has a robust rules engine that enables developer self-service. Developers are notified immediately if their change needs to be reworked or reconciled against other work. Additionally, Datical simulates the impact of proposed database changes so deployments are much more successful as any errors are caught and can be addressed prior to deployment.

    Learn more about how Datical makes it easy to keep your existing Liquibase workflow and take advantage of enterprise class automation capabilities

    Resources

    About Datical, Inc.

    Datical’s mission is to transform the way businesses build software so they can deliver better customer experiences faster. Datical solutions deliver the database release automation capabilities technology executives need to get the most out of their Agile, Cloud, DevOps and Continuous Delivery investments. With Datical database release automation, organizations can shorten the time it takes to bring applications to market while eliminating the security vulnerabilities, costly errors, data loss and downtime often associated with current database deployment methods. For more information, visit www.datical.com, call 737-402-7187 or connect via @datical.

  • Delphix and Datical Extend Global Partnership, Bring New DataOps Solutions to Modern Enterprises

     One-half of all Fortune 50 companies work with Delphix, Datical to deliver high quality software – faster and more securely – to close Data Velocity Gap

     REDWOOD CITY, Calif., October 23, 2018 – Delphix, the company accelerating innovation through DataOps, today announced it has extended its partnership with Datical, the leading provider of database release automation solutions, to bring new DataOps solutions to market that unlock the potential of data to drive business transformation. Already in use by  one-half of the Fortune 50, Delphix and Datical are driving the emerging DataOps ecosystem that will enable more Global 2000 companies to open up the flow of fast, secure data to move fast and compete in today’s Digital Economy.

    With worldwide enterprise data expected to grow to 163 zettabytes (ZB) by 2025 (Data Age 2025, IDC), software development and DevOps teams are drowning in data; unable to use it to deliver innovation that keeps pace with ever-changing consumer demands. Delphix and Datical offer proven solutions that eliminate delays through automation to achieve 100x faster high-quality software releases, 10x less cost and no production outages.

    “As large enterprises look to accelerate their digital businesses, two of the biggest challenges they face are the incredible volumes of data being generated and the related lack of velocity from their database layer,” said Stephen O’Grady, Principal Analyst with RedMonk. “While application development has been revolutionized by the DevOps phenomenon, database management has lagged behind. This issue is what’s created the demand for an equivalent ‘DataOps’ style movement, and is why Delphix and Datical are focusing on these needs so intently.”

    “Businesses are feeling the debilitating effects of data friction, challenging their ability to move fast and confidently compete in today’s digital economy,” said Tony Orlando, SVP of Global Field Operations, Delphix. “Through our partnership with Datical and the DataOps ecosystem at large, we are enabling the secure, continuous flow of data within the world’s most complex enterprises, empowering them to accelerate innovation, reduce costs, increase quality and lead in their markets for years to come.”  

    Modern Enterprises Rely on DataOps to Unlock the Potential of Data

     “Data remains locked in legacy systems, and is holding [CEOs] back,” said Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff in a recent earnings call. Over the last three years, Delphix and Datical have worked with some of the most important brands in the world to help them unlock data to accelerate software development and close the costly data velocity gap.

     Together, Delphix and Datical enable enterprises to dramatically accelerate software development and testing. The unique combination of these solutions reduces the amount of time it takes to provision production-quality data from days or weeks to just minutes, while also eliminating manual tasks, such as reviewing and validating database schema and logic changes. Integrating these solutions into a software development toolchain is at the heart of the DataOps approach that transforms how businesses deliver new releases.

    A Top 5 investment management firm based in the US (with over $2 trillion in assets under management) uses Delphix and Datical to increase the speed and quality of application releases that are the backbone of its digital transformation efforts. In a short period of time, the global brand achieved:

    • A 100% increase in rate of application deployments;
    • A 90% reduction in data provisioning times;
    • Dramatic improvement in quality from eliminating data-related defects.

    Pioneers in the DataOps movement, Delphix and Datical are at the forefront of building the platforms and technologies that support this emerging discipline. As Gartner recently recognized in its Hype Cycle for Data Management for 2018, DataOps is the next chapter in the DevOps story that will accelerate business and help create the modern data enterprise.

    “Software is reshaping all industries and the pace of change is accelerating. Companies must speed up innovation in order to survive in the digital era,” said Derek Hutson, CEO and President of Datical. “To achieve their goals of faster time-to-market, companies continue adopting faster, more iterative development methodologies to be able to change and adapt more quickly – but data has become the new constraint slowing them down. Datical and Delphix are in the perfect position to help enterprise leaders remove that constraint and modernize the way data is managed throughout the software delivery lifecycle.”

    About Delphix

    Delphix’s mission is to free companies from data friction and accelerate innovation. Fortune 100 companies use the Delphix Dynamic Data Platform to connect, virtualize, secure, and manage data in hybrid cloud environments. For more information visit www.delphix.com.

    Follow Delphix on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

    About Datical, Inc.

    Datical’s mission is to transform the way businesses build software so they can deliver better customer experiences faster. Datical solutions deliver the database release automation capabilities technology executives need to get the most out of their Agile, Cloud, DevOps and Continuous Delivery investments. With Datical database release automation organizations can shorten the time it takes to bring applications to market while eliminating the security vulnerabilities, costly errors, data loss and downtime often associated with current database deployment methods. For more information, visit www.datical.com, call 737-402-7187 or connect via @datical.

    Follow Datical on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn

  • Colonial Life Achieves Full-Stack DevOps with Datical

    Market Leader in Voluntary Insurance Benefits Brings DevOps Automation to the Database; Delivers Innovation to Customers Faster

    AUSTIN, Texas – Sept. 20, 2018 – Datical, the leading provider of database release automation solutions, today announced that Colonial Life, a market leader in financial protection benefits for the workplace, has selected Datical as its partner to automate the deployment of database changes and accelerate DevOps.

    For nearly 80 years, Colonial Life (a subsidiary of Unum Group) has been an industry-leading voluntary benefits provider in the U.S. Colonial Life serves more than 4 million people at more than 90,000 companies and organizations with a comprehensive package of voluntary benefits including disability, life, accident, dental, critical illness, cancer and hospitalization insurance.

    In today’s increasingly competitive insurance market, providers must remain innovative with fast, frequent benefits updates and new application releases to deliver better customer experiences. To achieve this, organizations such as Colonial Life have turned to Agile and DevOps practices to deliver software innovation to market quickly and with high quality. However, despite investments in new technologies to automate the build, test and deployment of application code, organizations can struggle with incorporating the necessary speed and quality of database code changes into their software delivery process. This is because Agile and DevOps improvements have not been applied to the entire software development stack.

    “Our applications are very data driven, so it’s extremely important that our database code changes consistently move along the software delivery path with our application code changes,” said Colette Casey, technical architect at Colonial Life. “Prior to Datical, we had a very cumbersome process for reviewing, validating and deploying database changes. Unlike the automated process for deploying application code, this process was manual, and it was not uncommon that steps were missed or left incomplete. The database and application deployment processes were completely disconnected.”

    Colonial Life transformed its software delivery process and chose Datical to bring DevOps to the entire software stack, expanding beyond application code to include the critical role that data and the database play in modern software delivery. Colonial Life moved from a manual waterfall software delivery model to a modern, automated, faster continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline.

    Datical is changing the way businesses build software to deliver better customer experiences faster. Datical’s solution is designed to break the application release logjam created by today’s manual database deployment processes. Datical improves productivity and performance, allowing development, test and database administrator (DBA) staff to focus on more important projects and initiatives – overcoming the large hurdle of bringing data into the continuous delivery process.

    “Datical provides the ability, flexibility, speed and ease to make sure that our database code moves with application our code. If you want to deliver software innovation to market faster and more often, I can’t stress enough how important it is to include the database when automating the software delivery process,” Casey said. “The first release we took to production with Datical had about 600 database change scripts. In the past, this would have taken the better part of a day to deploy. With Datical, it was done in about one hour.”

    Resources

    About Colonial Life

    Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company is a market leader in providing financial protection benefits through the workplace, including disability, life, accident, dental, cancer, critical illness and hospital confinement indemnity insurance. The company’s benefit services and education, innovative enrollment technology and personal service support more than 90,000 businesses and organizations, representing more than 4 million of America’s workers and their families. For more information visit www.coloniallife.com.

    About Datical, Inc. Datical’s mission is to transform the way businesses build software so they can deliver better customer experiences faster. Datical solutions deliver the database release automation capabilities technology executives need to get the most out of their Agile, Cloud, DevOps and Continuous Delivery investments. With Datical database release automation organizations can shorten the time it takes to bring applications to market while eliminating the security vulnerabilities, costly errors, data loss and downtime often associated with current database deployment methods. For more information, visit www.datical.com, call 737-402-7187 or connect via @datical.

     

  • Robert Reeves 2018 DevOps Predictions – Mid-year Check-in

    Last December, I made some predictions for 2018. Now that we’re at the halfway point, let’s check in and see how those predictions are faring. After all, a key tenant of DevOps is measuring performance and seeking ways to improve it. With that in mind, I’ll evaluate what data we’ll need to either prove or disprove the predictions.

    Artificial Intelligence is the next big thing in DevOps

    More and more DevOps tool vendors are starting to look closely at artificial intelligence, specifically machine learning. Harness has functionality to determine if application performance has regressed after a new deployment. Interestingly, this is baked in and does not require the user to make any special configurations to access functionality. What this means is that if you deploy an application, Harness will know if the new version is less performant than the previous. Of course, this only watches the response time of the application, so other areas like database and network performance can affect it. However, it’s a good sign that DevOps tool vendors are starting to incorporate machine learning into their products.

    Platform as a service will deliver on cloud promises

    Anecdotally, Datical is seeing more and more Pivotal Cloud Foundry implementations that are in production and enabling new functionality in record time. However, it turns out that there are more challenges to overcome, specifically around the database. As Scott Yara from Pivotalstated, “At the end of the day, if we’ve moved the applications onto [Pivotal] Cloud Foundry, but we still haven’t touched the database system, and those database systems are still managed the same way that they’ve been over the last 20 years, then we really haven’t solved the whole problem.” It’s outstanding that PaaS providers are seeking to address all areas of the application to offer a complete solution to customers! The cloud providers are not really focused on this, and it will be up to the PaaS vendors to provide the level of abstraction developers need to focus on their applications and not cloud plumbing.

    RDBMS will continue to see growth and NoSQL will not replace it

    Since revenue numbers are not released until the end of the year, I’m going to claim this is a push. We just don’t have enough data to make a call on how correct the prediction was.

    The race for second place in cloud services will be fun

    This one has been spot-on. If you like tech drama, you’ll love watching the cloud providers’ war of words. Specifically, things have become entertaining with software vendors and cloud providers teaming up against Amazon’s bid for a Pentagon contract. In fact, it has made for some very interesting partnerships such as a coalition of Oracle, Microsoft and IBM.

    Just as entertaining was the Google Cloud Next conference with the announcement of Google Kubernetes Engine On-Premise. Companies can now have the GKE in their data center. The hope from Google is that when companies have that completed, it will be a no-brainer in moving to Google Cloud Platform (GCP). I certainly expect more cloud providers to offer the ability to run the same services in both on-prem and cloud to smooth the transition to the cloud. This is a very different approach than “lift and shift,” and I expect that sort of orthogonal thinking from providers who are not in the top two.

    Security will shift-left and development will claim it was all their idea

    Well, this was certainly a cheeky prediction. But, if you do a Google search on “DevSecOps <random security company>”, you’ll see blog posts as recent as last month on topics like “5 Tips for Getting the Most Out of DevSecOps.” Also, security software companies are now urging their customers to adopt DevSecOps quickly after adopting DevOps. And that’s a great idea. After all, the Equifax breach would not have happened if they had adopted DevOps and were able to patch their version of Apache Struts quickly.

    Fewer and fewer companies will forget the database with DevOps

    With software company executives from Pivotal, XebiaLabs and Delphix urging their customers to bring the database to the DevOps party, this prediction appears to be proving correct.

    The Astros will repeat as World Champions

    The Astros lead the AL West and are second to the Red Sox in the AL. So, looks like they are on track to the get to the postseason. Of course, their secret has been data analytics and convincing their staff to use the findings. Here’s a great article about the process.

    My man, Chris Devenski, is having a good year, but not the All Star year he was having last year. So, unless he starts getting a save every game from now until the end of the year, a Cy Young award is not in the cards for this year.

     

  • Why Database Development is in a League of Its Own

    Why Database Development is in a League of Its Own

    Despite how the database is the lifeblood of many organizations, its management remains siloed and is more often than not left to a separate team of resident experts outside of the sphere of DevOps. Database developers also may work separately from the database administrators, thus further slowing down deployments.

    The end result, of course, is that database management generally fails to benefit from the same level of agility DevOps offers application development. Bottlenecks thus occur when slower and less-agile database development holds up DevOps-managed application releases and deployments.

    Determining the role DevOps needs to play for successful database development hinges on a number of things, including making sure everyone is on the same page when it comes to database changes.

    Database changes can mean different things to different people. For example, a database change can mean applying a patch or fix, or it can mean deploying database changes. It’s thus important to add context to avoid confusion. “When you talk about deploying database changes, it involves changing the structure and the logic of a database to keep it in sync with the applications it supports,” said Ben Geller, vice president of marketing for Datical.

    “Database release automation” also calls attention to how DevOps needs to address both the application-code pipeline and the database-code pipeline, Geller said. “When you’re doing application release automation, you’re automating the build, deployment and release of application code. When you’re doing database release automation, you’re automating the build, deploy and release of database code.” Geller said. “You need both of those things to happen in sync to in order to ship software.”

    An example of a database change that can be processed with Datical’s rule engine. Source: Datical

    The ability to rely on a DevOps teams to successfully deploy and manage database schema and logic changes is also contingent on adopting the right tools.

    This is not to say that making the shift to using DevOps to give database development the attention it requires is easy. Getting there often can require major changes to an organization’s DevOps’ processes, including making cultural and job-definition adjustments. Realizing what exactly is involved conceptually as well as adopting the necessary tools, for example, represent the starting points.

    Meanwhile, the resulting advantages and improvements to an organization’s ability to deploy database schema and logic changes in ways described above should pay off in both the near and long term. This likely will lead to improvements in agility measured by deployment speeds and other key performance metrics.

    — B. Cameron Gain

  • Datical Expands Leadership Team, Relocates Headquarters to Support Rapid Growth

    Leader in Database Release Automation Adds CRO to Executive Team and Opens New Headquarters Location to Accommodate Continued Expansion

    AUSTIN, Texas – June 7, 2018 – Datical, the leading provider of database release automation, today announced the appointment of Hyrum M. Smith as chief revenue officer (CRO) and the opening of its new corporate headquarters, signifying the company’s upward momentum and setting the stage for continued expansion.

    As CRO, Smith will drive integration and alignment between sales, marketing, revenue management and business development worldwide. Smith comes to Datical with an impressive 20-year track record as a software sales professional. Prior to Datical, he served as senior vice president of North America enterprise sales at OpenText, an enterprise information management software and solutions provider.

    “I’m very excited to have joined the Datical team. We’re solving a really hard problem and doing something very special,” Smith said. “Today, every business is a software business. It doesn’t matter if you sell insurance, run a bank, sell athletic apparel or manage a supply chain. To behave like a software company, enterprises are executing on massive digital transformation initiatives in an effort to bring new innovation to market faster and more often. Savvy business leaders are turning to IT automation to help them deliver software innovation faster, but data management is the new constraint grinding delivery of software innovation to a halt. Using automation, Datical is reinventing the way data is managed throughout the software delivery process.”

    Datical has witnessed rapid growth, tripling its customer base and team size over the last two years, requiring a larger office space to accommodate this aggressive growth trajectory. Centrally located at 9211 Waterford Centre Blvd., Suite 100, in Austin, Texas, the new headquarters represent a strategic move in attracting and retaining top talent in the area.

    “This growth – both from the executive team standpoint and headquarters expansion – represents the next phase for Datical,” said Derek Hutson, CEO of Datical. “We’re thrilled to welcome Hyrum, as he’s a key addition to our leadership team at this point of the company’s evolution to continue to scale revenue growth. Our new headquarters will allow us to continue growth and innovation as we help customers transform their businesses. Our new headquarters location accommodates growth all while providing a collaborative work environment reflecting our company culture and values.”

    Datical is transforming the way businesses build software so they can deliver better customer experiences faster. The company strategically guides some of the world’s most admired organizations through their digital transformation and database deployment modernization efforts. The Datical database release automation solution is designed to break the application release logjam created by today’s manual database deployment processes. Datical improves productivity and performance, allowing development, test and DBA staff to focus on more important projects and initiatives.

    Datical is actively recruiting for a variety of positions in customer success, software development and sales. To learn more about employment opportunities at Datical, visit https://www.datical.com/company/careers/.

    Resources

    About Datical, Inc.

    Datical’s mission is to transform the way businesses build software so they can deliver better customer experiences faster. Datical solutions deliver the database release automation capabilities technology executives need to get the most out of their Agile, Cloud, DevOps and Continuous Delivery investments. With Datical database release automation organizations can shorten the time it takes to bring applications to market while eliminating the security vulnerabilities, costly errors, data loss and downtime often associated with current database deployment methods. For more information, visit www.datical.com, call 737-402-7187 or connect via @datical.

    Contact

    Danielle Salvato-Earl

    Offleash for Datical

    datical@offleashpr.com

     

  • Datical Announces the General Availability of Datical 5

    Enterprise-class platform enhances database release visibility and increases developer productivity

    AUSTIN, Texas – May 3, 2018 – Datical, the leading provider of database release automation, today announced the general availability of Datical 5, its enterprise-class platform for automating database releases to deliver efficiency, speed and risk reduction for database deployments.

    Unveiled through a beta program in early February, Datical 5 speeds software deployment by providing a central command center to achieve a unified pipeline for application and database changes, freeing up time for development, test and database administration teams to create and deliver better application experiences — faster. For the first time ever, developers are now empowered to continuously manage and rework database code changes, allowing for seamless and efficient collaboration across the DevOps pipeline.

    “As a trusted partner to hundreds of brands and retailers, delivering a seamless and efficient online client experience is core to our business, and we can’t afford any bottlenecks in our CI/CD process,” said Devon Siegfried, database architect, Radial. “Datical 5 helps us bring automation to the operations side of DevOps, clearing the path from development to production for the entire application, including the database. This not only gives more time back to database teams, but it also allows us to continue to bring new innovations to market that exceed client expectations.”

    In additional, Datical announced new Datical 5 capabilities to its existing list of features:

    SSIS Support

    As organizations continue fueling key business decisions with data, there has been a growth in ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) workloads. However, as software releases accelerate and production database schemas evolve to support new capabilities, teams responsible for ETL processes are falling behind. To help organizations make decisions with the latest data, Datical has new capabilities to support Microsoft SSIS, one of the industry’s most popular ETL solutions. Specifically, Datical 5 can version SSIS packages and orchestrate when SSIS jobs are performed alongside schema changes. With these capabilities, organizations can effectively manage database releases and simultaneously coordinate ETL workloads to ensure that no data is lost in deliberating important business decisions or in meeting audit and compliance requirements.

    Integration with Development Automation Tools

    As organizations mature in their adoption of Agile and DevOps practices, the market has witnessed growing consumption of deployment automation and orchestration tools. These tools tie together individual automation tools and technologies, streamline approvals processes and provide a single pane of glass for stakeholders to manage the entire software development process. Datical plugins for XebiaLabs’s XL Deploy and IBM’s UrbanCode Deploy have been updated so that teams relying on Datical 5 and either of these deployment automation solutions can immediately bring the database into view as they orchestrate software releases.

    “As enterprises continue to look for new ways to solve deployment challenges and modernize automation, Datical is at the forefront, empowering development teams with the tools needed to streamline the entire software development lifecycle,” said Pete Pickerill, co-founder and VP of product strategy, Datical. “Our new capabilities make it easy for application teams to focus on what is most important — the data.”

    Availability

    Datical 5 is now generally available. For more information, contact Datical.

    Tweet this: .@Datical 5 is now generally available, empowering #DevOps teams to effectively manage #database #software releases. Learn how it streamlines #automation for #ContinuousDelivery: https://bit.ly/2Fxy92U

    Resources

    About Datical, Inc.

    Datical’s mission is to transform the way businesses build software so they can deliver better customer experiences faster. Datical solutions deliver the database release automation capabilities technology executives need to get the most out of their Agile, DevOps and Continuous Delivery investments. With Datical database release automation organizations can shorten the time it takes to bring applications to market while eliminating the security vulnerabilities, costly errors, data loss and downtime often associated with current database deployment methods. For more information, visit www.datical.com, call 737-402-7187 or connect via @datical.

    Contact

    Danielle Salvato-Earl
    Offleash for Datical
    (650) 922-7287
    datical@offleashpr.com

  • Datical Helps Pull DBAs into Modern DevOps Age

    Datical Helps Pull DBAs into Modern DevOps Age

    As organizations move to embrace DevOps, some have inadvertently left database administrators (DBAs) behind. As a result, developers increasingly find themselves managing databases, as DBAs can’t keep up with the rate of change introduced by DevOps processes. To help narrow that growing gap between developers and DBAs, Datical created a namesake platform that applies continuous deployment/continuous integration (CI/CD) processes the management of databases.

    An update to the Datical platform now adds real-time views and dashboards that illustrate the status of database deployments. DevOps teams now can simulate the impact of changes before they are deployed in a production environment and enforce rules to meet audit and compliance requirements. A new management tool also makes it easy to track database changes across the pipeline as well.

    Pete Pickerill, vice president of product strategy for Datical, said Datical 5 now makes it possible to automatically apply the updated changes to a database without many of the steps that slow down application development on top of databases.

    Finally, with this release, Dacital also provides a mechanism for centrally managing all the credentials attached to database.

    While agile development methodologies have lead to an increase in the rate at which code is being written, database management continues to act as a drag on the rate at which applications are being deployed and updated. Datical decided to address that problem by creating a platform that specifically applies DevOps processes to the management of databases, said Pickerill.

    Organizations that still rely largely on manual database processes often find the level of tension between developers and database administrators to be high. Developers often will simply opt for a database they can manage themselves rather than engage a DBA. That can result in suboptimal choices being made for different classes of application workloads that become apparent once the application starts to scale. The challenge and opportunity is to put tools in the hands of DBAs that enable them to respond rapidly to changing application dynamics, said Pickerill.

    Of course, in many instances developers have simply taken over the database administration task. But every minute spent on those tasks is one less minute a developer is writing code. The more efficient option is to find a way to integrate DBAs into the overall DevOps process. The effort requires both providing DBAs with access to new tools as well as changing an IT culture where many DBAs assumed the application development strategy revolved around their ability to find time to manage a database. Today, DBAs are now being asked to manage a multitude of types of databases that are being deployed in unprecedented numbers. Clearly, processes rooted in approaches to database management developed a decade ago or longer no longer suffice.

    Not every DBA will make that transition. But at this juncture it’s clear that fundamental change to the way databases are managed is now a matter of when rather than if.

    — Mike Vizard

  • DATICAL DEBUTS CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION SOLUTION FOR THE DATABASE

    Datical DB 4.0 keeps database administrators from having to review vast majority of database changes

    Austin, Texas – July 7, 2016 – Datical, the leading provider of agile database automation solutions, today announced Datical DB 4.0. This latest release seamlessly maps development-driven database change management to proven continuous integration (CI) workflows. These modernized database change workflows closely parallel the way application code is managed in highly automated environments.

    Datical DB 4.0 includes a new Automated Deployment Packager that allows database changes to be continually validated, packaged and integrated via more pervasive, hands-off automation. Datical DB’s automation capabilities drastically reduce the amount of time database administrators (DBAs), developers and QA teams spend managing these changes from ideation to production deployment.

    The Automated Deployment Packager empowers DBAs to keep pace with accelerating application releases by offloading the majority of manual review, approval and deployment activities each time a database change is requested by development. By employing Datical’s Automated Deployment Packager, database developers are now able to check change scripts for popular database platforms like Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server or IBM DB2 into source code control solutions like Git, Apache Subversion or Team Foundation Server. This triggers a process that automatically accepts or rejects the proposed changes based on validation routines defined and customized by seasoned DBAs.

    Validation routines ensure that changes are well designed and compliant with organizational standards and best practices. The routines keep DBAs from being involved, unless there is a particularly important reason for them to be.

    “Upwards of 90 percent of developer scripts and database changes don’t need to be touched by a DBA, and with Datical 4.0, DBAs only need to involve themselves with the small subset of changes that do require their attention and expertise,” said Pete Pickerill, co-founder and VP of product at Datical. “This release is giving DBAs back their time, focus and sanity in helping them return to the role they were meant to play.”

    Over time, automated validation and detailed reporting help developers build an understanding of the difference between an acceptable change and a change that will break the build.

    Once a set of changes is approved, it is packaged and labeled for easy deployment to other environments through tight integrations with popular build and release automation tools like Jenkins, IBM UrbanCode, XebiaLabs XL Deploy or Electric Cloud ElectricFlow, or by using Datical’s graphical or command line interfaces. Database change management becomes a self-service experience for development, test and operations teams. As a result, DBAs are freed up for more strategic pursuits like performance tuning, capacity planning and the evaluation of new technologies and data platforms.

    Lastly, Datical’s Automated Deployment Packager also eliminates the painful task of reconciling partially-updated database environments by ensuring that the environment always reflects the latest approved version or else reverts back to the most recent wholly-approved, backed up and stored version, all with minimal downtime.

    “As we’ve looked to involve the database in continuous integration, we’ve found that Datical represents the ideal pathway,” said Devon Siegfried, database architect at Radial, formerly eBay Enterprise. “There’s honestly no substitute for the way that Datical allows us to deploy database changes in such an effective, closely tracked and controlled manner. To top it all off, Datical’s implementation and product teams have been unmatched.”

    To learn more about Datical DB 4.0 or to request a demo, please visit: www.datical.com.

    About Datical Inc.

    Datical’s mission is to radically improve and simplify the application release process by automating database management. Datical solutions deliver the database automation capabilities technology executives need to get the most out of their Agile, DevOps and Continuous Delivery investments. With Datical agile database automation organizations can shorten the time it takes to bring applications to market while eliminating the security vulnerabilities, costly errors, data loss and downtime often associated with current database deployment methods. For more information, visit www.datical.com, call 949-DATICAL or connect via @datical.

     

  • JFrog, Puppet, Datical & Sendachi – Money Continues to Pour Into DevOps

    JFrog, Puppet, Datical & Sendachi – Money Continues to Pour Into DevOps

    The stock markets may be bearish, the price of oil is down the drain, but money continues to pour into the DevOps tools and solutions market. Just in the last few days 4 companies have announced significant new funding. Whether this is a last gasp before the doors slam shut, the tech industry thumbing their nose at the rest of the business world or proof that the recent market downtrend is a red herring I don’t know. But as someone who has lived through more than a few bubble bursts in the tech world it bears watching.

    For now though, the good times continue to roll! Lets review the new funding news:

    jfrogJFrog raises an astounding $50m! That amount of money is nothing to sneeze at! I spoke with Shlomi Ben Haim, CEO at JFrog. They have over 120 people working there in offices in Israel, HQ in Santa Clara and France. Their JFrog Artifactory and JFrog Bintray are hosting software for organizations the world over, big and small.  Ben Haim and his team, as well as his blue chip investors believe the time is now as DevOps goes mainstream. They want to make sure they have the money to capitalize on the opportunity. Congrats to the JFrog team and we are excited to see what this money translates to for them.

     

    puppet-labs-logo Puppet Labs raises $22m in debt financing. While Puppet continues its phenomenal growth it took the opportunity to grab $22m in debt financing from Silicon Valley Bank. I spoke to Puppet CEO Luke Kanies about the raise and he told me that he is not even sure the company will use this money, as they still have a sizable portion of their last raise in the bank and are getting close to profitability.  But at today’s low interest rates who can blame him for taking advantage of available cash? There was a time when debt financing was frowned upon. Why take on debt when you could give some equity for cash. But in today’s low interest rate/ high valuations world, why give valuable equity when you can get money for near free?  In addition to the money, Puppet is also expanding their offices by about 37,000 square feet and have appointed financial veteran, Lou Lavigne to their board. This continues their preparation towards and IPO down the road. Of course with the market where it is, they may be better off staying private.

    logo-datical-bDatical raises $8m Series B round. Databases as part of the DevOps movement are going to have their day and Datical wants to be the company to make it happen. To do that they have raised a Series B led by S3 Ventures. They money will be used to continue development of their agile Database automation tools, as well as sales and marketing. I had a chance to speak with Ben Geller and Robert Reeves of Datical. One of the things they want to use the funds for is to expand beyond the North American market. That is a wise move given the economic environment and the reality of a global marketplace. There was a time when Internet companies could concentrate on the US and thrive, but the demographics just don’t support it anymore.

    Sendachi_Logo_gray.232337Finally, today marks the debut of Sendachi. Sendachi is a consulting firm dedicated to helping companies with their DevOps transformation. It was (initially anyway) formed by the merger of Seattle-based Clutch and London based Contino. Along with $30m dollars from Columbia Capital. The money will be used to expand the firms marketing and business teams. Some portion of it though will also probably be used to fund further acquisition. I had a chance to speak with former Clutch and now Sendachi CEO,Steven Anderson and former Contino founder and my friend Ben Wooten. They were both very excited by the potential of this Atlantic spanning venture. Anderson said that the $30m is just the start and if necessary more capital could be available for strategic purposes. My feeling is that we may be seeing the birth of a roll up in DevOps consulting practices in Sendachi.

    In other M&A news on this topic, Docker announced it has acquired Unikernel Systems as well.

    Congratulations to all of the companies raising capital and buying and selling. Anyone who has had to raise money or have bought and sold a company knows that it is not an easy thing to accomplish.  Who will be the next DevOps company raising money? We probably won’t have to wait long to find out.