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Tag: Techstrong Research

  • Global Survey Finds Testing as the Most Valuable AI Investment Across the Software Development Lifecycle

    Global Survey Finds Testing as the Most Valuable AI Investment Across the Software Development Lifecycle

    Tricentis report reveals AI-augmented DevOps tools will save teams over an estimated 40 hours per month—equivalent to an entire workweek

    AUSTIN, TEXAS – August 6th, 2024 – Tricentis, a global leader in continuous testing and quality engineering, today released the findings of its most recent AI report, “AI-augmented DevOps: Trends Shaping the Future.” This year’s research aims to understand to what extent the anticipated benefits of AI in DevOps have been realized today, and how a lack of trust, skills, or other challenges could affect its adoption.

    When asked to evaluate the most impactful areas for AI investments across the delivery cycle – such as planning, coding, deploying and releasing – DevOps practitioners ranked testing as the most valuable (60%). This result was foreshadowed in the Tricentis’ 2022 study, which found that testing is where organizations expected the greatest value from AI-augmented DevOps, with nearly 70% of respondents having rated the potential of AI-augmented testing as extremely or very valuable.

    The research finds that DevOps teams are realizing the benefits of AI, with mature DevOps teams who have adopted AI significantly more likely (30%) to rate their teams as either extremely or very effective. The biggest challenges DevOps teams are using AI to address are developer team efficiency (60%), reducing the skills gap (54%), cost reduction (47%), and software quality (42%). In fact, almost one third (32%) of respondents estimate AI-augmented DevOps tools will save teams over 40 hours per month—equivalent to an entire workweek.

    The 2024 results show that teams use AI to augment a wide range of testing tasks, including test planning/deciding what to test (47.5%), test case generation (44%), and analyzing test results (32%). Additionally, nearly half (42%) of respondents expect AI to perform a risk analysis of code changes, helping QA teams focus on code areas with the greatest risk of errors to quality.

    The report surveys 500+ DevOps practitioners, managers, and executives from small, mid-size, and enterprise organizations across the globe and in several industries, including financial services, healthcare, and manufacturing.

    Other 2024 findings reveal:

    • Regulation is expected to help build trust, but others worry it will stifle innovation and outcomes. Nearly two thirds (63%) of those surveyed view increased regulation as a way to build confidence in AI across their organization, while a smaller—but not insignificant—number of DevOps practitioners (16%) feel increased regulation will hinder or stifle the potential impact of AI in organizations.
    • Humans remain vital to ensure software quality, but there’s a shortfall in AI skills. Data shows that humans are still very much “in the loop,” with over two thirds (71%) of respondents checking outputs at least half of the time, and almost one in five (19%) claiming to check AI outputs all of the time. However, a lack of AI skills (28%) is seen as the greatest hurdle to AI adoption in DevOps.
    • Generative AI (Gen AI) and AI copilots are key drivers of AI adoption: GenAI (45%) is now the most widely adopted type of AI used by DevOps practitioners. In particular, AI copilots are also on the rise, with use cases in planning, code development, and software testing.

    “AI is an exciting technology and growing at a pace unlike anything we’ve seen in our industry,” said Mav Turner, Chief Product and Strategy Officer, Tricentis. “As AI technology is further developed, however, training software development and quality engineering teams with the necessary skills to effectively work with AI will be absolutely critical.”

    “DevOps teams looking to get started with AI should look no further than their testing processes. AI in testing helps to detect, auto-heal and predict defects during development, as well as identify which tests need to be run based on high risk. When coupled with low-code/no-code technology, this means that, regardless of a team’s technical expertise, AI can significantly contribute to overall software quality. As DevOps teams continue to mature, testing will be pivotal to realizing their investment in AI-augmented DevOps tools and practices.”

    To view the full findings of the report, download the complete “AI-augmented DevOps: Trends Shaping the Future” report here and register for the upcoming webinar on Thursday, August 29th here.

    Additional resources:

    Survey Methodology

    The findings are based on a global study conducted by Techstrong Research on AI augmentation in DevOps environments. The survey was fielded from April 19 to June 30, 2024, and yielded responses from 500+ DevOps practitioners, managers, and executives in the Americas, Europe and the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific from small, mid-size, and enterprise organizations.

    About Tricentis

    Tricentis is a global leader in continuous testing and quality engineering. The Tricentis AI-based, continuous testing portfolio of products provide a new and fundamentally different way to perform software testing. An approach that’s totally automated, fully codeless, and intelligently driven by AI. It addresses both agile development and complex enterprise apps, enabling enterprises to accelerate their digital transformation by dramatically increasing software release speed, reducing costs, and improving software quality. Widely credited for reinventing software testing for DevOps, cloud, and enterprise applications, Tricentis has been recognized as a leader by all major industry analysts, including Forrester, Gartner, and IDC. Tricentis has more than 3,000 customers, including the largest brands in the world, such as McKesson, Allianz, Telstra, Dolby, and Vodafone. To learn more, visit https://www.tricentis.com.

  • Best of 2022: Three Cloud Trends to Watch in 2022

    Best of 2022: Three Cloud Trends to Watch in 2022

    As we close out 2022, we at devopsy.kinsta.cloud wanted to highlight the most popular articles of the year. Following is the latest in our series of the Best of 2022.

    Many developers and startups view cloud services as simply “compute”, “storage” and “networking.” The cloud has matured to the point where customers often don’t think about the underlying infrastructure, service levels or debate the merits of on-premises versus cloud&;mdash;instead, they are increasingly cloud-first. In fact, December of 2021 marked Amazon Web Services (AWS) marked its tenth AWS re:Invent conference—the company’s annual conference for customers and partners.

    While many startups don’t think twice about centering their IT strategy around the cloud and SaaS offerings, the enterprise has been slower to adopt cloud computing at scale. The conversation for these companies revolves around security, compliance, SLAs and the loss of control over their technology stack. In many ways, little has changed about the questions that enterprises are asking about the cloud.

    As the year starts, I’ve been reflecting on various conversations I’ve had with a variety of IT and business leaders, Digital CxOs and vendors. Below are three trends that I will be tracking this year.

    1. Alternative Vendors Gain Momentum

    The “big three” hyperscalers continue to dominate the market and garner the bulk of customer and partner attention. However, we are seeing increasing interest in the alternative cloud market. The alternative market includes vendors outside of the big names (AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle, IBM and Salesforce). Developers and businesses are increasingly looking at alternative vendors and their offerings because they are easier to use than hyperscalers, less expensive and offer more predictable pricing models. In addition, with the tight labor market, hiring developers that are, for example, AWS certified can be extremely expensive. On the other hand, because alternative clouds are less complex, developers do not need to have the same certifications.

    You might ask: What about the global scalability, quantum computing and/or the thousands of APIs that the hyperscalers offer? The truth is that most small and midsize businesses don’t actually need any of those capabilities and don’t want to help subsidize the R&D that these technologies require. Companies to watch in the alternative cloud market include Linode, Digital Ocean, OVHcloud, UpCloud, Hetzner and Equinix Metal. In 2021, Techstrong Research published a report, DevOps and the Alternative Cloud, that dives deeper into these alternatives.

    2. Industry-Specific Cloud Ecosystems Expand

    Banking, insurance and companies in other highly-regulated industries have been slow to adopt cloud computing. However, the market is quickly evolving and businesses are rethinking their approach to the cloud. One of the reasons these regulated companies are starting to invest more heavily in the cloud is because customers have heightened expectations when it comes to how they engage with businesses. If customers are unhappy, it’s easier than ever to find alternatives. These highly-regulated companies and industries are being increasingly challenged by fintech, insurtech, healthtech and other industry-focused startups.

    Just as importantly, vendors are realizing that one size doesn’t fit all. Regulated industries need specific clouds that meet their regulatory and compliance needs. These industry-focused clouds aren’t being designed as an entire ecosystem where a variety of technology partners can offer their software to regulated industries. Instead, vendors have taken two different approaches to offering industry-specific offerings. Some providers are offering pre-built but customizable applications. Some notable announcements in the area of banking clouds include the following:

    • Goldman Sachs and AWS are working together to create data management and analytics solutions for financial services organizations (announced at re:Invent 2021). The result of this collaboration is the Goldman Sachs Financial Cloud for Data. It’s unclear if AWS will be offering a more general financial services ecosystem in the future.
    • IBM continues to grow its Cloud for Financial Services in terms of signature clients and partners. IBM built its cloud for financial services in collaboration with Bank of America, then hired the bank’s CTO, Howard Boville, to head up IBM’s hybrid cloud business.
    • Microsoft announced general availability of the Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services in November of 2021 (interestingly, it’s not named Azure for Financial Services). The company already has a large footprint in the financial services industry, and we’ll be tracking the adoption of Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services closely. In September 2021, Wells Fargo unveiled their digital infrastructure strategy that relies heavily on its partnership with Microsoft, but there is no mention of Wells Fargo using the Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services.

    I expect other industry-specific clouds to follow a similar pattern—with large vendors partnering with key industry incumbents to create cloud ecosystems that meet the performance, security and compliance requirements for that industry. For example, you can certainly imagine Oracle creating a Cloud for Health Care after the acquisition of Cerner closes.

    3. Software Supply Chain Becomes a Key Security Focus

    “Supply chain” was a key phrase across all industries and job functions in 2021. I’m particularly tracking the software supply chain—which, as you can imagine, is immense and complex. In essence, your software supply chain includes anything that might impact your software. That includes APIs, cloud services, containers, your DevOps pipeline and all of the open source components that you use. Software has many dependencies, and understanding the supply chain is critical to knowing your security and risk exposure. Take, for instance, the recent Apache Log4j vulnerability. Use of Log4j is pervasive, but how many companies were actually able to quickly identify what software is at risk? Check out Alan Shimel’s December blog post, Log4j: It’s All About the Supply Chain, Baby! to learn more about software supply chain security. In addition, API security is going to be a very hot topic in 2022.

    However, people remain the number-one cybersecurity threat. Although complex cyberattacks by ransomware gangs and state-sponsored actors get much of the attention, cloud misconfigurations and unpatched software are likely your biggest threats. Understanding your software supply chain will help uncover potential weak points and allow you to add automation, observability and/or other security tools to help spot potential problems.

    The Cloud Evolution

    Although the cloud isn’t new, the cloud market is continually evolving. While the developer community has been quick to adopt cloud computing, large enterprises have lagged—and regulated industries have been even slower. The alternative cloud market is offering different options for developers and businesses that don’t want the complexities of hyperscalers and don’t need their endless options and global footprint. At the same time, regulated industries are changing their cloud strategies thanks to cloud offerings that are uniquely focused on the challenges of their industry. Finally, you need to secure your software and data no matter where it resides. Focusing on your software supply chain will help ensure you can react to security vulnerabilities and update elements when needed.

  • Security Luminary Mike Rothman Joins Techstrong Group as Chief Strategy Officer and GM of Techstrong Research

    Security Luminary Mike Rothman Joins Techstrong Group as Chief Strategy Officer and GM of Techstrong Research

    Long-time analyst, author and industry leader brings thought leadership to Techstrong Group’s distribution channels for impactful insights into cybersecurity, DevOps, cloud-native and digital transformation.

    Boca Raton, FL, July 12, 2022 — Techstrong Group, the power source for people and technology, expanded its leadership team with the appointment of Mike Rothman as chief strategy officer (CSO) and general manager of Techstrong Research. Rothman will help lead Techstrong Group in all aspects of its business, bringing impactful perspectives and a clear strategic vision to the wide distribution channels Techstrong Group has established. Rothman also will manage the Techstrong Research business unit that provides cutting-edge industry research and strategic advisory expertise.

    Rothman joins Techstrong Group after spending 12 years as president of Securosis, a boutique information security research firm. Mike also co-founded DisruptOps, a cloud security operations platform, and served as its president until the company’s acquisition by Firemon in September of 2021. He brings 30+ years of experience as a research analyst and security leader and is recognized as a voice of reason for business leaders in an often over-hyped and extremely complex security industry.

    “I am elated to work with Mike Rothman to help Techstrong Group achieve its full potential,” said Alan Shimel, CEO and founder of Techstrong Group. “I am looking forward to Mike taking an active role in leading our company, driving groundbreaking research and working with our entire team, our communities and sponsors.“

    Rothman’s wide-ranging experience includes nearly every security market over his career, recently specializing in security operations, cloud security and DevSecOps. Time spent in CMO and VP of strategy roles at security companies gives Rothman unique insights on go-to-market planning, messaging architecture, selling strategies and making technology relevant to the business.

    In 2007 Rothman published The Pragmatic CSO to introduce technically-savvy security professionals to the nuances of what is required to be a senior security professional. He has an engineering degree in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering from Cornell University.

    “I could not be more excited to join Alan and the team at Techstrong Group,” said Rothman. “With a laser-focus on DevOps, security and cloud-native infrastructure—the most important markets in technology—and an audience of hundreds of thousands of subscribers and attendees, Techstrong Group is perfectly positioned to be the leading voice of the evolution to this new computing model.”

    Rothman will join Techstrong Group immediately to begin helping Techstrong Group’s audience navigate the current market and technology landscape. He will be contributing content and analysis across all Techstrong Group brands, including devopsy.kinsta.cloud, Security Boulevard, Container Journal, DigitalCxO, Techstrong TV and, of course, Techstrong Research.

    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 areas are digital transformation, DevOps, cybersecurity, cloud and cloud-native. Techstrong Group business units include: Techstrong Media, Techstrong Research and Techstrong Live!. For technology providers, Techstrong Group 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 and Instagram.

    Media Contact
    Leah Van Zee
    Call: +1 (561) 430-3347
    Email: leah@techstrongroup.com

  • Survey Sees Alternative Cloud Service Providers Gaining Ground

    Survey Sees Alternative Cloud Service Providers Gaining Ground

    A survey of 458 development professionals, managers and senior leaders conducted by Techstrong Research, a sister entity of devopsy.kinsta.cloud, found 43% are considering adding additional cloud service providers in the next 12 months. In total, nearly two-thirds said they are at least considering, evaluating or are ready to buy from a trusted alternative cloud vendor, with 20% reporting they have already contracted one.

    The survey, conducted on behalf of Linode, an arm of Akamai Technologies that provides cloud services, found a full 93% of survey respondents are already using either Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Compute Platform (GCP). Nearly two-thirds (65%) reported they already used more than one cloud service provider. More than a quarter (28%) said they are using alternative providers to augment services they consume from either AWS, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, IBM Rackspace or Alibaba. And 19% said they are using a hyperscaler and an alternative cloud service provider.

    The biggest drivers respondents cited for using alternative providers are reducing reliance on a single provider (55%), improved price/performance (38%) and recent cloud outages (31%).

    Respondents also said they are concerned that large providers might one day compete with them as they expand their reach into other industry segments (24%) or may engage in business practices that would create a moral conflict (19%). A quarter (25%) said they already viewed their cloud service provider as a competitor.

    Dan Kirsch, principal analyst for Techstrong Research, said as cloud computing continues to mature, it is becoming apparent that more organizations are considering their options when it comes to consuming commodity compute, storage and networking services. Many organizations simply don’t need to access complex cloud services, he noted. A total of 42% of respondents said a cloud service provider offering core infrastructure primatives could handle 90% of their typical workloads. In many cases, alternative cloud service providers are being used to augment rather than replace a hyperscale cloud service provider, noted Kirsch.

    Overall, nearly three-quarters of respondents (74%) said they expect their infrastructure will be cloud-based by the end of this year. Nearly three-quarters of respondents buy cloud services directly from an infrastructure provider, with the rest employing a managed services provider or some other type of third-party cloud services reseller.

    More than one-third of respondents also reported using a payment mechanism other than a contract or request for proposal (RFP), according to the study. Among customers of alternative cloud providers, more than two-thirds (67%) are using some other payment mechanism, with one-quarter using cryptocurrencies to pay. That option is becoming increasingly important because more organizations are looking for ways to reduce costs by employing alternative payments, said Kirsch.

    In other cases, IT professionals are looking for an end-run around cumbersome purchasing processes or simply opt to use alternative payment methods as a matter of personal preference, he added. Alternative providers, as a general rule, are more open to processing these types of payments, noted Kirsch.

    The shift to the cloud has clearly been accelerating since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. But as the landscape continues to evolve, there are now more options than ever for IT organizations to consider as the cloud becomes the preferred platform on which to deploy applications.

  • Techstrong Research DevOps Radar Report 2022

    Techstrong Research DevOps Radar Report 2022

    You can’t control the pace of change; instead, consider that we are in a process of reinvention—both with regard to the way organizations use technology and how vendors position their offerings. At the same time, it’s never been more important for IT organizations to have complete visibility into the way technology is used from both a security and operations perspective. 

    This need to embrace reinvention while continuing to have broad and deep insight across all technology platforms led me to create a 2022 DevOps Radar Report. In this article, I highlight three near-term priorities that must be on every technology team’s radar. In addition, I’ll point out some long-range radar trends that should be on your agenda.

    Collision Warning! Your Current Radar View

    API Security

    APIs are the lifeblood of the cloud-native and app-based economies. Increasingly, poor API security across a variety of applications and systems puts your organization at risk. A compromised API or the use of unsupported or outdated APIs can prove to be an easy attack vector for cybercriminals. In addition, API vulnerabilities are calling into question how organizations approach application security and the usefulness of web application firewalls (WAF) and encryption protocols. Therefore, API security is rapidly becoming a top security priority for enterprise security teams and software professionals. 

    Failing to adequately manage the security of APIs creates a host of new challenges and questions that you must consider. For example, who is using which APIs? Are your APIs updated? Did your DevOps team evaluate the security of your APIs during their selection process? Have you formalized the way your organization is evaluating API security?

    It is increasingly clear that an API breach can lead to the downfall of your entire digital software strategy—but it doesn’t have to be this way.

    At Techstrong Research, we segment the market into “pure-play” API security vendors and larger security vendors with specific API security offerings. Our team will be publishing a Market Vista report on the API security landscape soon, so if you want to share your opinion or thoughts, please reach out.

    Below is a brief list of some of the vendors we are tracking in the API security market. Of course, expect consolidation—some of these pure-play vendors will likely be acquired in 2022.

    Pure-play API security vendors we’re tracking include:

    General security vendors with API security offerings that we’re tracking:

    Observability is Evolving to AIOps

    Modern applications are composed of containers and APIs that your organization can’t control, and into which visibility is difficult. Monitoring and application performance management (APM) solutions aren’t new; for many years log vendors built their businesses on collecting log files and sending alerts … so what’s changed?

    First, logs without context are meaningless. You need to understand upstream and downstream dependencies. Additionally, speaking for myself, I’m a mere mortal—if your teams are also made up of mere mortals, there is no way they can ingest, correlate and understand the tsunami of incoming DevOps log data quickly enough to take proactive measures.

    Besides the need to understand context, we are dealing with multiple cloud and on-premises platforms that each have their own logging protocols. Ultimately, the goal of observability and AIOps is to understand what’s happening across and among all these environments and technologies so you can detect and resolve issues as quickly as possible to keep your systems efficient and reliable and your customers happy. 

    Humans are the Biggest Security Vulnerability

    As an industry analyst, I see our clients pouring resources into cybersecurity efforts to prevent zero-day attacks and sophisticated advanced persistent threats (APTs). These threats, while real enough, are mostly external and may not pose as great a threat as many organizations believe. In fact, the vast majority of security vulnerabilities are caused by:

    • Well-meaning employees making innocent mistakes, including:
      • Falling victim to phishing attacks
      • Poor corporate password policies
      • Cloud misconfigurations and open ports
    • Technical debt—relying on older software and hardware that was never designed for a 100% mobile workforce, for example

    The first step in combating this problem is improving security awareness and building a cybersecurity culture. That starts with everyone in your organization understanding that security is a team sport and that it is a 24/7/365 responsibility. Even if you work from home; even when you’re cooking dinner while checking email on your phone, you need to have your “corporate security/Is it safe?” hat on.

    At the same time, machine learning, AI and automation have a role to play. There are emerging offerings that help enforce DevSecOps best practices and help security teams reduce the constant noise so they can focus on the most vital threats.

    Longview Radar: Plan Your Strategy Now

    To support emerging business models, what do DevOps leadership teams need to be thinking about from a long-term perspective?

    • Web3/Web 3.0 and the potential for change to the internet business model. But there is still a ton of opportunity with Web 2.0.
    • How will you support low-code/no-code? As a business model, vendors are selling directly to business units—it’s likely that your IT team has an existing solution to solve the business pain point(s).
    • Packaged software offerings that include blockchain, NFTs and other digital ledger technologies.
    • How to upskill teams, both from a technical perspective and a business perspective.
    • Providing developer teams with the tools they need while establishing guardrails to enforce governance and compliance requirements.
    • How to manage cloud costs in a predictable way no matter how many cloud vendors your organization uses.

    Conclusion: You Can’t Put the Brakes on Change

    Attempting to control change and the speed of reinvention is futile. You need to get comfortable riding the waves of industry change, or you’ll be swept away! Every IT leader needs to learn how to roll with and manage the ebb and flow of business, IT and personnel change.

    The best place to start is by building a successful culture within your organization. Although we often talk about technology-focused solutions to business problems, the first step on this journey doesn’t involve tech at all; it involves helping IT and business teams understand each other’s pain points and learn how they can each support a continual reinvention process.

    I will be tracking these incoming radar targets and other associated trends throughout the year and I look forward to your input. Do you think I missed something? Have a question or want to share what your organization is doing to support the need for continual reinvention? 

    Feel free to engage with me – @DDKirsch, LinkedIn or, of course, email. 

  • 2022 Predictions: AI, Security and Cloud

    2022 Predictions: AI, Security and Cloud

    It is difficult to find a single area of the technology landscape that isn’t incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into products and services. As we move into a world where distributed computing is the norm for business operations, AI is a requirement given the increasing level of complexity in computing environments. While there are many different ways AI is penetrating computing, I think that there are a few specific areas where we will see a huge amount of growth in terms of innovation and investment. 

    AIOps will be at the forefront of monitoring and managing distributed computing environments.

    2022 will be a busy year for AIOps vendors and product offerings. Expect that, in 2022, you will see a massive number of large enterprise software companies bringing AIOps offerings to market—either as part of distributed computing management suites or as individual tools. In addition, there will be a flurry of well-funded startups entering the space. One of the first areas where AI models are productized is in the area of AIOps. AIOps provides the ability to apply machine learning models and automation based on data about the patterns and anomalies within IT operations. AIOps is an implementation of observability and helps businesses monitor and manage their IT environment based on collecting and managing data about operational patterns that are expected and correct. It also determines when there is an action that is outside of the norm, and provides either an automatic correction or offers IT operations management the ability to correct errors before they impact business operations. 

    Expect a year of consolidation in advanced analytics, security and solution clouds. 

    We’ve already seen 2022 kick off with a flurry of acquisitions. While we haven’t seen blockbuster buys, we have seen smaller acquisitions by big vendors that need more to sell their existing customer base. One exception is Alteryx, which purchased cloud-native analytics vendor Trifacta for $400 million in cash. In contrast, IBM recently purchased Envizi, an Australian data analytics firm focused on analytics for environmental, social and governance (ESG) requirements. This is just the beginning. We expect there to be a flurry of acquisitions in the hot observability market (solutions focused on analyzing how well the internal states of a system can be inferred from knowledge of its external outputs).

    As security continues to grow in importance, key emerging security vendors also will be hot commodities in the acquisition space. For example, Microsoft has acquired RiskIQ, a security software vendor focused on gathering threat intelligence about a wide range of cyberattacks across multiple public and private clouds. We also predict that many of the large cloud vendors will move aggressively to buy cloud business solutions.  

    Looking Forward

    It is easy to get caught up in the flurry of announcements and acquisitions coming at us fast and furious. However, the reality is that businesses need to know that whatever new shiny objects are introduced, these solutions need to be able to solve real customer problems that impact revenue and growth. It may sound obvious, but I think that vendors need to pay a lot more attention to customer pain.