New Ambassador Edge Stack Capability Accelerates Cloud-Native Application Delivery

Delivery Acceleration module empowers organizations to build and deploy containers from GitHub code, integrate with CI/CD systems, and streamline the inner dev loop

Datawire, the company behind the most popular Kubernetes-native API gateway, Ambassador, announced a new Delivery Acceleration module available within the Ambassador Edge Stack that improves the process of building and deploying continuous delivery pipelines.

Datawire believes that the fastest way to implement continuous delivery in a cloud-native environment is to leverage the Kubernetes edge to build a version 0 or the first version of a microservice that validates the infrastructure setup. The critical elements in a version 0 include an efficient development loop, a simple continuous pipeline, a way to publish the code live, a way to update the code, and a mechanism to observe applications, traffic, and usage.

With this new module, the Ambassador Edge Stack provides teams a full solution for achieving a version 0 sooner. The module consists of the new MicroCD Pipeline feature and the integration between Ambassador and CI/CD tools such as Jenkins X. The module also includes Service Preview – a previously released solution for previewing code changes locally while sharing a development cluster.

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The MicroCD Pipeline and CI/CD integration work in combination to help streamline the process of building a version 0 and beyond. The MicroCD Pipeline feature enables developers to stand up a version 0 by building and deploying containers directly from GitHub code. Once the team confirms the infrastructure and makes progress on improving the microservice, they can switch to using a CI/CD solution such as Jenkins X with Ambassador. For simple, low-risk microservices that do not require the oversight and procedures that a CI/CD solution provides, teams can continue to use the MicroCD Pipeline. Examples of these simple services include lead collection and seasonal services for marketing.

The Ambassador Edge Stack has long supported developer self-service with its declarative edge policy engine for managing routings and centralizing authentication. This new module allows platform teams and developers to quickly bring their application online and remove friction from the inner and outer development loops.

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“The MicroCD pipeline is something that will be very useful for us,” says Dave Harding, Co-Founder & Technical Director of Cinolla Software. “We would start by deploying some of our small, non-critical services first, and then we could expand to set up new larger services in the future using this feature.”

“Standing up a continuous delivery pipeline that is frictionless yet robust — that is a challenging endeavor for organizations new to the cloud-native world,” says Bjorn Freeman-Benson, SVP of Engineering at Datawire. “The new MicroCD Pipeline feature will ease this essential process significantly so that teams can deliver business value sooner.”

“Jenkins X provides a full CI/CD workflow. When used in conjunction with Ambassador, organizations can leverage their existing identity providers and apply authentication, (Azure AD, JWT, and others) to any service deployed via Jenkins X,” says Oscar Medina, Developer Avócate for Jenkins X at Cloudbees. “This combination creates a frictionless solution for developers to secure applications and services and reduces the burden on developers and operations in the CI/CD workflow.”