Spinnaker is an open-source multi-cloud continuous delivery platform co-developed by Google and Netflix. In a recent blog post, Google introduced the Spinnaker for Google Cloud Platform solution, which allows customers to install and run Spinnaker in the Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
Spinnaker for GCP simplifies the process of installing a production-ready configuration onto the Google Cloud Platform. It integrates with Google-managed runtimes such as Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Google Compute Engine (GCE), or Google App Engine (GAE) allowing teams to build, test, and deploy easily to those services. Furthermore, it integrates with other relevant Google services, including Cloud Build, Binary Authorisation and Stackdriver – allowing customers to expand their CI/CD pipeline and integrate monitoring, compliance, and security in the process.
Installation of Spinnaker is fast and straightforward, according to the blog post, and requires only a few clicks. Once the service is up and running, the Spinnaker installation includes all the core tools, as well as Deck, the user interface for the service.
With a production-ready configuration of Spinnaker, customers can benefit from:
- Secure installation – support for one-click HTTPS configuration with Cloud Identity Aware Proxy (IAP), providing control over who can access the Spinnaker installation.
- Automatic backups - a configuration of a Spinnaker installation is automatically backed up securely, for auditing and fast recovery.
- Integrated auditing and monitoring – Spinnaker integrates as mentioned earlier with Stackdriver, which provides a simplified way for monitoring, troubleshooting and auditing of changes and deployments.
- Simplified maintenance – there are various helpers available to simplify and automate maintenance of Spinnaker installations, including configuring Spinnaker to deploy to new GKE clusters and GCE or GAE in other GCP projects.
Furthermore, customers can add sample pipelines and applications to Spinnaker that demonstrate best practices for deployments to Kubernetes, VMs and more. Also, customer DevOps teams can use those pipelines as starting points to provide "golden path" deployment pipelines tailored to their requirements.
Source: https://www.bmc.com/blogs/kubernetes-spinnaker-continuous-delivery/
Spinnaker for GCP could have a broad appeal to companies, as the open-source version is a popular solution in its own right - hundreds of software teams at companies such as Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Cisco Systems Inc. and Box Inc use this version. Furthermore, Spinnaker for GCP is one of the latest offerings from Google with a focus on simplifying enterprises’ development workflows. For instance, last April, Google introduced a set of plugins collectively known as Cloud Code – making it easier for developers to move code from their workstations to GCP.
Lastly, existing Spinnaker users can migrate to Spinnaker for GCP today if they are already using Spinnaker's Halyard tool to manage their Spinnaker installations.