Getting Distribution Right: DevOps Digital Transformation in 90 Days

You’re digitally transforming yourself and your company in 90 days whether you like it or not.

This is the new reality, as you find home office spaces (or lack of them), ways for kids to learn remotely, ways to conduct all of your family gatherings over a Zoom call, and more.

This is also the new business reality, as you ramp up a distributed digital workspace with the projects and infrastructure and collaboration tools and global access — change you always meant to make and now MUST make just to keep the business running. 

Here’s an example: one of the most impactful change agents in any software organization is the ability to effectively distribute software. Moving software releases over the last mile is a problem your company has certainly solved in some way. But what worked mere weeks ago may not be working now. And if you can’t get software to the people or devices using it, you’re not in business.

Software Updates Blocked

True story: some companies are still distributing software updates on thumb drives, manually installing apps at point-of-sale or medical devices. A JFrog customer that deals in medical equipment updates their software on devices every couple of months. That seemed fine – until the current pandemic hit. Not only do they need to update devices more quickly, they now have lost the ability to manually update their devices on-site for an industry actively fighting contagion. And they’re not alone. 

In today’s “distancing” reality, manual software update and distribution mechanisms are not just inefficient, they’re actually not allowed in many places for the time being. 

Even after current restrictions are lifted, does it really make sense to keep relying on manual processes to get your software from Point A to Point B? Not only is this inefficient, it’s expensive in both human and hard costs. Delayed releases can cost you new and current customers. That’s a cost of business that eats your core business.

You develop and deliver in support of your business goals, so why are you focused on developing and maintaining a distribution system?

JFrog Distribution – part of the award-winning JFrog Platform for end-to-end DevOps – can efficiently distribute your software in a completely automated and secure fashion, using tools you’re likely already using in your company. 

What is JFrog Distribution?

JFrog Distribution is a centralized solution that enables you to automate and accelerate the distribution of  software releases securely and verifiably. By managing software release bundles, employing smart caching, utilizing efficient replication and more, Distribution (as part of the JFrog Platform) can automate your delivery processes, including releasing content, enforcing permission levels, and updating target destinations. JFrog Distribution provides a secure and structured platform to distribute immutable software bundles to multiple remote locations and update them.

How does it verify software at the destination? As part of the release flow, release bundles are automatically verified to ensure that they’re signed correctly and safe to use. 

As a bonus, Distribution provides efficient network utilization (home network dependencies, anyone?) with binary replication optimization.

Your core business deserves your focus. Let JFrog take the burden off of delivery and distribution teams, and get you back to doing what you do best.

Author credits: The article is originally posted on JFrog by Jens Eckels, the director of product marketing at JFrog.