Introduction

Undoubtedly, computer systems and applications are of great help for the growth and performance of companies. One of the most important functions of the IT department is the development, implementation and monitoring of the company's applications. It is necessary to constantly improve the quality of the software that is generated or used. Therefore, it is recommended that most companies adopt the new DevOps philosophy to automate the development of applications.

In this post we will see how the Buddy platform makes use of its most outstanding features, to become an ecosystem that will facilitate the implementation of the DevOps philosophy in companies.

DevOps

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That happens all the time to us, the programmers; people always see us as beings from another world (particularly the bosses). Isolated beings, been plunged into computer world. Formerly the computer department was isolated from the other functions of a company. What often hinders the integration of this department in improving the performance of a company. However, it is well known that companies can progress and operate as fast as their IT allows them.

That is why new philosophies have been born dedicated to improving the quality of software continuously from its creation to its delivery, avoiding the delays caused by the correction of errors and problems that originate the complexity of the development of an application. Leading to a continuous integration too.

This is where the DevOps is born. Which are a combination of cultural philosophies, practices and tools, which combine the development of software (Dev) with the operation of software (Ops), thus increasing the ability to develop applications and computer services more quickly focused on the quality of software, from its creation to its delivery. Allowing to compete effectively in the market.

According to Dora (State of DevOps Report 2017) DevOps increases the frequency of installations by 46 times, accelerates the recovery time 96 times more and decreases the failure rates by 5 times.

Adopting this philosophy is not easy and is often expensive. So many obstacles arise when implementing DevOps, starting with the company's culture, the costs of test automation, the complexity of applications and, among other things, reduced budgets. The following image shows the top 10 barriers that prevent DevOps from being adopted

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But this is where Buddy comes to the rescue of application developers, by easily providing the DevOps implementation.

Buddy

Buddy is a platform created for the automation of applications development. Buddy offers an integrated ecosystem of solutions that not only make it easier for the developer to create applications, but also test them in a controlled environment and monitor them to their final state or delivery and beyond.

Buddy makes it easier to adopt DevOps in a very simple way. Buddy speed up the entire process of development and implementation of applications through 6 major components.

Pipelines

Buddy's main strategy for adapting DevOps in a company is through its pipelines or software production lines.

Buddy implements the idea of ​​automating pipelines, creating a software production line (as well as a vehicle assembly line) to improve the process from the creation and development of software to its implementation on the client side. This improves the times of software creation.

Buddy allows users to create as many pipelines as they wish. The pipelines are totally flexible and consist of steps or actions (as defined by Buddy) fully configurable by the user. Later we will see that Buddy has defined more than 80 actions to facilitate the development of applications through its marketplace.

In other words, Buddy allows the user to define their own automated software production line, establishing the steps to follow within the line for the development of applications, this includes continuous integration, software quality, monitoring and implementations.

Each pipeline can have its own file storage system. Buddy allows users to monitor the execution of each step or action within the pipeline as well.

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SandBoxes

Another great advantage of Buddy are the sandboxes. They allow to create a configurable environment to run applications and web implementations directly from a Git repository without having to have a server or virtual machine.

Automatically Buddy detects the content of the user's repository and selects the necessary configurations and development environment to run the application with a few clicks.

Among the environments supported by Buddy are: Php, Wordpress, Drupal, Laravel, Symphony, Node.js, Angular, Rails, Python, Cake, Magento, Joomla, Django, Meteor, among others.

Users can also add database services to the sandboxes (MySql, MongoDB, etc).

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Integrations

Buddy is associated with many service agents to integrate solutions to the development of applications. Among them are: Github, Bitbucket, Gitlab (as hosting services for codes); Slack (multi-platform messaging app); DigitalOcean, Vultr, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (cloud computing platform services); Heroku (Platform-as-a-Service); Shopify (platform for online stores); Cloudfare (content delivery network); Google Cloud Platform, among others.

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The DevOps Marketplace

Buddy has a marketplace where there are more than 80 actions to make it easier for users to develop and install the software. These actions are arranged on the pipelines to perform functions through a few clicks to create, test, install and monitoring applications in development; no matter how complex the applications developed are.

Buddy will implement bots to assist programmers to use the right actions in the development of their applications.

Buddy's marketplace allows external developers to place their own developed actions openly or for free or for payment, which can be used to help develop their own applications or those of other users.

To publish or acquire tools (actions) from the Marketplace, it is necessary to use platform's native tokens (BUD).

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Among these actions are: Code quality, Visual testing, Performance monitoring, Security actions, Continuous integration, Copyright protection.

Private Automation GRID

Generally having a DevOps infrastructure is a complex and expensive task for companies, since many times investments must be made to achieve scalability and I'm not including the 24/7 maintenance cost that this same infrastructure requires besides the aspect of reliability and security necessary for the infrastructure. However, Buddy provides a private network (and also a shared network) to ensure the scalability of the developments. Buddy creates a network of instances of the Buddy ecosystem to scale the automation of application development and installation.

This network is created on a reliable decentralized structure, integrating with IaaS providers, such as Google Cloud or AWS, all under the control of the user. The first two instances of Buddy that are created are of master type to ensure the availability of the system and the others that are created are parallel slave instances, as seen in the following image.

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Shared Automation GRID

The shared network offered by Buddy is made up of decentralized computing units, which are small entities with specific technical specifications (2 vCPU, 2 Gb RAM, 4 Gb of SSD). These are provided by the hundreds of users who are members of the Buddy platform. These units will perform intensive tasks automatically, such as performing software tests in parallel. In this way you can prove, in a real way, the scalability of a developed system. Among other tasks to perform, are stress test and monitoring of applications.

Buddy allows you to integrate the execution of an application in a Buddy's private GRID, to the shared GRID, as seen in the image.

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Buddy for Blockchain Apps

I have never developed applications or systems with Blockchain technologies. It is necessary to know the blockchain technology, what type of blockchain you want to work with, know EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine, the runtime environment for smart contracts); know about Solidity (programming language to create smart contracts) and obviously learn to develop distributed applications or dApps. I know, in these moments, most of the readers will think that I am speaking in Chinese, but it is the basic thing that is required to begin to venture into the world of blockchain programming.

Obviously, when we talk about distributed applications, it is necessary to have a platform that allows creating a network where applications of this type can be tested. We allso have to make sure of verifying errors and check security aspects. Fortunately, Buddy again comes to the rescue with 3 solutions.

BlockchainOps

Just as Buddy has a platform for the automation of the development of applications that facilitate web developers to create, test and produce systems in a simple way; Buddy also implements a solution for projects based on blockchain technology, allowing in an equally simple way (with a few clicks), compiling, testing, installing and monitoring developed dApps.

Within the DevOps Marketplace (mentioned above) also are a series of actions dedicated to the development of applications based on the blockchain. Among them are: Security, Analytics, Code Review and Optimization to test, analyze, optimize and verify the contracts created with Solidity. Deployment to install dApps, and Testing, to test smart contracts in live blockchains or in test networks specifically created for this task.

dAppOS

Buddy introduces an environment not only for the development of distributed applications or dApps, based on Sandboxes and native Linux containers; but also developers can check and monitor the performance of their projects in private networks or using Buddy's Shared Automation GRID. Buddy add database services such as Mysql, Redis, MongoDB, etc for the applications that require them.

Buddy also introduces universal templates for both dAppOs and Sandboxes, which reduces friction when experimenting with blockchain technology. Making work easier and more enjoyable for programmers and developers who venture into this world

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Distributed Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS)

Users of the Buddy platform can create a blockchain in a simple way, allowing the developer to focus on creating the nature of the blockchain they want (financial, notaries, pharmacists, medical histories, social networks, etc.). Through the Shared GRID, users can create unlimited number of nodes to test the implementation of the blockchain that they wish to create.

Not only can you create many nodes to test the implementation of the blockchain, but you can also create blocks to test the effectiveness of the blockchain designed.

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Buddy Baas supports blockchains such as Ethereum, Ripple, Multichain, HyperLedger and NEM. What makes it possible for organizations to evaluate and test blockchain technologies before their final implementation.

Depending on the type of implementation, Buddy can use the private GRID and the shared GRID to create the necessary instances for developers to test their implementations, simulating a decentralized real scenario.

As with the computing units, the nodes used to simulate a blockchain will be paid in native tokens or BUDs.

EOS Integration

EOS was created as an alternative to the Ethereum. However, EOS is more efficient and allows smart contracts to be modified unlike Ethereum. Buddy also allows you to create, test and deploy EOS-based applications easily through your BaaS system and test them on Buddy's shared GRID.

Through a process called Continuous Delivery, developers can create applications ready for the Mainnet.

If you want to know more about this function, there is a detailed example in the following link:

https://medium.com/@BuddyWorks/continuous-delivery-for-eosio-1b3898b7c757

BUD – The Token

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BUD is the native token of the Buddy platform. It's an ERC20 token. The token creates a strong decentralized economy with the aim of ensuring transparency and security for the participants of the Buddy platform.

Buddy leads an innovative approach with decentralized automation for the development and implementation of applications, within a market that is currently $ 110 billion, a market that is growing rapidly, and within 4 years, will be approximately $ 330 billion . This assures us the strength that the BUD token will have. Some stipulate that it will be as strong as Bitcoin.

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It will also serve as an incentive for experts and advisors, who will earn profits by executing work through Buddy actions to improve the quality, security and even the speed of applications among other functions (audit and certify code). Also to encourage developers to create new actions that will be part of the DevOps Marketplace.

Also as a source of governance to certify and curate DevOps Marketplace apps, establish bounties for the creation of new features and extensions for the platform. In addition to removing bad or dishonest users or nodes.

For users, they will use the token to pay for the actions used from the DevOps Marketplace; likewise they will pay for the use of the dAppOS, Private and Shared GRID environments. However, they can reduce costs by sharing their resources by being part of a Shared GRID.

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Use cases

Inc. Magazine

Inc. is a magazine specialized in companies. Founded in New York in 1979. Known for its annual ranking of the top 500 fastest growing private equity companies.

They use the Buddy platform to install and test the main project "inc.com" as well as other tasks and services associated with a remote MySQL server.

They also implement other smaller websites such as "women.inc.com" in environments under wordpress, using 2 pipelines synchronized with the development server

Docplanner

Docplanner is a platform in charge of finding the right doctor for the needs of the patient as well as taking charge of setting aside the appointment for the patient's consultation. It also helps to clarify doubts related to health.

Docplanner has more than 30 projects developed with the Buddy platform. One of the most striking aspects of Buddy is the easiness of configuration and is also responsible for deployments, migrations, updates and notifying the BI team.

Docplanner performs installations three times a day.

Flow

Flow is a platform for managing tasks and projects in teams, through task performance monitoring tools.

They agree with the previous company when saying that Buddy is very simple to configure, allowing to keep track of the released versions. The actions offered by Buddy make it easier to develop applications especially for a person who just starts with the tool. Buddy's pipelines system offers great clarity when developing, correcting, implementing or monitoring applications.

One of the best advantages of Buddy is the support.

Conclusion

As we have seen before, Buddy is a great tool to help us, the programmers, develop faster, safer and less error-free applications, without the need to configure or invest in expensive server equipment. This is a big impact in the application development process, since it allows us just to worry about creating and innovating more applications.

Buddy not only facilitates us create applications in a pre-configured environments but also gives us the opportunity to enter the world of blockchain programming and distributed applications in a simple and controlled way, allowing us to test the deployments in secure test networks (Testnets, private or shared GRID). Since as we saw earlier, programming in the blockchain world not only involves learning a series of new concepts (in addition to the philosophy of the distributed approach) but it is difficult to find where to test the applications or deployments created in a safe way.

Definitely, I am excited (as a programmer) to know that I have a new toy to play with :D!

Anexes

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My Video presentation