JFrog is providing free access to cloud-based DevOps tools to teams or organizations that have launched projects to actively research and fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ido Green, vice president of technology for JFrog, said this initiative will be made available via its FrogCare program mainly to nonprofit organizations. The goal is to make it easier for teams launching these projects to embrace DevOps practices to more easily sustain these applications for the long term, he said.
Thus far, JFrog is supporting a mix of short- and long-term projects that address various aspects of the pandemic, he said, adding JFrog is not so much interested in the quantity of the projects it supports as much as the merits of the research project.
Specifically, JFrog will provide access to cloud-based tools such as Artifactory, Xray and Pipelines with no time limits. Organizations participating in the program will get 5,000 build minutes and 250GB of storage space for free each month along with 500GB of free data transfer. Those teams will also receive free support. If they exceed quotas in a given month, JFrog promises to not shut off access to its services.
Green said JFrog is in a better position to help these projects because many of them are already using various application development tools. The modular architecture of the JFrog platform makes it easier for those teams to extend those tools using a DevOps platform that is designed to meet each team where they are in terms of application development and deployment maturity, he said.
JFrog expects most of these applications will be accessing massive amounts of big data in the cloud, Green noted. As such, most of these applications will be built using modern cloud-native stacks of software that make it easier to scale workloads up and down as needed. Of course, many of the organizations building these applications may not have the greatest appreciation yet for best DevOps practices. However, free access to platforms such as JFrog should also make it easier for DevOps practitioners to donate their time and expertise to help build and deploy these applications. In many cases, application development projects in vertical industry segments impacted by the pandemic have been suspended or terminated altogether. In the short term at least, there should be more DevOps practitioners with some extra time on their hands.
Longer-term, it’s also clear that health care and life sciences will emerge as hotbeds of application development and deployment for years to come. DevOps specialists who want to move into that industry sector might benefit from volunteering to work on a research project. JFrog also envisions that over time it will serve as a conduit through which multiple teams working on these projects around the globe could share insights and best practices.
It’s not clear to what degree the COVID-19 pandemic will transform IT in general and DevOps in particular. What is certain is that the amount of focus on preventing future pandemics both inside and out of IT is creating a unique opportunity to make a unique DevOps contribution.
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