Exclusive Interview with Kavita Vishwanath, GM at JFrog India

DevOps increases an organization's ability to deliver applications and services at high velocity, evolving and improving products at a faster pace than organizations using traditional software development and infrastructure management processes. With these capabilities, the demand for DevOps is increasing day by day.

Speaking with Analytics Insight, Kavita Vishwanath, General Manager at JFrog India sheds light on various DevOps-related information and offerings of the company.

Kindly brief us about the company, its specialization, and the services that your company offers.

JFrog is a universal, end-to-end DevOps platform that automates software releases from code to production. We provide continuous, secure, and seamless delivery of software from development to any device, without bottlenecks, update pains, hassles, downtime, or risk. The JFrog platform is a combination of six different products that solve challenges faced throughout the DevOps supply chain. After an artifact – or code-set – is written, the JFrog platform helps safely store, manage, secure, and distribute those artifacts. It also helps collect key metrics about the artifact's performance, correlates them across diverse systems, and provides actionable information on how to improve software updates and release cycles. What makes the JFrog platform unique is its ability to deliver ubiquitous security and scalability on-premises, in the cloud, or using a hybrid model. We give customers the flexibility they need to address changing business needs and do so with the peace of mind their software is always up-to-date, reliable, and secure.

The industry is seeing a rising importance of business and technology enablers like virtualization, convergence, and cloud. How do you see these emerging technologies impact your business sector?

This sector is very dynamic and ever-changing with new technologies impacting how we approach the market almost daily. With the help of virtualization, the DevOps teams can develop and test within virtual and simulated environments using similar devices and systems to the end-users. This way, the development, and testing become more efficient and less time-consuming. Virtual live environments can also be provided to test the software at the deployment level. This helps in real-time testing, as the team can check the effect of every new change made to the software.

At the same time, DevOps automation is becoming very cloud-centric. The tight integration of DevOps activities with the cloud lowers the cost associated with on-premises DevOps automation technology and provides centralized governance and control for a sound DevOps process.

As more and more businesses move to the cloud so they can deliver new features quickly and at high frequency, security is of increasing concern. It's a significant cultural shift to embed security within DevOps practices – what has been termed, "shifting left"- but it's a critical step. Much like the name implies, DevSecOps is all about guaranteeing security is prioritized and infused to every aspect of the DevOps delivery pipeline to ensure only the most 'hardened' code gets deployed. In today's age of increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks both at home and from abroad that threaten both our personal data and critical infrastructure, making security a top priority is essential.

Do you also feel that the right kind of talent is a challenge in the industry? What are the skill sets that you specifically look for while hiring them at an initial stage?

DevOps professionals and cloud architects are expected to keep pace with the evolving landscape of cloud computing along with understanding the complexities and processes of the technology ecosystem that cloud computing creates. Development teams and IT operations teams can have different skills and different goals. The biggest problem with the rapid advancement of these next-generation technologies is that the number of tech professionals who are able to keep up is simply lacking. Factors that were once easy to categorize or workaround in the hiring process, such as seniority, certifications, time out of work, etc., are now trickier to handle. Additionally, DevOps and cloud architecture roles take an advanced level of soft skills – communication, collaboration, and adaptability in particular – to truly succeed in these complex, multi-functional business infrastructures.

Apart from coding and scripting skills, what we look at is that the person has good knowledge and understanding of various infrastructure automation tools such as Python, Bash, Node, Shell, Ruby, etc. Familiarity with popular tools such as Docker, Puppet, Chef, Jenkins, etc. is also vital in the role. A potential hire is also someone who understands the CI/CD processes and tools that helps with integration and creating cohesive delivery pipelines.

How is IoT/big data/AI/robotics evolving today in the industry as a whole? What are the most important trends that you see emerging across the globe?

AI and the Internet of Things (IoT) are redefining the way businesses operate today. DevOps and AI are interdependent since DevOps is a business-driven approach to deliver software, and AI is the technology that can be integrated into the system for enhanced functionality. With the help of AI, DevOps teams can test, code, release, and monitor software more efficiently. AI can also improve automation, quickly identify, and resolve issues, and improve collaboration between teams.

IoT and DevOps are also closely interconnected since DevOps helps ensure updates are seamlessly delivered to the growing number of edge devices being used by enterprises today. The reliable performance of an IoT solution requires a constant feedback loop, regular monitoring, speedy issue resolution, and frequent upgrading. Internet connectivity creates the opportunity for a constant infusion of innovation into the system, without waiting for the next "big bang" release. It's a process of continuous learning that necessarily requires developers and operators to collaborate closely every day.

There's no question the pandemic helped accelerate DevOps and business digital transformation in the last year. We have seen a greater shift towards the cloud, increased use of collaboration tools, a growing number of devices being used remotely – all of this puts increased pressure to ensure software applications are always secure and up-to-date. While our society is beginning to emerge from the throws of the virus, I'd say we'll continue to see cybersecurity, IoT, AI, and cloud have a dramatic impact on DevOps in the future.

Can you throw light on the latest trends to watch out for in this sector?

Last year accelerated remote work, expedited the migration to the cloud, turned DevOps from a best practice to an essential part of every business, and a growing number of devices being used remotely – all of this puts increased pressure to ensure software applications are always secure and up to date. To do this, it's essential to recognize the vital importance of artifacts, binaries, and repositories. Artifacts are the building blocks that makeup software. Binaries are the single source of truth for what developers are building and will, ultimately, push to production. While the binary repository is a tool that enables building by providing a shared place for artifacts during build-time. DevOps teams also need ways to address the challenges of distribution at scale. As developers race to accelerate deployments and concurrent downloads across complex environments-including hybrid infrastructure, edge and IoT devices-network bottlenecks can limit their effectiveness and productivity. Finally, establishing a strong DevOps culture, promoting automation, communication, accountability, and increased collaboration, helps developers work alongside operations as one integrated team.

Kindly mention some of the major challenges the company has faced till now.

We have witnessed more opportunities than challenges specific to DevOps over the last year. The pandemic severely impacted almost all businesses forcing companies to take innovative approaches to collaboration, which worked as a trigger for organizations to think about developing and releasing software much faster than ever before and automating nearly everything. With IDC predicting 60% of enterprises will deploy to production daily or faster by 2025, there's no doubt that DevOps stands at the epicentre of the global economy, as do the developers who make it possible.

From that standpoint, one thing that has become more challenging as of late is finding the right talent. Developers and DevOps engineers have evolved into full-stack DevOps engineers, with expertise spanning the end-to-end software development lifecycle. But DevOps is not just about skills, it's also about culture. So while a DevOps engineer has a general understanding of coding basics, and how to support application development and delivery, 'softer' skills like strong leadership, project management, and robust interpersonal skills are also required and sometimes are challenging to find all of this in a candidate.

What are your growth plans for the next 12 months?

India is a strategic market for JFrog and we believe there is still tremendous opportunity for growth. Not only is it one of the fastest-growing R&D centers, but it's also home to top-quality tech and software development talent. Over the past year, we have managed to achieve some incredible milestones such as going public, growing our team, and engaging with several market-leading companies across all verticals. I'm excited to continue that momentum as we march towards the end of the year and into 2022. There's no question India is an important market for JFrog and we'll continue to invest here so we can deliver increased value to our growing customer base, employees, developer community, and partners in the region.

What is your leadership mantra?

I believe that leadership is about service vs. position or power. The service I deliver to JFrog is to always make sure my team has what they need to be successful. If they don't meet their goals, it's likely because I didn't do enough to help them.  I also believe you need to lead by example, which I strive to do each day. The greatest part is working at a company like JFrog makes it easy to lead and inspire my team because I'm passionate about what we do here. When you're working on something exciting that you really care about, inspiring the team comes naturally.