Can you tell our readers about JFrog? The journey and the India chapter?

JFrog Ltd. (NASDAQ: FROG), is on a mission to power all the world’s software updates, driven by a “Liquid Software” vision to allow the seamless, secure, fearless flow of binaries from developers to the edge. The JFrog DevOps Platform enables software creators to power their entire software supply chain throughout the full binary lifecycle, so they can build, secure, distribute, and connect any source with any production environment. JFrog’s hybrid, universal, multi-cloud DevOps platform is available as both self-hosted and SaaS services across major cloud service providers. Millions of users and thousands of customers worldwide, including a majority of the Fortune 100, depend on JFrog solutions to securely embrace digital transformation.

We started operation in India in 2018 on the back of a couple of strategic acquisitions, and we’ve been expanding our footprint and rapidly delivering DevOps innovations to the market ever since. Over the past few years, we have managed to achieve some incredible milestones such as going public, growing our team, and engaging with several market-leading companies. India is home to 5M developers and DevOps is a growing focus for every organization. This puts India on the map for any DevOps company.  We are continuing to invest here so we can deliver increased value to our growing customer base, employees, developer community, and partners in the region.

How is JFrog helping businesses in their digital transformation journey?

DevOps helps organizations achieve digital transformation by changing the approach towards building and releasing applications. A developer cannot work in a silo anymore and needs to think beyond just writing code. Digital transformation is often represented as the implementation of digital devices and applications. However, it’s all about ‘cultural transformation’ driven by the collaborative thought-process and change in mindset.

All these factors help organizations satisfy evolving consumers. The JFrog DevOps platform is the manifestation of our Liquid Software vision. We see a world without versions where software updates flow seamlessly and securely from development to any device, without bottlenecks, update pains, hassles, downtime, or risk. Our unique, end-to-end platform solves challenges found in critical pieces of the DevOps supply chain, such as safely storing, managing, securing, and distributing all types of code-sets (or Artifacts), such as collecting key metrics, correlating them across diverse systems, and providing actionable information to improve software updates and release cycles. Our complete platform, with its unmatched capabilities, sets us apart from our competitors.

What are your business plans for India?

According to IDC, Indian enterprises are continuing their digital transformation initiatives with a clear focus on scalable, secure, and agile frameworks. As a result, the corresponding software markets are experiencing accelerated growth with estimates forecasting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.0% between 2020–2025. In an age where companies and their products run on software – and developers within those companies need scalable solutions they can use to confidently update software in real-time an end-to-end platform becomes a must and mission-critical to all organizations. We aim at providing customers with a complete, secure, automated DevOps platform that scales to meet changing business needs in a multi-cloud, hybrid, or on-prem environment.

Can you share your insights on the criticality of DevOps, DevSecOps and cloud adoption in today’s era?

DevOps is critical in the data-driven world as it improves collaboration among development teams and their IT operations counterparts. It plays a vital role in increasing customer satisfaction by delivering business value efficiently and effectively in real-time without compromising the user experience. DevOps is of great importance to businesses across sectors as it encourages business innovation and propels continuous improvements.

Much like the name implies, DevSecOps is all about guaranteeing security is prioritized and infused into every aspect of the DevOps delivery pipeline to ensure only the most ‘secure and trusted’ code gets deployed. And in today’s age of increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks both at home and from abroad that threaten both our data and critical infrastructure, making security a top priority is essential. Much like DevOps, DevSecOps also includes an important cultural aspect. You need to have the security and DevOps teams working together toward a common goal and constant communication since threat levels change quickly.

Cloud computing is a huge business growing many folds every year. Cloud in any of its form today benefits a firm in multiple ways like-

  • Low Cost: The tremendous cost saving associated with cloud computing drives many firms to operate through it. Any business can scale up its IT capability without incurring major costs.
  • Ease of Management: Moving to the cloud saves resources for the enterprise, allowing them to leave management to the experts so they focus on their core business
  • Data Security & Recovery: One of the common practices in any firm/organization is taking data back up. It becomes a huge task when you are handling a big chunk of data. Cloud in this scenario acts like a remote storage device that not only safeguards your data from loss but also recovers it during contingencies.
  • Environment Friendly: Big data centres in any organization or outside need high-end infrastructure for cooling systems. This is required for systems and servers to not get heated and work smoothly without any interruptions. These cooling systems consume a lot of electricity and are not environmentally friendly in the long run. Incorporating a cloud allows you to forgo such set-ups.

Tips for businesses to make their digitisation journey a success.

We all know that software is running the world and it’s becoming increasingly important that companies have reliable, scalable solutions to help them develop, deploy, and update that software – hence the reason DevOps has become imperative. However, three important things are happening in the industry today that are driving an increasing demand for DevOps solutions: Digital transformation, security, and IoT.  Digital transformation is much more than a buzzword and has become critical for all businesses in the post-Covid era. To remain competitive and continue meeting customer demand, companies need to evolve. This is driving increased demand for solutions that help developers release faster while keeping their companies out of the headlines due to security breaches. The increasing volume and ubiquity of software plus the rising sophistication of security threats introduce complexity and risk that has to be addressed automatically and that is what our platform delivers. Finally, the explosion of connected devices introduces even more complexity. A forecast by International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates that there will be 41.6 billion IoT devices in 2025. In this landscape, companies need a flexible platform that securely automates software updates from build through to edge devices so they can continue to delight their customers and remain competitive.

Another critical aspect to keep in mind is that DevOps isn’t just about technology; it’s about a culture. A culture of collaboration, transparency, and commitment to excellence so a company can deploy software updates faster, safer, and with higher levels of quality than ever before. The organizational aspects of DevOps are critical for achieving success. If you can get your LOB, developer, and IT operations teams aligned around the shared goal of practicing agile software development with a heavy focus on policy, self-service, testing, automation, and security – then you’ve achieved DevOps Nirvana.

Also Read - Importance of Cyber Security in Mobile Apps

Employment opportunities and why should aspirants consider a career in DevOps?

The pandemic has forced enterprises to rethink their business strategies and move much of their operations online. The integration of new-age tech in the virtual workplace has made businesses efficient and enabled them to deliver quick and better results. The rapid shift has meant that most of the companies today have a presence online and are powered by software and they need trained professionals to meet the rising demands. A recent report by IDC refers to the DevOps software market reaching US$ 6.6 billion in the year 2022. The industry is expected to grow significantly over the next decade and will open new career avenues for aspirants and enthusiasts. It stands to reason that the leading job search portal, indeed.com has witnessed a 75% rise in listings of DevOps jobs while LinkedIn has recorded a 50% increase in mention of DevOps as a skill. A majority of businesses are looking at employing DevOps processes and practices to stay competitive. There is a huge gap between the demand for trained DevOps professionals and the availability of the required professionals. There is an exciting and rewarding future in DevOps and the growth of the industry will present exciting opportunities to aspirants who are willing to invest in upskilling their skill sets.