Akuity May 2024 Update

The Akuity Platform continues to evolve with the latest enhancements. Check out this summary of what new features and improvements were recently added to the platform.

Early Access to Kargo as a Managed Service

Last year we announced Kargo - our new open source project providing stage-to-stage promotion using GitOps principles, without need for bespoke automation or relying on CI pipelines. For a Kargo introduction, please check out our latest talk at GitOpsCon below.

In April we launched the Early Access program on the Akuity Platform to make Kargo available for testing to all Akuity Platform users (yes, free trial users as well). Apply for Kargo Early Access and we'll reach out to you to enable it inside the platform.

Kargo DORA metrics

DORA metrics have become integral to measuring software delivery performance. Inside Akuity Platform, we've introduced comprehensive DORA metrics to help teams gain insights into their stage-to-stage promotion practices.

Kargo now includes vital DORA metrics such as promotion frequency, duration, change lead time, recovery time, and failure rate, enabling teams to assess and refine their processes.

CDK8S Integration

If you have your Argo CD instance on Akuity Platform then now you are just a few clicks away to integrate the CDK8S config management plugin of your choice of programming language.

Cloud Development Kit for Kubernetes (CDK8S) is a tool where you define manifests in one of the following programming languages: Typescript, JavaScript, Golang, Python or Java.

For a closer look at these feature please check out the "Argo CD CDK8S Config Management Plugin" blog post.

Audit Log Aggregation and Log Archives

The need for robust auditing capabilities with Argo CD is crucial. To address this, we've enhanced the Akuity Platform with advanced audit log aggregation and log archive features.

These improvements offer organizations the ability to track and monitor actions across the platform, ensuring high levels of security and compliance. There are some audit records that are very similar and end up flooding the logs making it hard to see what is going on. With our new log aggregation feature we group those similar records together so that you can better see what is happening in your system, making it easier for teams to review and analyze activities.

Your subscription will determine how many month of Audit logs will be available to view in your dashboard. To ensure the logs are not lost forever they are archived and made available for download so that you can store them when you want, for as long as you want. Furthermore, the log archives provide long-term storage solutions that help in maintaining records for compliance audits or historical analysis. This update aligns with best practices for both Argo CD and GitOps, reinforcing the commitment to secure and transparent operations.

Amazon EKS Add-on

Enhancing Kubernetes management on Amazon EKS, the Akuity Platform now includes an EKS Add-on. This add-on simplifies the integration process with Amazon's Elastic Kubernetes Service, streamlining the deployment and management of Kubernetes resources.

Users can now automate the installation and updates of EKS clusters with ease, directly within the Akuity Platform interface. With the EKS add-on, development teams can focus more on creating value for their applications, leaving the intricacies of infrastructure management to the robust capabilities of the Akuity Platform.

To find out more about Amazon EKS add-ons go to the "Amazon EKS add-ons" documentation page. You can also find the instructions for enabling the EKS add-on in the Akuity Platform documentation.

Cluster Customizations

Cluster customization user interface has been improved and now allows customizing all images used by the Akuity Agent. Previously we only allowed you to customize a few of our image registry locations, and this update has now added the rest of our images. This now allows you to pull all of our images from your registry of choice. This is helpful if you want to self host all of the images in your own registry.

Try it Out

To try out all the new features, log in to your user account or start a free trial and have a fully-managed instance of Argo CD in minutes.

If you want to learn how to manage the deployment of the Helm charts in a declarative fashion using Argo CD and Github, take a look at our tutorial.

Help and Support

If you want any insights on where to start with Akuity or Argo CD, please reach out to our Developer Advocate (Nicholas Morey) on the the CNCF Slack. You can find him on the #argo-* channels - don't hesitate to send me a direct message.

You can also schedule a technical demo with our team or go through the “Getting started” manual on the Akuity Documentation website.

We also invite you to check out our free course on GitOps and Continuous Delivery. Developed by the founders of the Argo Project, this course offers hands-on experience in implementing these practices with Argo CD.