GitLab & Google Cloud announce new integrations in beta

GitLab has announced the public beta of expanded integrations with Google Cloud designed to enhance developer efficiency, speed, and productivity. The integrations leverage GitLab's capabilities in source code management, planning, CI/CD workflow, and advanced security and compliance by combining them with Google Identity Access Management, Workload Identity Federation, Google Cloud Artifact Registry, and Google Compute Engine.

Through these new integrations, joint customers can access complete visibility across the entire software development lifecycle, integrating Google Cloud services without the need for context switching between different systems. This enhancement is intended to streamline the development process and elevate the overall developer experience.

The integrations promise several key benefits. Firstly, streamlined authentication is achieved by connecting GitLab with Google Identity Access Management and Workload Identity Federation. This provides centralised authentication and identity management, which decreases the risks associated with service account keys and minimises the overhead required for rotating these keys.

Secondly, it facilitates faster application deployment to Google Cloud. By automating CI/CD with GitLab runner configuration automation and offering a library of Google Cloud Services components within GitLab’s CI/CD catalog, customers can simplify pipeline deployment directly from GitLab.

The third significant benefit is an improved developer experience. The integrated system provides complete visibility into the software delivery process via a unified data plane, reducing context switching and boosting productivity. The ability to view images in Google Artifact Registry repositories from within GitLab ensures customers have full traceability of their build artifacts across both platforms.

James Manos, Senior Director and Enterprise Architect at Landis+Gyr, commented on the impact of the streamlined authentication features. "The streamlined authentication features now available between GitLab and Google Cloud Platform have a positive impact on the operational cost of being a security-first DevSecOps organisation. By leveraging Workload Identity Federation now packaged into the GitLab platform, Landis+Gyr can retire the custom solution that has been in place, leading to reduced maintenance costs and stronger alignment with Google Cloud."

Andrew Tate, Head of Technology Operations at Rightmove, remarked on the potential benefits of the partnership. "The partnership between GitLab and Google Cloud has the potential to significantly reduce our team's cognitive load and overhead. Integrated authentication for deployments would enhance our security posture and reduce management overhead for rotating keys. Runners are the foundation of all CI/CD jobs, and it is important that they are sized correctly and kept up-to-date. With GitLab's help managing the runners, the Rightmove team can focus on higher value initiatives."

Gabe Monroy, VP of Developer Experience at Google Cloud, praised the collaboration, stating, "Google Cloud offers developers the choice, capability, and security to work effectively and productively at every step of the software development lifecycle. The expanded availability of these integrations between Google Cloud and GitLab brings more capabilities for developers in each of these critical areas, including full visibility into performance metrics, security and compliance policies, and insights across the application development lifecycle without context switching between multiple systems."

Emilio Salvador, VP of Strategy and Developer Relations at GitLab, underscored the value of the collaboration, saying, "Together, GitLab and Google Cloud are enabling organisations to remove silos, measure and optimise performance, meet security and compliance standards, and boost productivity and efficiency. By providing complete visibility across software development workflows, we are empowering joint customers to ship secure software faster while delivering a great developer experience."