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8 DevSecOps Tools That Will Save You Time and Money

Josh Rank
March 23, 2022

A basic tenet of a successful business is to maximize your efforts. Of course, there are a variety of ways to do this—efficient processes, skilled team members, continued refinement of procedures. However, utilizing proper tooling is a quick and easy way to enable your team members to increase productivity while also improving consistency in the quality of your products.

DevSecOps tools offer more than just streamlined operations—they also work to heighten data security efforts to protect your Salesforce environment as a whole.

A development pipeline will include the efforts of a series of departments and individuals. Each of these stages of development will have their own set of tools and procedures that can be optimized for speed and quality.

And while speed might be beneficial because it’s always best to produce your products as quickly as possible, many teams run the risk of sacrificing quality. DevSecOps tools aim to maintain high quality products while also enable expedited development.

But what tools can best help each stage of the development pipeline? How can you save your team members’ time, which directly translates to saved money?

These 8 DevSecOps tools streamline operations to save time and money:

Continuous Integration
Continuous Delivery/Deployment
Static Code Analysis
Version Control
Data Loader
Sandbox Management
Data Backup & Recovery
Policy Scanner

1. Continuous Integration

Working in a multi-developer team speeds updates and applications through the DevOps pipeline. Simply put, more hands working together can build something quicker. However, gathering the work of all of these different hands and putting them together into a singular product can become difficult, time-consuming, and susceptible to errors.

Continuous integration is the development process where code is automatically integrated from multiple developers into a single software release.

Errors in the code become more expensive to fix the later they are found in the development pipeline. Every commit to the shared repository is continually verified by an automated build process to capture potential problems at an early stage, saving on overall costs.

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2. Continuous Delivery/Deployment

Gathering together and testing the code from multiple sources is only the first step of preparing an update for production. The update or application itself needs to move everything to the next stage, and that’s where our next DevSecOps tool comes in.

Continuous delivery and continuous deployment both serve to move all types of changes such as features, configurations, and bug fixes into production.

These two similar tools enable teams to build, test, and release with increased frequency and speed. However, there is a major difference between these two tools: approvals.

Continuous delivery requires completion of an approval stage before sending the product to production. Continuous deployment automates the entire release process to the point of production for rapid release.

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3. Static Code Analysis

The greatest factor in the success of a DevSecOps project is the code that makes it up. Faulty code can create data security vulnerabilities, negatively impact the end user experience, and lead to costly fixes and updates. It’s important to get it right the first time to save on both the money it takes to complete a project as well as the attention of your team members.

Static code analysis provides complete visibility into the health of your code from the moment it is written.

This enables developers to rectify any mistakes as soon as they are introduced into the system. And as we said above, mistakes become more costly to fix the later they are found.

Static code analysis ensures an absence of errors moving forward in the DevSecOps pipeline which saves on operational costs, avoids bugs, and supports successful deployments.

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4. Version Control

We mentioned how multi-developer teams help expedite the application development process. We also mentioned how this can create a messy work environment that leads to errors. Source code management is an essential consideration to keep all of the contributions from multiple developers organized so nothing gets lost or contradicts other lines of code.

Version control is the cornerstone of a developmental organization and a critical component of a DevSecOps strategy.

Version control is a method of managing software revisions or updates over time. Each update to the source code is tracked with a time stamp and a personal marker for the person making the change. This increases accountability and visibility.

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5. Data Loader

It is often necessary to populate new environments or orgs with large amounts of data. This can save a lot of time for configurations—which will also necessitate the migration of metadata. However, moving these massive data sets can be incredibly time-consuming which results in lost labor time.

A Salesforce data loader is an essential DevSecOps tool for important and/or exporting large amounts of metadata and data.

A strong data loader tool will offer the ability to protect this information as it’s moved through encryption and other data masking services. This contributes to a company’s ability to remain compliant with data security regulations, saving money on potential fines should they fall out of compliance.

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6. Sandbox Management

Developers will often work within their own sandboxes while working on a new update or application. These sandboxes can be spread over large geographic areas and be difficult to keep consistent. Overview can be made difficult by this as well.

A sandbox management tool provides reports on successes across sandboxes, allows you to remove redundant data after comparing instances, and synchronize versions of a project across multiple sandboxes.

It can get confusing when data is stored in multiple locations. Sandbox management keeps everything aligned so nothing gets lost in the mix.

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7. Data Backup & Recovery

You simply never know when a data loss event will occur. Even companies with strong data security strategies are susceptible to accidental deletions, cyberattacks, and natural disasters. And losing access to your data can be an incredible drain on time and money.

The average cost of downtime is $5,600 per minute.

A reliable data backup tool with recovery functionality gets your system back online when you need it most. A failure to maintain a current data backup will lead to redundant work as team members try to return the system to how it was before the loss event. Not only does this cost money, it also takes them away from furthering current projects.

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8. Policy Scanner

Data governance, adherence to internal rules, ensuring proper permissions settings—maintaining constant oversight of these challenging functions can be incredibly difficult and time consuming.

Automated scans of settings and adherence to rules drastically improves data security and the ability to remain in compliance with essential government regulations.

A Salesforce policy scanner can oversee these considerations and provide automated reports and dashboards, ensuring your team maintains visibility into the health of your Salesforce environment.

DevSecOps tools are available to address many different aspects of the development pipeline. Automation is an essential aspect of reducing manual work and streamlining your efforts. And any tool that improves quality and frees up your team members will result in saved time and money.

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