DevOps

The Salesforce DevOps Periodic Table

By Vernon Keenan

The massive subject of managing Salesforce enterprise application delivery has a new label — Salesforce Devops. At SalesforceDevops.net we have been mapping and categorizing the vendor-based and free open-source Salesforce DevOps tools and solutions.

Now, to help you formulate your own Salesforce DevOps solution, Ben McCarthy of SalesforceBen and I have teamed up to create the Periodic Table of Salesforce DevOps Companies.

Solution Categories

Here are the categories used to organize the companies. Several companies and projects who offer a complete Salesforce DevOps solution appear in multiple categories.

  • Repository Management – These companies have Salesforce-specific source code management solutions.
  • Release Management – The complex process of using repositories to deploy new releases to your Salesforce org is supported by these companies.
  • Cybersecurity – These companies let you integrate application security features directly into your development pipeline.
  • Data Backup & Recovery – These companies help you backup your org’s data and to integrate backup processes into your devops pipelines.
  • Profile Management – These companies offer another key utility in devops pipelines: the ability to copy and manage profiles.
  • Data Transformation – These companies offer export, translate and load (ETL) tooling and the ability to integrate data ingest and export into your devops pipelines.
  • Testing Tools – Testing is a multi-layered concern, and these companies help you use modern methods to increase app delivery reliability.
  • Sandbox Management – These companies offer advanced Salesforce sandbox management features, including data masking and managing privacy concerns.
  • Observability – These companies support the use of metrics, incident management, and graphical analysis for application performance management.
  • Pipeline Orchestration – These companies offer a “command server” which runs on Salesforce or a cloud native application which manages the execution of processes that perform release management and other devops functions.
  • Engineering Services – These are companies who, in addition to offering software services, have professional services practices for devops system development.
  • Application Management Lifecycle – These are the companies who make tools used to manage software teams.
  • Value Stream Management – These companies offer advanced management technology using value stream management, which is helpful for managing multiple projects in larger enterprises. 

The Author

Vernon Keenan

Vernon is a Senior Industry Analyst at SalesforceDevops.Net.

Comments:

    Barnaby
    September 27, 2021 12:12 pm
    Great article. Note that Copado's recent acquisition of Quentinel means we now have fantastic automated testing capabilities for any system with a UI (including Salesforce) - Copado Robotic Testing: https://www.copado.com/platform/test/
    Mike Jones
    September 29, 2021 12:14 am
    This diagram doesn't make any sense. The categories overlap with each other, and aren't accurate. Some of these companies like Infosys are massive services companies and it's not clear how the would help in these categories. Feels like this diagram will just make people more confused
    Vernon Keenan
    September 29, 2021 7:11 pm
    Mike -- Thanks for your comment. We made the infographic with the intention of giving solution architects a bird's-eye-view of the choices available to them. I think it has a dual impact on readers. First, the categories do convey a sense of complexity in all of the elements you need for a devops solution. And then, we give a pointer to architects so they can evaluate their options. I'm not sure what you mean about the categories overlapping. Can you give an example? We came up with these categories after evaluating all 50+ companies and products in our database. During that evaluation we looked at how the companies categorized their own products and then tried to come up with generic descriptions that would allow for a grouping. Perhaps you might want look at how I present the categories on the SalesforceDevops.net site as a stack. Several of the topics presented here, including cybersecurity and backup/restore, don't really fit into that stack and exist outside as utility functions used in all the layers. https://salesforcedevops.net/index.php/2021/04/08/use-the-salesforce-devops-segmentation-model-for-it-success/ Thanks again for those comments!
    Ben McCarthy
    September 30, 2021 3:37 pm
    Thanks Barnaby, Vernon and I will be doing an update very soon.
    AK
    October 14, 2021 11:11 am
    Good attempt. It would be nice to see the atomic mass for each block like actual elements, helping in decision making to why go with one vs another.
    Mark Hartnady
    September 10, 2022 6:00 am
    Copado has a test automation tool called CRT competing with Privat and the like. It should also be in the Testing Tools dark blue section.

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