At their European Chef Community Summit, DevOps toolset business, Chef, announced new features to automate change management for the entire application and infrastructure stack and adds a new tool, Chef Compliance, for automated regulatory compliance.  Additionally Chef’s workflow automation product Chef Delivery, initially made available as an invitation-only program in April, is now generally available. Chef also announced a new consultancy team based in Europe to help organisations transition to DevOps continuous integration strategies.

Chef’s new compliance capabilities are built on technology added from the recent purchase of German security software company VulcanoSec. Chef is also integrating Chef Compliance with Chef Delivery to bring compliance into the DevOps workflow.

“As organisations in all industries rapidly evolve their business models around technology, they are struggling to develop software at velocity, while also meeting complex compliance and security obligations,” said Barry Crist, CEO of Chef.  "Chef Delivery and our new compliance capabilities provide a demonstrated DevOps workflow for enterprises that want both speed and security."

Following Chef’s recent Series E funding round, the company is investing in research and development to enable IT, security, and business teams to best collaborate on delivering innovation safely and at velocity. By releasing Chef Delivery and bringing VulcanoSec’s audit technology to the Chef platform, Chef now provides:

●      Comprehensive Compliance Coverage: Using VulcanoSec’s technology, Chef Compliance includes compliance profiles - audit rules in the form of code - to validate that a production node is properly configured. Any necessary remediation can then be systematically applied with Chef’s automation framework.

●      Powerful Audit Framework: Chef Compliance users can collaborate on, version, and deploy policy as code within a software development pipeline, fully integrating compliance into high-velocity software delivery. Because the tests are automated, they can be applied repeatedly to ensure even minor changes won't break any compliance rules.

●      Unified Workflow: Chef is integrating its new compliance functionality, as well as its sophisticated reporting feature, Chef Analytics, with Chef Delivery, providing a shared pipeline and workflow for software development.

To enable enterprises to attain the skills and cultural patterns necessary to successfully adopt DevOps, Chef has also introduced a new Enterprise Transformation practice that offers executive training and ongoing coaching for organisational change.

The new practice is led by Chef Vice President and Chief Architect, Justin Arbuckle, who led GE Capital’s DevOps initiative three years ago and has replicated this success for organisations such as Standard Bank since joining Chef in 2013. Consulting engagements are available to all organisations and are priced and tailored to fit each company’s individual needs.

Chef Compliance is currently available as part of Chef Premium subscriptions. Chef Delivery is currently available as part of the Chef Premium + Delivery subscription or as standalone subscription with licensing per developer seat.