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Learn about NetApp Workload Factory for Builders

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NetApp Workload Factory for Builders is a rapid build environment creation tool for software builders. It enables fast setup of personal development environments, saving time and enabling self-service for developers while empowering DevOps teams to retain control of the infrastructure. Using Builders, software developers can quickly create workspaces without needing specialized data storage or understanding of the development infrastructure.

What is NetApp Workload Factory for Builders?

NetApp Workload Factory for Builders is designed to streamline the way developers manage and interact with different versions of their software. Builders works with Perforce Helix Core to instantly clone software versions and create workspaces for development, QA, and CI/CD.

With Builders, you can easily create a project and assign a volume that represents your software environment and its artifacts. As you update your software, you can take snapshots of the volume, capturing the state of your software at that moment. You can access any software version instantly without resyncing, saving time and resources.

Using the snapshot and clone capabilities of NetApp ONTAP, Builders makes it faster to access different versions of your software, so you can develop and release updates more quickly.

For more information about Workload Factory, refer to the Workload Factory overview.

NetApp Workload Factory for Builders features

NetApp Workload Factory for Builders offers the following features:

  • Create, edit, and remove projects

  • Create snapshots of defined software versions

  • Create, and delete workspaces (based on clones)

  • Create access policies to control access to a project

  • Analyze the capacity usage of each project

  • Control clone size limits and clone retention for each project

  • Integrate with version control systems such as Perforce

Projects and workspaces in Builders

When you use Builders, you create a project and assign a volume that represents your software environment and its artifacts. Each time that you create a new version of the software, you need resync the volume data and create a project snapshot to mark the volume state as a known version. The project source volume might get rolling updates and have multiple snapshots to mark multiple versions. You can use each snapshot immediately as an instant clone, a dedicated or shared editable repository available to developers, QA or build processes. A clone in the context of a specific software version is a workspace.

Automation with Workload Factory Codebox

Workload factory introduces built-in automation with the Codebox. The Codebox offers the following automation benefits:

  • Code snippet generation: Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) snippets are generated during resource creation, enabling seamless integration with existing orchestration workflows.

  • Infrastructure-as-code co-pilot: the Codebox is an Infrastructure-as-code (IaC) co-pilot that helps developers and DevOps generate code to execute any operation supported by Workload Factory.

  • Code viewer and automation catalog: the Codebox provides a code viewer for quick analysis of automation and an automation catalog for quick future re-use.

Cost

There is no cost for using the Builders capability of Workload Factory.

Licensing

No special licenses are needed from NetApp to use the Builders capabilities of Workload Factory.

Regions

Builders is supported in all commercial regions where FSx for ONTAP is supported. View supported Amazon regions.

The following AWS regions aren't supported:

  • China regions

  • GovCloud (US) regions

  • Secret Cloud

  • Top Secret Cloud

Getting help

Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP is an AWS first-party solution. For support, use the Support Center in your AWS Management Console to open a case. Select "FSx for ONTAP" and the category, then provide the required information.

For general questions about Workload Factory or Workload Factory applications and services, refer to Get help for Builders for Workload Factory.