GitLab and IBM will partner with shared platform for DevOps teams

GitLab will partner with IBM on a shared platform for IBM customers. GitLab will be included in IBM’s cloud and AI platform, giving them access to GitLab tools for developing cloud applications.

The new platform will be called GitLab for IBM Cloud Pak . The platform integrates the automation of the IBM Cloud platform with the development tools of GitLab and should become a “complete, easy-to-use devops platform,” says GitLab. This platform gives IBM customers who develop cloud applications access to a full GitLab toolset, after which they can test the applications easily and largely automatically, including by using the supercomputer Watson.

IBM users have long wanted more support in developing cloud applications, the company says. GitLab should now offer that to them. “IBM customers want to create applications with Cloud Paks so they can leverage automation, machine learning and IBM Watson,” Evaistus Mainsah, general manager of IBM Cloud Private Ecosystem, said in a release.

The two companies emphasize that the collaboration should not lead to a vendor lock-in. Despite the collaboration between IBM and GitLab, users can write cloud applications in any language they want and then continue to roll them out to services like Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, or whatever other cloud environment they choose. In 2018 , Microsoft acquired GitHub , GitLab’s main competitor.