Git and GitLab Server

With Microsoft acquiring GitHub, the world’s most popular code repository hosting platform, many developers and software companies are looking to alternatives. Engineering teams using private repositories to protect their proprietary code may not necessarily be comfortable with the one of the world’s largest software companies having direct access to their ideas, implementations and trade secrets. You can bet that Microsoft will analyze users’ repos in aggregate form to collect “big data” and draw insights for their own businesses. Politically sensitive software projects, such as anti-censorship and/or privacy tools used by journalists and activists, may also come under pressure from governments across the globe when a multinational corporation like Microsoft acquires GitHub.

Migrate to a self-hosted Git or GitLab server

When you migrate to self-hosted Git or GitLab server, you take back control over your code. After all, your intellectual property is one of your most valuable assets, and you should protect it well. You can use a non-Microsoft public cloud platform such as AWS or Google Cloud, or host your own version control system on a dedicated server within a datacenter, or even on premises. We can design the infrastructure you need to keep on-site and remote teams productive, with security and backup that gives you peace of mind.

Git vs GitLab server

Git is the open-source version control system designed by Linus Torvalds. It is a source control tool that provides change tracking and versioning for your contributors from a command line interface. If you know how to use GitHub, you already know Git because the concept of branches, forks, merges, and pulls originated from Git itself. There are a number of GUI clients you can use to interact with Git from your development workstations, while your code is safely stored on your Git server.

GitLab is a freemium solution developed by GitLab Inc, with an open-source community edition, and paid, premium editions providing additional functionality. GitLab is a complete CI and DevOps platform that goes beyond version control. The collaboration tools, including backlog and issue tracking, are reminiscent of the workflow that teams have become so used to in GitHub. As you might expect, GitLab is much more than a Git server. It has everything you need to create a complete CI/CD pipeline, from test, UAT to deployment. Depending how much your R&D team has adopted a DevOps culture, you may use tools like automated tests to become more agile, and push better quality code to production.

How we can help

The Autoize team of infrastructure architects can help you migrate your existing GitHub repositories to your own Git or GitLab server. Our expertise in setting up encryption, redundancy, and backups will help ensure your team has a stable environment to hit its development milestones and succeed. Please fill out the form and tell us the approximate number of users and size of the repositories you are currently managing – we would be pleased to assist.