Ambassador Labs Doubles Down on Security and Docker Partnership

Ambassador Labs announced new capabilities available across the company’s Kubernetes native solution offerings that simplify and secure developer workflows on-premises and in cloud environments. New Telepresence for Docker Compose extends the reach of Telepresence to empower Docker Compose users to collaborate and reduce complexities as they build, debug and route local-to-remote services for Kubernetes. New Web Application Firewall (WAF) protection and adherence to PCI DSS 6.6 compliance for the company’s flagship API gateway, Edge Stack, give developers an extra layer of security to protect externally visible web applications from malicious HTTP/S threat vectors.

“We know that building apps on Kubernetes supports the developer ability to get software to market faster due to the sheer flexibility and scalability of the open source platform, but we also know it’s a maturing technology that comes with complexities,” said Steve Rodda, CEO at Ambassador Labs. “Since our inception, we have delivered solutions built on and for Kubernetes. We are committed to the developer experience and delivering innovative tools to market that support their ability to build, test and deploy software fast and efficiently. New WAF functionality for Edge Stack shows we take security very seriously and extending Telepresence to even more Docker users allows us to reach a wider developer audience with tools to address their Kubernetes app development challenges.”

Reducing Friction – Accelerating Kubernetes Development Workflows

Stack Overflow’s 2023 Developer Survey reported that 63% of respondents spend more than 30 minutes a day fixing problems and looking for answers, leading to somewhere between 333-651 hours of lost time per week across a team of 50 developers. This reinforces a need for tools to improve the developer experience and remove friction to support their ability to deliver more value to the business through app development. 

This friction is coupled with increasing organizational adoption of Kubernetes, resulting in developers taking on full app lifecycle management and fueling the importance of developer productivity. For development teams working in dispersed locations across the organization, they require tools to better collaborate and streamline development stages so they can move faster. Telepresence fosters collaboration and productivity, allowing developers to ship their application into remote Kubernetes clusters with the power to make configuration changes that can be used by any developer within the team.

Extending the reach of Telepresence to support Docker Compose follows the recent availability of Telepresence for Docker. Now, an existing multi-million (and growing) community of Docker Compose developers can easily integrate existing workflows into their local development processes and configure multi-container Docker applications in a productive Kubernetes development environment with ease. This streamlined approach fuels collaboration and productivity that result in faster interactions and accelerated development cycles.

Additional features and benefits of Telepresence for Docker Compose include:

• Intercepting services defined in existing and unmodified Docker Compose files allows for a seamless adoption of Telepresence within an existing project toolchain without breaking your entire team’s workflow
• Hybrid development setup with local and remote dependencies. This gives developers the best of both worlds to pick and choose where to run their service’s dependencies.
• Hot reload of Docker containers on code changes. Utilizing the watch functionality of Docker Compose to trigger automatic rebuilds results in even faster local iterations so developers don’t need to manually rebuild containers and restart intercepts each time they make a code change.

Closing the Application Security Gap

As Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and API Gateways act as the “front door” to an organization’s applications, they are at increasing risk to external security threats and Internet-based attacks. A State of Kubernetes security report 2023 shed light on common security challenges developers face in managing application workflows across Kubernetes with results showing vulnerabilities and misconfigurations as top security concerns with container and Kubernetes environments.

Ambassador Labs is addressing this developer concern with the new Web Application Firewall (WAF) for Edge Stack. Developers now have an added layer of protection to easily filter, monitor and block malicious HTTP/S traffic in real time to protect web applications from sophisticated threat vectors and deployment within mistrusted environments. Additionally, Edge Stack now enables teams to comply with the PCI DSS 6.6 requirement that new threats and vulnerabilities for Internet-facing web applications are constantly addressed and that applications are protected from known attacks.

Additional features and benefits for developers of enhanced security for Edge Stack include:

• Out of the box web application protection against common threats with customizable rules and enforcement levels. This allows DevOps teams to fine tune configuration and limit the impact of enforcing policy changes on existing applications
• Rules based on the industry standard Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) Top 10 to ensure developers satisfy security and compliance requirements while keeping the application stack simple and self-service
• Enhanced observability for malicious requests that allow operators to identify threat vectors and attacks in real time