Introducing HCL DevOps Loop: Smarter Insights, Unified Software Delivery

Even with mature DevOps pipelines and continuous integration processes in place, many teams still encounter familiar roadblocks: siloed tools that don’t communicate with each other and fragmented insights that delay decision-making. 

This often leads to slower releases, reactive firefighting, and a constant struggle to connect delivery work with real business outcomes. What DevOps needs now is not just more automation, but intelligent, end-to-end visibility, continuous integration, and a continuous feedback system, emphasizing iterative development, testing, and deployment. That’s exactly what HCL DevOps Loop sets out to fix.

HCL DevOps Loop is a significant step forward in unifying continuous integration and empowering every stage of your software delivery lifecycle. It’s the actionable framework that connects your data, tools, and teams with intelligent insights and expanded capabilities. Each functional area (Plan, Code, Control, Build, Test, Deploy, and Measure) in the platform has been enhanced with focused, high-impact features that not only elevate individual capabilities but also work in concert to deliver a more unified, intelligent DevOps experience.

Introducing HCL DevOps Loop

Here’s how the platform brings clarity and connection across your DevOps pipeline.

• Unify your DevOps pipeline with Loops at the core
  Loops serve as the foundation of platform cohesion. Rather than treating each stage of the delivery pipeline as a separate activity, Loop aggregates data across the lifecycle to create a unified, intelligent feedback system within the DevOps lifecycle.
• Get real-time visibility across your delivery lifecycle with Loop dashboards
  A simple dashboard brings together issues, builds, tests, and deployments in one connected view, enabling teams to quickly assess progress, spot trends, and identify blockers with charts and metrics tailored to their Loop.

• Meet Loop Genie: your AI-powered co-pilot for DevOps, now in TechPreview.
  Loop Genie enables useful cross Loop tasks such as:
  • Search & summarize issues across the delivery cycle, using contextual awareness to offer insight-rich summaries and answers.

How Does HCL DevOps Loop Make Your Software Delivery Fast, Secure, and Agile?

HCL DevOps Loop is designed to make your software delivery smarter by connecting automation, insight, and collaboration at every step. Here’s how:

1. Efficiency – Eliminate manual effort with automated testing, builds, and deployments - all orchestrated from within a connected Loop.
2. Reliability – Catch issues earlier with AI-powered summaries and integrated test pipelines that span across Plan, Build, Test, and Deploy.
3. Speed – Accelerate the flow from idea to release with Loop, reducing handoffs and making progress visible through unified dashboards.
4. Continuous improvement – Adapt quickly to user needs, market shifts, and performance trends with built-in feedback loops.
5. Collaboration – With a shared view of issues, commits, tests, and deployments, Loop brings development, testing, and operations together on common ground.
6. Scalability – From pilot teams to enterprise portfolios, Loop scales to your needs with containerized deployment and cloud-native flexibility.

Inside HCL DevOps Loop: What It Does And How It Works

Loop reshapes how teams plan, build, test, deploy, and measure at scale. Here's how it works across each functional area.

Plan: Smarter Planning, Seamless Flow

Planning tools in HCL DevOps Loop are now more agile, flexible, and user-centric with capabilities like:

• Aha! Integration: Full bidirectional data flow between Plan and Aha for roadmapping.
• Inline rich-text editing and single-click work item subscription improve usability for common tasks.

Build: Modern, Containerized, Secure

Build functionality is now aligned with the HCL DevOps Loop interface and powered by scalable, containerized deployment.

• UI alignment with Loop using left-hand navigation delivers a consistent experience.

• Keycloak authentication enhances secure access control and is pre-integrated with Loop SSO.
• Container-based installation via Helm Charts for Kubernetes platforms.
• Support for JDK v11, v17, and v21 future-proofs your build pipeline.
• Enhanced Build APIs and plugins:
  • Improved control of source management.
  • Lifecycle visibility for builds.
  • Richer deployment plugin integrations.

Test: Accelerating Quality Through Innovation

Testing workflows within your DevOps lifecycle becomes more intuitive and more powerful.

• UI test authoring from DevOps Test Hub is now generally available.
  • Build your test from recorded events or your captured SmartShot catalog using a simple, intuitive, web-based test designer.
  • Build full UI automation using a comprehensive actions palette.
  • Apply and manage verification points with ease, use simple rules, or complex JavaScript, whatever you require to achieve your goal.

• Schema-based data fabrication enables the generation of more accurate test data.
  • Connect and learn about your databases, or define a custom schema from scratch.
  • Combine static data with queried results and dynamically generate for maximum flexibility.
  • Push data directly to your system of record, or export for use with external solutions.
  • Leverage pre-built generators or customize and build your own catalog.

• Test generation from mock-ups and screenshots (Tech Preview) offers an early glimpse into next-gen visual-to-test capabilities.

Deploy: Smarter, AI-powered Delivery

Deployment automation is now smarter, more secure, and deeply integrated.

• Deployment Genie provides context-aware, AI-powered assistance with deployment failures.

• Certificate-based vault integration strengthens secret management.
• Mainframe enhancements:
  • Merge versions across external repos
  • Partial artifact rollbacks
  • Java 21 support for z Agents
• Process as Code (PAaC) enhancements:
  • Now supports tag names, deployment/operational process types, and property configuration
• Z Artifacts Search Enhancements powered by Zinventory.
• The dedicated plugin integration page simplifies extensibility.

Measure: Deliver Insights With Agility

The DevOps Loop Measure functionality delivers even deeper insight into flow and failure metrics.

• New metrics:
  • Agile churn tracks scope changes mid-sprint.
  • Change failure rate, a core DORA metric.
  • Flow efficiency surfaces process bottlenecks and waste.

What's Next?

This release builds a strong foundation for connected, intelligent software delivery. Each of its capabilities, while powerful on its own, is enhanced to work seamlessly with the rest of the system, creating a resilient, insight-driven pipeline from idea to production.

Ready to see how The HCL DevOps Loop, the unified DevOps platform, can transform your own DevOps journey?

Schedule a meeting with our DevOps expert to explore how Loop can boost your speed, reliability, and security.

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