DevOps automation firm Puppet Inc. is pitching a new service that helps companies ensure the information technology infrastructure they use is compliant with Center for Internet Security benchmarks.

Puppet sells tools that developers use to automate the delivery and optimization of modern software applications. It’s best known for its flagship Puppet Enterprise platform that’s used to manage infrastructure and applications as they move across the software delivery pipeline.

With Puppet Enterprise, the underlying infrastructure is automated via code that optimizes things such as servers and virtual machines. The platform also helps to automate functions including code review, testing, continuous integration and deployment in order to accelerate the development process.

Today’s new offering is all about helping companies to ensure their IT infrastructure meets regulatory standards, something that Puppet said is one of the most difficult and important challenges its customers face.

Yasmin Rajabi, global services strategy manager at Puppet, told SiliconANGLE that ensuring compliance is especially tricky for customers in industries such as finance, insurance and retail that handle sensitive customer data.

“It’s really hard to deal with this,” Rajabi said in an interview. “Operations teams actually have to go out and make changes and make sure systems are compliant. Software can help continuously enforce this.”

Rajabi explained that the CIS provides a list of benchmarks for servers and other IT systems that needs to be adhered to. “Our software takes that content and maps that to the systems you need to enforce the benchmarks for,” she said. “It’s continuous enforcement, done automatically.”

Puppet said its CIS compliance service can help organizations ensure they are both secure and also equipped to pass audits quickly and easily. Organizations can identify exactly where they’re out of compliance and then ensure those systems conform to CIS standards.

It’s providing a capability that’s likely to be in greater demand than ever as companies increasingly allow employees to work remotely to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

“A sea of enterprise companies just went to remote work,” said recently appointed Puppet Chief Technology Officer Abby Kearns. “That wasn’t a common practice for them. And so security and compliance become even more of a priority. The automation of that compliance is so important.”

Puppet said its new CIS compliance service is available now in alpha for both Puppet Enterprise and Open Source Puppet users.

With reporting from Robert Hof

Image: Puppet