Scale & Optimize Software Demo & POC Environments

No. Quali Torque supports Infrastructure as Code tools. Our platform connects directly to GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and other Git repositories to automatically discover and leverage Infrastructure as Code modules. We support IaC tools like Terraform and AWS CloudFormation, infrastructure automation tools like Ansible and Quali CloudShell, and container tools like Helm and native Kubernetes.

Once discovered, Quali Torque imports the infrastructure configurations defined in those modules as inputs in a YAML file that defines the dependencies and the outputs needed to support a specific workload. Quali Torque can then deploy those environments repeatedly, maintain configurations continuously, automate deployment and shutdown based on custom schedules, and set governance policies to deny deployment of any environment that violates their rules.

Think of Quali Torque as the orchestration and deployment layer for demo or POC environments based on Infrastructure as Code.

Quali Torque orchestrates templates defining complete demo or POC environments. Once an admin approves a template, they can “publish” it to the self-service catalog in Torque.

From the catalog, users without admin access can deploy those environments via self-service.

To accomplish this, Quali Torque supports permissions based on the role of the user. Only administrators, who are typically the engineers responsible for provisioning and managing infrastructure environments, can modify configurations. Users only have access to deploy environments.

Torque also manages and encrypts all secrets for your cloud infrastructure, including account credentials, certificates, and keys. This allows your teams to distribute access to run infrastructure without leaking secrets publicly.

Admins can also set custom policies in Torque. For example, setting a policy to prohibit a specific cloud service or platform will deny the deployment of any environment containing the service or platform listed in the policy. This prevents misconfiguration from DevOps team members with admin access as well.

Since Quali Torque orchestrates the creation of the demo environment, admins can set rules over how infrastructure is created.

Workflows set by administrators instruct Torque when to initiate an action on cloud resources supporting demo environments.

For example, workflows can automatically launch all AWS or Azure cloud resources for demo environments at the beginning of the workday, then terminate those all active resources at the end of the workday. This maintains uptime while ensuring cloud infrastructure doesn’t run outside of the hours when it’s needed.

Workflows can also monitor for your team’s activity to further refine operational efficiency. A workflow to deny deployment of any cloud resources for inactive demo environments prevents costs from idle environments.

Since all infrastructure is pre-configured, approved, and monitored for governance by Quali Torque, admins can give their teams self-service access to operate cloud resources without risk of misconfiguration or unapproved technologies.

This includes the operation of cloud resources. If, for example, an engineer needs to restart, connect, or temporarily shutdown a cloud resource supporting a demo environment, Quali Torque’s UI provides access without requiring admin permissions.

Automation set to terminate cloud resources at the end of the workday prevent the risk of zombie infrastructure. And in the event that a user needs to run a demo environment outside of the operational hours enforced via Torque, the platform allows them to delay termination up to a maximum duration allowed by admins.

At scale, this allows engineers to run demo, POC, and training environments freely as long as they adhere to the administrator’s governance standards.

Traditionally, many product and engineering teams deliver demos and POCs based on individually provisioned environments. If configurations drift from the optimal state required to support a demo, the team responsible may not know until they encounter an issue in the demo experience.

Since Quali Torque orchestrates reusable templates for environments, all demos and POCs rely on the singular definition within the template used to support them.

Torque monitors the state of configurations within each template and notifies admins about drift or other unexpected changes. And since environments are deployed via the template, admins can de-bug and push updates to live environments without shutting down or re-starting.

This allows engineers to maintain environments at the template level, with the assurance that all demos and POCs reflect the latest updates.