On-Premises Deployment Considerations

6/10/2026

This post announces the availability of a fully managed GitLab offering on Google Cloud, delivered by MSP partners. It highlights the ability to run GitLab on GCP infrastructure while retaining data sovereignty, the integration of Google's latest AI models (Gemini, Gemma) via GitLab Duo Agent Platform, and the option to leverage existing Google Cloud commitments for procurement and billing. It also details the availability of self-hosted AI models (Gemma 4) for regulated teams.

2/10/2026

Introduces a new managed service offering for GitLab Self-Managed, delivered by Data Intensity on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). This service provides 24x7 monitoring, automated backups, disaster recovery, and tiered scaling options for user capacity, performance, and availability, aiming to reduce operational overhead for customers who prefer GitLab Self-Managed.

12/15/2025

This post details how Victoria University of Wellington consolidated on GitLab Self-Managed Ultimate to replace a fragmented toolchain for academic coursework, leading to significant growth in student users and hosted projects. It highlights GitLab Ultimate's role as a unified DevSecOps platform for higher education, enabling phased modernization, automated compliance enforcement through custom frameworks and pipeline execution policies, and responsible AI adoption with platform-level integration via the GitLab Duo Agent Platform. The post emphasizes the benefits of a consolidated platform for reducing complexity, improving productivity, and meeting governance requirements in educational environments.

10/7/2025

This post highlights GitLab's continued commitment to supporting on-premises and self-managed deployment options, contrasting this with Atlassian's decision to end support for Data Center products. It emphasizes GitLab's value proposition for organizations requiring self-managed solutions due to compliance, security, and data sovereignty needs. The post also details GitLab's automated migration tools for Bitbucket Server and Jira, and references a Forrester study on the economic benefits of GitLab Ultimate. It positions GitLab as a unified, AI-native DevSecOps platform that respects customer deployment choices.

8/14/2025

This post details the rationale behind financial services choosing single-tenant SaaS like GitLab Dedicated. It highlights the systemic risks of shared infrastructure, regulatory concerns (concentration risk, data sovereignty), and the amplification effect of third-party risks. It then positions GitLab Dedicated as a solution offering complete isolation, purpose-built infrastructure, hosted runners with private links, auto-scaling, BYOK encryption, selectable data residency, and compliance support (audit trails, SOX, GLBA). It also touches on high availability, disaster recovery, and a zero-maintenance approach to CI/CD infrastructure.

12/13/2023

This post details how GitLab Self-Managed, particularly with GitLab Duo Self-Hosted, provides a comprehensive DevSecOps platform for government organizations. It emphasizes complete control over infrastructure, data sovereignty, secure AI in air-gapped environments, and built-in compliance features. It also highlights the value of consolidated toolchains for efficiency and the use of analytics dashboards for measuring impact and demonstrating efficiency gains. The post also mentions the availability of Professional Services for migration assistance.

9/26/2023

This post details the end-of-life for Atlassian Server products (Bitbucket Server, Bamboo Server, Jira Server) and positions GitLab as an integrated DevSecOps platform alternative. It highlights GitLab's importer tools for migrating from Atlassian products (repositories, Jira issues, Bamboo jobs) and emphasizes the benefits of a unified platform, including reduced complexity, improved developer experience, and enhanced visibility. The post also references GitLab's AI capabilities and its value proposition as a comprehensive DevSecOps solution.

9/5/2023

This post details how GitLab's DevSecOps platform can be leveraged to streamline cloud adoption and migration. It outlines specific features and capabilities, such as issue tracking for data management, security scanning tools (container, dependency, SAST) for avoiding security pitfalls, automated compliance features within the CI/CD pipeline, CI/CD templates and Auto DevOps for relieving configuration challenges, and the platform's cloud-agnostic nature for multi-cloud strategies. The post positions GitLab as a unified solution for simplifying the entire cloud migration process.

8/3/2023

This post details the development of GitLab Dedicated, a single-tenant SaaS offering. It highlights the architectural decisions made to automate deployments using the GitLab Environment Toolkit (GET) and Terraform, leveraging AWS managed services for databases (RDS, Elasticache, OpenSearch), and implementing a private monitoring stack within customer AWS accounts. It also introduces features exclusive to Dedicated, such as Bring Your Own Key, Switchboard for management, and PrivateLink networking, contrasting these with the multi-tenant GitLab.com architecture.

7/31/2023

This post details the technical implementation of running the GitLab Development Kit (GDK) within GitLab's Remote Development workspaces. It explains the behind-the-scenes process of workspace creation, including the role of init containers and the GitLab agent for Kubernetes. It addresses the memory limitations encountered during large repository clones (like the main GitLab project) and proposes using the GDK repository itself as the base for the workspace to mitigate this. The post also describes the creation of a pre-built container image for GDK to speed up installation and the development of a script to generate the `gdk.yml` file dynamically based on the workspace's environment variables. The `.devfile.yaml` configuration is provided, outlining the necessary ports and resource requests for the workspace container.

7/13/2023

This post details the technical steps and infrastructure requirements for setting up on-demand, cloud-based development environments using GitLab. It covers the integration of the GitLab agent for Kubernetes, OAuth applications, and TLS certificates. The post provides specific instructions for configuring Kubernetes clusters across various cloud providers (GKE, EKS, AKS, Civo) and self-managed Kubernetes, including the installation of Ingress controllers and workspaces proxy. It also outlines the creation of custom workspace container images and the use of devfile specifications for environment configuration. The technical depth includes setting up DNS records, managing TLS certificates with Let's Encrypt, and configuring OAuth callbacks.

6/15/2023

This post announces the general availability of GitLab Dedicated, a fully managed, single-tenant SaaS offering. It highlights key features for compliance and control, including data residency, tenant isolation, private networking, SAML authentication, IP allow lists, and data encryption. It also outlines future plans for AI integration within GitLab Dedicated, emphasizing data privacy.

5/23/2023

Introduced Workspaces, a new feature for on-demand, cloud-based development environments. Workspaces are ephemeral, personal development environments in the cloud, defined by code in a `.devfile.yaml` file. They require a cloud platform or self-hosted Kubernetes cluster with the GitLab Agent for Kubernetes installed. Initially, they support the Web IDE and allow for manual authentication to clone private repositories. Future plans include SSH access from desktop IDEs, support for other editors, and usage limits.

5/11/2023

This post announces the certification of the GitLab Operator by Red Hat OpenShift. It details how this enables installing a self-managed GitLab instance within an OpenShift cluster, leveraging the Operator framework for streamlined operations. The certification involved aligning with Red Hat's UBI and policy requirements, signifying joint support for GitLab on OpenShift.

10/20/2022

This post details the partnership between GitLab and Oracle to enable GitLab's DevOps platform to run on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). It highlights the benefits of this pairing, including performance enhancements through OCI's latest-generation processors and GPU support for AI/ML workloads, platform breadth with OKE integration and GitOps workflows, enhanced security features of OCI, and value through end-to-end SLAs. The post also discusses support for hybrid and multi-cloud environments, including Oracle's partnership with VMware and GitLab's ability to deploy on vSphere. Finally, it mentions OCI's GovCloud regions and GitLab's pursuit of FedRAMP certification. The post also provides guidance on getting started with GitLab on OCI using Oracle Linux packages, Helm charts, or the GitLab Operator.

8/25/2022

This post outlines a 3-step plan for migrating to a DevOps platform, focusing on tool consolidation and minimizing business disruption. It emphasizes identifying strategic goals, evaluating existing tools, and conducting a team self-evaluation covering timelines, costs, assistance, user roles, data migration, automation, documentation, and security. It also references an eBook for further information.

7/21/2022

This post details how to access a self-hosted GitLab instance on a private network using Tailscale, a VPN solution based on WireGuard. It covers installing Tailscale, setting up DNS for the private IP address, and configuring HTTPS with Let's Encrypt certificates. This enables secure remote access to self-hosted GitLab instances without traditional port forwarding, addressing risks associated with opening network ports and dynamic IP addresses.

11/4/2021

This post details the practical implementation of GitOps using GitLab and Terraform for infrastructure provisioning. It covers creating a network and setting up a Kubernetes cluster using Civo, with a focus on infrastructure as code (IaC) principles. The post explains how to configure Terraform to use the GitLab managed Terraform state backend, both for local execution (using direnv and environment variables) and within a GitLab CI/CD pipeline. It also outlines the structure of Terraform projects, separating concerns like network and cluster setup, and discusses best practices for managing Terraform state and configurations.

10/6/2021

This post introduces the AWS Quick Start for cloud-native hybrid deployments on EKS as a new, simplified method for provisioning large-scale GitLab instances on AWS. It builds upon existing Reference Architectures and the GitLab Environment Toolkit (GET) by providing a "ready-to-run" implementation with pre-tested configurations, bills of materials, and "Deploy Now" links. The Quick Start is designed to ensure high availability and adherence to AWS well-architected standards, reducing deployment time and complexity for users aiming to scale GitLab to 50,000 users.

9/16/2020

This post details GitLab's year-long effort to migrate GitLab.com services to Kubernetes. It outlines the challenges faced, including increased billing from cross-AZ traffic, managing resource limits and requests for scaling, improving metrics and logging for observability during the transition, and strategies for shifting traffic to the new cluster using a canary stage. The post also discusses the use of Terraform and Helm for managing Kubernetes configuration within GitLab itself, and the lessons learned regarding the importance of detailed log queries, rollback procedures, and combining metrics from legacy VM and Kubernetes environments.

4/27/2020

This post details AppsFlyer's migration from Bitbucket to GitLab, including their transition from Mercurial to Git. It highlights the technical challenges and solutions involved in migrating a large number of repositories, such as developing a self-service Fast-Export wrapper and using Slack for synchronization. The post also touches upon the benefits of an open-source, self-managed solution, including the ability to build custom tools and improve workflows, and the transparency offered by GitLab's public issue tracker.

1/9/2020

This post discusses the reasons organizations still use traditional IT infrastructure, including regulatory/compliance concerns, protecting sensitive data, and cost considerations at scale. It also outlines the challenges of on-prem infrastructure such as the required range of expertise, managing software and hardware, and undifferentiated engineering. Strategies for shifting to cloud, including 'lift-and-shift' and hybrid cloud approaches, are also discussed.

5/2/2019

This post details GitLab's migration from Azure to GCP. The technical approach involved using GitLab Geo for replication to a secondary instance in GCP, migrating artifacts to Google Cloud Storage, and provisioning the new environment with Omnibus. The failover process was meticulously planned and iterated upon using issue templates and checklist-based practice runs. The migration resulted in significant improvements in availability (from 99.61% to 99.93%) and a reduction in daily errors (from 8.2 to 1). The post also discusses the decision to postpone Kubernetes integration during the migration.

10/11/2018

This post details the migration of GitLab.com from Azure to Google Cloud Platform (GCP), highlighting significant improvements in availability and performance. It presents data on reduced downtime, improved mean-time between outage events, and latency histograms showing better request completion times. The post attributes these improvements to a more powerful Gitaly fleet on GCP with enhanced IO performance (SSD vs. magnetic disks, higher IOPS and bandwidth) and a reduction in 'unicorn worker saturation' errors due to better abuse detection, aggressive timeouts, and circuit breakers. It also mentions the ongoing work towards achieving 99.95% availability.

7/19/2018

This post details the technical aspects and timeline of migrating GitLab.com's SaaS infrastructure from Azure to Google Cloud Platform (GCP). It outlines the benefits of GCP for Kubernetes support, encrypted data at rest by default, and faster caching. It also specifies upcoming maintenance windows for the migration, including dry runs and the actual switchover, and provides guidance for GitLab Pages users regarding DNS changes. The post also mentions the use of GitLab Geo for replication and Google Cloud Storage for artifacts.

7/18/2018

This post announces the availability of GitLab in the GCP Marketplace for single-click installation on GKE, simplifying self-managed deployments. It also highlights the ongoing migration of GitLab.com to GCP and Kubernetes, and the integration of GitLab CI/CD with Kubernetes for application deployment.

6/25/2018

This post details GitLab's migration from Azure to Google Cloud Platform (GCP). It highlights the use of GitLab Geo for replicating Git and relational data, and Google Cloud Storage for object storage (CI artifacts, LFS objects, file attachments). The migration strategy involves rehearsing failovers in staging environments using issue templates for procedures and tracking issues in a dedicated migration tracker. The planned failover date is July 28, 2018.

3/2/2017

This post details GitLab's decision to remain in the cloud after initially considering a move to bare metal. It summarizes community feedback and technical considerations regarding cost, performance, storage, networking, and distributed file systems (Ceph) that influenced the decision. The post highlights the trade-offs between cloud and bare metal infrastructure for a large-scale service like GitLab.com, emphasizing the complexity of managing on-premises infrastructure at scale and the benefits of cloud elasticity and managed services.

12/11/2016

This post details GitLab's decision to move from cloud hosting to purchasing their own bare-metal servers for GitLab.com to improve performance and scalability. It outlines the proposed hardware specifications for chassis, CPUs, disks (including the use of SSDs for caching with Bcache), memory, and network configuration. The plan involves a move towards a fault-tolerant CephFS cluster and the migration of application servers and PostgreSQL to bare metal, while keeping CI Runners in the cloud for easier autoscaling. The post also discusses the strategy of using a common node design for interchangeability and managing blended workloads on Kubernetes for optimal resource utilization.

11/10/2016

This post details the decision to move GitLab's infrastructure from the cloud to bare metal due to performance limitations and cost inefficiencies encountered with CephFS on shared cloud resources. It highlights the challenges of achieving consistent high IOPS performance in the cloud, the concept of 'noisy neighbors,' and the trade-offs between cloud scalability and actual performance at scale. The post also emphasizes the importance of building observable systems with detailed monitoring (using Prometheus) to proactively identify and address infrastructure issues, using OSD Journal Latency as a key metric that indicated downtime.

9/16/2016

This post announces the integration of GitLab with Mesosphere's DC/OS, enabling one-click installation of GitLab instances within a DC/OS environment. It highlights five key benefits: simplifying complex infrastructure management, reducing deployment time to minutes, improving resource utilization through shared computing resources, maintaining uptime via DC/OS's fault tolerance, and providing analytics and reporting dashboards. It also provides resources for further learning and installation.

6/28/2016

This post details the technical steps and considerations for deploying GitLab on OpenShift Origin 3. It covers setting up the OpenShift environment using Vagrant, exploring the OpenShift web console and CLI, and troubleshooting common VM issues. The core contribution is the step-by-step guide to deploying GitLab using its official Docker image and an OpenShift template, including creating a new project, importing the template, and configuring the application with separate PostgreSQL and Redis instances.

4/29/2016

This post provides a detailed breakdown of the infrastructure used for GitLab.com in April 2016, including the number of HAProxy load balancers, application stack servers (Nginx, Workhorse, Unicorn + Rails, Redis + Sidekiq), NFS servers, Redis, PostgreSQL, and Elasticsearch servers. It also details the use of Azure Availability Sets for HA and the infrastructure for managing Shared Runners, including autoscaled Docker machines. The post concludes with a total server count for GitLab.com.

4/7/2016

This post details how Stack Overflow uses GitLab for source control on-premises. It highlights their adoption of GitLab over Git-web and Kiln due to performance improvements. Key technical details include their use of self-managed GitLab, LDAP integration, and their ongoing analysis of GitLab Geo for multi-datacenter replication. They also mention using Team City for CI instead of GitLab's integrated CI.

12/30/2015

Introduced new GitHost plans with increased SSD storage (Developer: 30GB, Startup: 60GB, Business: 80GB, Business Pro: 160GB, Corporate: 320GB) and adjusted pricing to ensure sustainability. Made GitLab Enterprise Edition available within GitHost, simplifying its deployment. Added easier configuration for Omniauth providers and LDAP, allowing direct configuration through the UI and requiring only a reconfigure. Redesigned the GitHost UI for improved aesthetics and usability.

11/3/2015

This post introduces the Pivotal Cloud Foundry (PCF) tile for GitLab Enterprise Edition (EE). This tile allows for the deployment of GitLab as a pre-configured appliance on PCF using Ops Manager (BOSH). Key benefits highlighted include high availability by default, easy scalability by adjusting a single value, and full configuration within the PCF environment. This expands on-premises deployment options by integrating with a PaaS solution.

8/18/2015

This post announces the integration of GitLab Mattermost, an open-source, on-premises messaging app, into GitLab Omnibus packages starting with version 7.14. This collaboration with the Mattermost team addresses the need for an on-premises Slack alternative, leveraging GitLab's Omnibus for easy installation and its OAuth provider for seamless integration. It also highlights the deprecation of the older 'wall' feature and the ongoing efforts to improve Mattermost's security and stability.

5/20/2015

This post details the acquisition of Gitorious by GitLab and the subsequent shutdown of gitorious.org. It addresses community concerns regarding software freedom and licensing, specifically the difference between GitLab's permissive Expat license and Gitorious's AGPLv3. A key technical contribution discussed is the licensing of all JavaScript served from GitLab EE instances under the MIT Expat license, ensuring that client-side JavaScript remains free software. This was a direct response to concerns about proprietary JavaScript being served from GitLab.com.

3/3/2015

GitLab acquires Gitorious to strengthen its on-premises offerings. Gitorious customers can import projects to GitLab.com. Gitorious.org will remain online until the end of May 2015 for migration. On-premises Gitorious users can contact sales for more information. This acquisition aims to combine strengths to make the best open source software for code collaboration.

2/12/2015

This post argues for the continued relevance and advantages of on-premises deployments in the era of SaaS. It highlights key benefits including enhanced security through network containment (firewalls), deeper integration capabilities with enterprise systems like LDAP/AD and other CD pipeline tools, greater control over infrastructure and maintenance windows, improved performance due to reduced latency for local developers, increased choice and flexibility in deployment options (physical, virtual, appliance), and simpler IP retrieval compared to cloud vendors. It positions GitLab as a leading on-premises solution for developer collaboration.

1/20/2015

This post highlights GitLab Enterprise Edition's advantages for enterprise needs, focusing on features like protected branches, UI-based rebasing, LDAP group synchronization, and internally visible projects. It also details operational and scaling benefits, such as storing repositories on separate file servers (NFS/NAS), stateless application servers for easier scaling and high availability, and performance claims of one server handling 25,000 active users. The post also touches on the open-source nature enabling affordable licensing and broader collaboration across functional groups.