GitLab, a leading DevSecOps platform, has announced the release of GitLab 17.9, introducing significant enhancements focused on AI capabilities, security features, and developer productivity. This latest version brings over 110 improvements, including the general availability of GitLab Duo Self-Hosted and enhanced security scanning capabilities.
GitLab Duo Self-Hosted Goes GA
The headline feature of this release is GitLab Duo Self-Hosted becoming generally available. This capability allows organizations to host selected large language models (LLMs) in their own infrastructure while leveraging GitLab's AI-powered features. Organizations can now use models hosted either on-premise or in private clouds for GitLab Duo Chat and Code Suggestions, with support for open-source Mistral models, Claude 3.5 Sonnet on AWS Bedrock, and OpenAI models on Azure OpenAI.
Enhanced Security Features
GitLab 17.9 introduces several security improvements:
- Full control over DAST scans through the UI, including authentication configuration, crawl settings, and targeted scanning modes
- Support for additional vulnerability risk data including EPSS, KEV, and CVSS
- License scanning support for Swift packages
- Protection against deletion of active security policy projects
Developer Productivity Improvements
The release includes multiple features to boost developer efficiency:
- Multiple GitLab Pages sites can now run with parallel deployments
- Project files can be added to Duo Chat in VS Code and JetBrains IDEs
- Automatic CI/CD pipeline cleanup with customizable retention periods
- Wiki page comments for improved documentation collaboration
- Simplified access to deployment information within project environments
Container and Kubernetes Integration
GitLab continues to strengthen its container and Kubernetes capabilities:
- Workspaces now support building and running containers using Sysbox
- GitLab-managed Kubernetes resources for automated provisioning
- Improved support for implementing OCI-based GitOps with FluxCD
Why This Matters
These improvements reflect GitLab's commitment to providing a comprehensive DevSecOps platform that helps organizations develop software more efficiently while maintaining security and compliance. The self-hosted AI capabilities are particularly noteworthy as they allow organizations to leverage AI assistance while maintaining data sovereignty and privacy.
With GitLab 17.9, the company is giving organizations more control over their development environment while enhancing security and collaboration features. And the general availability of GitLab Duo Self-Hosted represents a significant milestone in bringing AI capabilities to organizations with strict data privacy requirements.
This release demonstrates GitLab's ongoing evolution as a complete DevSecOps platform, helping teams streamline their development workflows while maintaining security and compliance standards. The community also played a significant role, with 322 contributions to this release, highlighting GitLab's commitment to open source collaboration.
To find out more about all of the updates, fixes, additions, check out the GitLab change log.
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