Refactr Publicly Launches Cloud + Security Architect Platform

This release is a major milestone in the evolution of Refactr’s collaborative, visually-focused platform that unlocks the power of the public cloud through enterprise- grade automation and integration workflows.  CSAP connects three things together in Cloud + Security blueprints: cloud infrastructure/services, Windows and Linux automation playbooks, and web-based API integrations. CSAP does this without requiring costly, hard-to-find DevOps engineers and Cloud + Security Architects, as these expensive resources are often out of reach of most service providers’ technology teams. Users in each technology team, possessing varying levels of expertise, are now empowered to easily collaborate in CSAP while architecting, deploying, and managing repeatable “Everything-as-a-Service” solution blueprints using industry-standard technologies.

"There is a major shortage of DevOps Engineers and Cloud + Security Architects. On top of that, most technology teams consist of those who work inside user interfaces and aren’t coding experts.  We want technology teams to collaborate visually and allow their existing technical resources to automate and leverage the public cloud. CSAP provides the ability for technology teams to modernize their approach, create their own intellectual property to stay competitive, and increase their profitability.” - Michael Fraser, Co-Founder, Refactr.

Partner feedback has been vital to every feature added in this major release of CSAP to further enhance the user experience and power of the platform. Align Communications, a mid-sized service provider out of New York City is one of those key feedback partners and views CSAP as essential to their Cloud + Security strategy. “Refactr’s CSAP has enabled us to architect and automate secure cloud solutions, empowering us to be more efficient and consistent with our deployments.” - Chris Mihm, Director of Managed Cloud Solutions, Align Communications.

Refactr’s major release today includes a set of new features as a result of in-depth user feedback from key partners, including:

• Organize related blueprints, playbooks, and integrations into “workspaces.” Workspaces lay the foundation for technology teams to architect their own blueprints of deliverable, repeatable automated environments, connecting everything together to deploy cloud services, enforce configuration, and connect to external systems, e.g. VMWare vCloud Director, ConnectWise Manage, Sophos Central, etc.

• Visual blueprint and component revision history allows technology teams to save, freeze, and restore revisions, as well as pin blueprint components to specific revisions. Visual source control is critical for technology teams who need to track changes for change management, security auditing, and to provide better control over updates, including patch rollouts to individual components.
• An improved job manager provides detailed information about every operation and event that occurred during a job run. Enabling a trackable resource of changes made to cloud services, applications, and external systems integrated into CSAP.

• Powerful, visual editors simplify the process of creating industry-standard automation workflows, including editors for Azure® Resource Manager Templates, AWS® CloudFormation Stacks, Google® Deployment Manager Templates, RedHat Ansible® Playbooks, and web-based API integrations. Seamlessly connect and launch these tools from a centralized cloud platform with no setup required.

• New API integration designer enables users to build out complete Cloud + Security offerings by combining the best of many security products, including Cisco, Sophos, Webroot, RapidFire Tools, and many more. These improvements make enterprise grade solutions available to the SMB at large by automating and simplifying the process of building security-focused blueprints that can be used to build, enforce, and remediate.

About Refactr

Refactr is a Seattle based cloud software company and creators of the Cloud + Security Architect Platform (“CSAP”).  CSAP is a SaaS-based cloud platform, modernizing secure IT solution delivery focusing on a visual approach to a software defined world. CSAP bridges the gap between pure development and technology teams who are currently unable to adopt DevOps techniques due to lack of expertise and high cost of those resources. Technology teams with minimal cloud and DevOps background can quickly create repeatable, packaged Cloud + Security solution blueprints, and communicate architecture to clients and team members visually.  CSAP is made for technology teams who want to shift their focus to a Cloud + Security first, Everything-as-a-Service approach.

To find out more about Refactr™, visit https://refactr.it or to get in touch with Refactr™ directly, by calling (866) 493-9367 or follow us on Twitter @refactrIT