Not only has cloud native transformed the velocity in which organizations execute and maintain business operations, but it has also redefined storage, network and compute. From the infrastructure that IT operations maintains, to the applications that supply customers with the ability to interact with their data—DevOps teams have to deliver more services than ever, and they have to do it fast, with little to no error. Easy, right?

Cloud native tooling for authorization is an emerging trend poised to revolutionize how we approach this oft-neglected part of our applications. Open Policy Agent (OPA) is the leading contender to become a de-facto standard for applying policies to many different systems — from workloads running on Kubernetes to requests passing through Istio.

Open Policy Agent (OPA) is rapidly becoming a cornerstone in the management and maintenance of secure and compliant systems that align with industry and organizational best practices. As more organizations begin — or continue — their cloud-native digital transformation, the importance of policy-as-code only increases. Sometimes, though, becoming an expert in yet another tool or language isn’t in the cards.