 Hi, this is Chris Kondo, principal analyst with Forrester Research. Application development and operations teams are battling to contain an ever-increasing tool chain sprawl. In a recent commission study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of GitLab, we found that most businesses are maintaining two or more tool chains across the software delivery life cycle, and each tool chain is comprised of six or more tools. This mixture of custom tools and integrations often slows down delivery, creates security challenges, and impacts visibility. In fact, over two-thirds of respondents agreed that handoffs between teams using different tools slows down delivery. Additionally, beyond simply managing the fast scale of tools in a modern, software delivery organization's tool chain, most teams are left to integrate tool chains by manual means. Over a third of tool chains are integrated with a combination of plugins and scripts. One in five tool chains are integrated via manual, hard-coded custom integrations, a process that is not only time consuming but rife with potential errors. On top of this, 46% of respondents noted that they struggle with insufficient skills, expertise, or resources to integrate discrete tools. 44% struggle with the same skills to maintain discrete tools and tool integrations. Our research found that out-of-the-box tool chain management systems are seen by many professionals as the key to simplifying this complex world of tool chains. In fact, over 40% of respondents anticipate improved quality, security, and developer productivity from an out-of-the-box tool chain management system. Crucially, investing in an out-of-the-box tool chain management system is a strategic endeavor as well. Beyond tactical improvements, the benefit that was noted as having the greatest impact on business was the ability to deploy to any target environment or cloud. This flexibility is especially important as 77% of IT professionals agree that their organizations are moving to the cloud and they want to avoid cloud lock-in. Join me, guest speaker Chris Kondo, principal analyst at Forrester Research and GitLab, to discuss tool chain complexity and how to best manage the visibility, security, and productivity challenges ADAD and operations professionals alike are facing.