JFrog has introduced a scanning tool for containers, called Xray, adding another piece to the company's continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform.

Xray was the star announcement today at swampUP, the company's annual user conference, being held in Napa, Calif.

CI/CD is shorthand for a set of software practices that strive for fast development cycles and frequent code updates. It's a very DevOps way to work, an alternative to large, carefully scheduled software releases.

JFrog already offers two key pieces of a CI/CD pipeline: Artifactory (a repository manager) and Bintray (a platform for distributing software). Xray fits at the start of that pipeline, scanning software binaries — probably containers, in most cases — for problems such as license violations or malware. It does so by checking code against vulnerability and license compliance databases from VersionEye, Black Duck, and WhiteSource.

Docker Inc. came out with its own scanning feature earlier this month, calling it Docker Security Scanning. Twistlock has a scanning capability as well, in the form of Twistlock Trust.

JFrog also used swampUP to announce some partnerships that link Artifactory to some big DevOps names:

• Artifactory is now available in software-as-a-service (SaaS) form on Google Cloud Platform.
• It's also been named the standard container registry for Mesosphere's DC/OS application orchestration platform.
• Artifactory is now integrated with Bitbucket, a Git repository management platform from Atlassian.
• A partnership with Sumo Logic ties that company's analytics platform to Artifactory.

JFrog is one of many companies cashing in on the funding craze for containers and DevOps. In January, the company announced a $50 million Series C that included new investors Scale Venture Partners, Sapphire Ventures, Battery Ventures, Vintage Investment Partners, and Qumra Capital.

Photo: Jerry Kirkhart on Flickr. CC2.0 license; photo has been cropped.