GlobeNewswire Inc | Sep 8, 2021 09:00AM EDT

September 08, 2021

Announced during ChefConf 2021, annual awards honor the outstanding achievements of companies and individuals in the DevOps space

BEDFORD, Mass., Sept. 08, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Progress (NASDAQ: PRGS), the leading provider of products to develop, deploy and manage high-impact businessapplications, today announced the winners of the 2021 Chef Awards. These annual awards recognize Progress Chef product customers, partners and community members that have set a new standard for excellence and innovation in the use of DevOps.

Winners were announced during ChefConf 2021, the 10th annual Chef community and user conference, being held September 7-9, 2021. ChefConf has brought together more than 2,000 DevOps pros from leading organizations around the world to dive into the latest innovations in DevOps practices.

CHEF CUSTOMER AWARDS

-- Continuous Compliance Championof the Year: SAPThis award recognizes organizations that have leveraged Chef Compliance and/or ChefInSpec in creative ways to deploy scalable, secure, and compliant environments. SAPs Multi-cloud Operations team leverages Chef InSpec automation compliance software to scan their public cloud infrastructure at unparalleled scale for security compliance. By using Chef InSpec, SAP has been able to scan millions of cloud resources over thousands of cloud accounts across all major public cloud providers, verifying compliance status in a matter of hours.

-- Continuous Delivery Trailblazerof the Year: Bluestem BrandsThis award recognizes companies thathave taken their Chef automation efforts to the next level by integratingChefproducts as part ofaCI/CD pipeline. Bluestem Brands, the parent company to five dynamic eCommerce retail brands including Appleseeds, Blair, Drapers & Damons, Fingerhut and Haband, transformed their Windows management landscape by implementing automated pipelines for Windows patching and Chef Infra Cookbook management. Bluestem has aggressively adopted new policy-as-code capabilities delivered by Chef software, helping them maximize their investment returns in time and money savings.

CHEF PARTNER AWARDS

-- 2021 Partner of the Year: AHEADThis award recognizes partners that have exhibited a commitment to deliveringDevSecOpssolutions and acknowledges partner excellence in sales, marketing, solution development and customer satisfaction.AHEAD has demonstrated a clear understanding of what enterprise companies struggle with in today's digital transformation environment. They bring nationwide technical expertise and excellent customer service to provide a DevSecOps solution for their customers. This exceptional performance and commitment make AHEAD a proven leader in the industry.

-- Technology Partner of the Year: tecRacerThis award recognizes partners that have a commitment to customer success and deliver innovative and impactful solutions to customers and the community.With the slogan make impossible things possible, tecRacer is an active contributor to the Chef community and various Chef projects such as Chef core, InSpec core and kitchen-vcenter driver. Most recently, they drove the implementation of remote Ohai and established the first Chef SaaS solution for European enterprise customers.

-- Public Sector Partner of the Year: TapHere!This award recognizes partners for their skills and ability to deliver valuable customer solutions by innovating and building the right combination of Chef solutions.TapHere! has been instrumental in providing initial implementation services and consulting to Chef customers. They have proven to be a top partner in outstanding jumpstart delivery of the Chef portfolio and continue to be a go-to partner in the federal space.

-- Emerging Partner of the Year: NCSThis award recognizes partners for their commitment acrosstechnical, sales and marketing efforts to achievehigh standards inDevSecOpssolutions.NCS has a knowledgeable and trained engineering staff to implement Chef software as part of their DevSecOps solutions. They have experienced tremendous growth and success with Chef solutions in Singapore and in the public sector, and plan to expand into the Australia and New Zealand markets.Honorable Mention: Climb Channel SolutionsClimb Channel Solutions is an international specialty distributor dedicated to enabling channel partners with the latest in emerging and disruptive technologies. As DevOps becomes a higher priority for enterprises, they continue to leverage Chef products for enabling their channel community with the tools to meet the needs of rapidly changing IT Infrastructure environments, security and compliance.

AWESOME CHEF AWARDSThe Awesome Chef awards recognize individuals who have made a dramatic impact on the Chef community and its ecosystem or who have helped further the goals of improving DevOps globally. Each year, Chef, now Progress, solicits nominations from the entire community, asking for the names of those who have helped or improved the world of Chef in big and small ways. The 2021 winners are:

-- JeffBrimager -- Ben Hughes -- LamontGranquist

Congratulations to each of the winners for their immeasurable contributions to the Chef community this year Chefs first full year as part of Progress by delivering the solutions that enable customers to digitally transform and provideoutcomesat speed, saidSundar Subramanian, General Manager, Chef Business, Progress. Chefs community is one of its key strengths, and were grateful for your continued partnership.

Additional Resources

-- Follow Progress onTwitter,FacebookandLinkedIn -- Read the Progressblog

About ProgressProgress (NASDAQ: PRGS) provides the leading products to develop, deploy and manage high-impact business applications. Our comprehensive product stack is desi2gned to make technology teams more productive and we have a deep commitment to the developer community, both open source and commercial alike. With Progress, organizations can accelerate the creation and delivery of strategic business applications, automate the process by which apps are configured, deployed and scaled, and make critical data and content more accessible and secureleading to competitive differentiation and business success. Over 1,700 independent software vendors, 100,000+ enterprise customers, and a three-million-strong developer community rely on Progress to power their applications. Learn about Progress atwww.progress.comor +1-800-477-6473.

Progress, ChefConf, and Chef are trademarks or registered trademarks ofProgress Software Corporationand/or one of its subsidiaries or affiliates in the US and other countries. Any other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

Press Contact:Kim BakerProgress+1 781-280-4000pr@progress.com