Best DevOps practices for implementing CI/CD pipeline
Diving into the terms: what CI and CD actually mean
The connection between continuous integration, continuous delivery, and continuous deployment can be perplexing, particularly when they are incorporated into the cycle known as CI/CD. All these are iterative techniques that are used to maintain development and release. But let’s comprehend the distinctions between each of these methods.
Continuous integration (CI)?emphasizes the early phases of a software development pipeline, where the code is built and goes through initial testing. Numerous developers collaborate on the same codebase at the same time and make regular commits to the code repository. Build frequency can be once a day or even several times a day at certain points in the project’s lifecycle. These frequent, small builds enable simple and low-risk experimentation, as well as the capacity to effortlessly revert or discard undesirable results.
CI relies on a range of tools and automation strategies to generate builds and guide them through preliminary testing. This testing includes unit testing as well as more extensive integration testing. One of the defining features of CI is its quick and detailed feedback. Each iteration is limited in scope, that is why bugs can be easily identified, located, reported, and fixed.
In the end, CI comes to a close when a build successfully passes its initial testing and is deemed ready for more extensive testing. This may involve tasks such as packaging the build into a deployable image (container or virtual machine image) before making it accessible to testers.
Continuous delivery (CD)?takes over from where CI finishes. It concentrates on the later pipeline’s stages, where a build is completely tested, authenticated, and delivered for deployment. While CD has the ability to deploy a build after it has been tested and authenticated, it is not necessary to do so.?
CD depends significantly on automation and tools to guide a build through progressive testing, which includes functional, configuration, user acceptance, and load testing. These types of tests ensure that the build complies with the necessary standards and fits a production environment.?
The point is that the use of small incremental iterations guarantees that any issue during testing is quickly identified and fixed in a more cost-effective manner compared to traditional software development methods.
Continuous deployment (CD too), like continuous delivery, follows the same fundamental steps. The primary contrast between deployment and delivery is that continuous deployment automatically deploys every authenticated build to production. In contrast, continuous delivery usually only prepares the validated build for manual deployment or other forms of human approval.
Continuous deployment takes the iterative software development process to another level by eliminating the delay between the validation of a build and its deployment. However, this approach can pose a risk of undetected flaws or vulnerabilities slipping through testing and making their way into production. Therefore, many organizations view automated deployment as presenting too many potential risks to enterprise security and compliance. Instead, these teams prefer the continuous delivery model, where humans review a validated build before it is released.
The common thread that runs through these three continuous paradigms is a strong dependence on automation and testing to drive the process. In an ideal scenario, a developer should only need to “push a button” to move a new build from the code repository through testing and onto delivery or deployment. However, this proposition depends on the quality of the testing, the reliability of the automation behind it, and the diligent attention of testers and software developers.
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Advantages and disadvantages of CI/CD pipeline implementation
In a CI/CD pipeline, all processes are intended to occur at the same time, with software iterations being coded, tested, and deployed simultaneously. However, implementing a CI/CD pipeline involves important tradeoffs between advantages and disadvantages.
The benefits?of a CI/CD pipeline consist of the following:
By breaking down the software development process into smaller iterations or steps, testing becomes easier and more efficient. The limited scope of code in each new iteration makes it simpler to?detect and rectify bugs. Features can be assessed for usefulness and user acceptance, and less valuable features can be quickly modified or even abandoned before further resources are expended.
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Traditional software development methods can take several months or years, and formalized specifications and requirements are not flexible enough to adapt to changing user needs and expectations. In contrast, CI/CD development readily accommodates new and evolving requirements, allowing developers to implement changes in subsequent iterations. Products developed with CI/CD can reach the market more quickly and with greater success.
The rapid cyclicality of CI/CD allows developers to experiment with innovative coding styles and algorithms with less risk than traditional software development approaches, providing them with the freedom to fail without significant consequences. If an experiment is unsuccessful, it is unlikely to be released into production and can be undone in the following iteration. This potential for competitive innovation is a compelling reason for organizations to adopt CI/CD.
Additionally, the constant flow of a CI/CD pipeline makes it easier to address and fix bugs more quickly and with greater confidence, resulting in better software maintenance. In traditional software development, bugs may take weeks or months to fix, whereas CI/CD’s regular testing and validation stages ensure that issues are addressed promptly, resulting in a more stable and dependable product over time.
Furthermore, regular software releases keep operations personnel up to date with the software’s requirements and monitoring needs, resulting in better operations support. Administrators are better equipped to deploy software updates and handle rollbacks with fewer deployment errors and less unnecessary troubleshooting. Additionally, IT automation technologies can help speed up deployments while reducing setup or configuration errors.
While there are many benefits to using CI/CD pipelines, there are also?several potential problems?that need to be considered. Here are a few of the most common ones:
CI/CD pipeline’s stages
Basically, CI/CD pipeline consists?of four main stages: source, build, testing, and deployment. Let’s figure out what should be done on each of them.
Stage 1. Source
On this stage, developers write code and store it in a version control system, such as Git. This stage also implies using integrated development environments (IDEs) that are compliant to a language and code-cheking features used.?
Stage 2. Build
On this stage, you can get the source code from the repository, compile it, and link it with libraries. The code is built into executable packages, such as binaries or Docker containers, which can be deployed to various environments.
Stage 3. Testing
Automated tests are run on the code to ensure that it meets the necessary quality standards. These tests can include unit tests, integration tests, and acceptance tests. After the build stage, you can use dynamic application security testing (DAST), interactive application security testing (IAST), regression testing,?performance testing, etc.
Stage 4. Deployment
The packages are deployed to various environments, such as development, staging, and production. First, a build is deployed on a test server. It can also be called pre-production deployment. Then, the packages are automatically deployed to production environments once they pass all necessary quality checks.
If implemented the right way, CI/CD pipeline is designed to automate the software delivery process and reduce the time and effort required to release software updates. By automating the pipeline, teams can deliver software more quickly and with greater confidence.