What is the Concept of CI/CD? How is CI/CD Useful for Startups?

Before understanding the concept of CI/CD we have to understand the concept of deployment first.?

What is deployment?

Deployment refers to the process of releasing a software application or product from a development environment to a target environment where it can be accessed and used by end-users. Deployment involves the installation and configuration of software components, data, and other necessary resources to enable the product to function in the target environment.

In software development, deployment typically involves moving the product from a development environment to a production environment where it can be accessed by end-users. The production environment may be a physical server, a cloud-based infrastructure, or a combination of both.

The deployment process may involve multiple steps, including building, testing, packaging, and configuring the software components, as well as validating the product's functionality, security, and performance in the target environment. Deployment may also involve the management of resources such as databases, servers, and networking components.

The deployment process is critical to ensuring that a product is released safely and efficiently, with minimal disruption to users. Effective deployment requires careful planning, documentation, and testing to ensure that the product meets the required quality standards and can function as intended in the target environment.

After completion of a product’s testing the next step is to deploy the product on stage and production servers. To deploy the code on production servers three approaches used normally as

1. Manual
2. Partial Manual
3. Fully Automated

While working with service based companies I used to deploy the code directly on client servers using a software called FTP(File Transfer Protocol). But it can work for a small product which has a small user base.

Suppose if you have to deploy a large product using FTP which has thousands of files, it will take too much time and would be very difficult. And if multiple servers are running? then it would be more difficult and painful.

When I joined startups I found there different deployment approaches. Based on the requirements and team expertise different organizations used different approaches.

1. Manual: In this approach everything is manual. There is a dedicated person who used to deploy all the deployments on different servers manually. In a manual deployment process we have to pull our code on each server manually one by one. But you know in the manual deployment process there are chances of missing. If we have missed anyone's server then our product misbehaves differently and that would impact our user experience. We can easily understand the manual process of deployment by the help of the following diagram as

1. Partial Manual: In this approach we can write a few scripts for integration and rest of the steps are taken manually. So there are less chances of missing the deployment on any server.
2. Fully Automated: In this approach the whole deployment process is automated. There is no manual intervention but we have to write scripts for each and everything. I mean for integration to deployment. There is no chance of missing on any server. Either the deployment would be a success or fail.

Now the question is what is the concept of CI/CD?

The CI/CD stands for Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery.

What do you mean by Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery?

Continuous Integration means automating the integration part where there are lots of branches that come for deployment on a daily basis, this process makes it easier and faster.

Continuous Delivery on the other hand automates the deployment part. All the features which come for the deployment will be taken care of and deployed on respective servers automatically without manual intervention.

CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery) is a software development approach that aims to streamline the development process and reduce time to market by automating the build, test, and deployment stages of the software development lifecycle.

Continuous Integration (CI) is the practice of regularly merging code changes from multiple developers into a shared repository. This is done to ensure that the codebase is always up-to-date and that any conflicts or issues are detected and resolved early in the development cycle. CI involves automated building and testing of code changes as soon as they are checked into the repository, to catch any errors or issues before they can cause problems later in the development process.

Continuous Delivery (CD) builds upon the CI approach by automating the deployment process. This involves automatically packaging and releasing code changes to production environments once they have passed testing and quality checks. CD aims to make the deployment process faster, more reliable, and less error-prone, allowing organizations to deliver new features and updates to users more frequently and with less risk.

CI/CD requires the use of automation tools, such as continuous integration servers, automated testing frameworks, and deployment pipelines, to ensure that the development process is streamlined and repeatable. By adopting a CI/CD approach, development teams can reduce the time and effort required to develop and release high-quality software products, and increase their agility and responsiveness to changing market conditions and user needs.

This complete process is called CI/CD development and this is very useful for startups where 4-5 features releases come for deployment on a daily basis.

The CI/CD process not only automates the deployment process but also automates the entire journey from testing to integration as well. The developer task is developing, the QA team only looks after the testing part no need to think what to deploy and where to deploy. And finally the DevOps team does not need to worry what to deploy and where to deploy. The entire process runs automatically without intervening where the only focus is delivery without a failure.

Now you would be thinking how the entire process works, right?

The complete process is a set of steps taken to release a product or application to its intended environment, such as a production server or a customer's infrastructure. The process typically involves the following steps:

1. Build: The product code is compiled, tested, and packaged into a deployable artifact, such as a binary, Docker image, or container.
2. Test: The product is tested in a staging or pre-production environment to ensure that it meets the required functionality, performance, and security criteria.
3. Configuration: The product is configured with environment-specific settings, such as database connection strings, API keys, and server addresses.
4. Deployment: The product is deployed to the target environment, such as a production server or a cloud service provider.
5. Validation: The product is tested and validated in the target environment to ensure that it is functioning as expected and meets the required quality standards.
6. Rollback: If any issues arise during deployment or validation, the product may need to be rolled back to a previous version or configuration.
7. Monitoring: The product is monitored in production to detect and address any issues that may arise, such as performance bottlenecks, security vulnerabilities, or errors.

The following diagram helps us a lot in understanding the concept of CI/CD as

The deployment process may vary depending on the product, environment, and deployment approach. However, the overall goal is to ensure that the product is deployed safely, efficiently, and with minimal disruption to users.

EXERCISE FOR YOU

Analyze your deployment process and figure out how you can improve your deployment process for easy, smooth and faster deployments. I hope this would be helpful to you to understand about the deployment process.