Every organization aims for faster software development that comprises continuous integration, testing, and delivery. These requirements can be achieved by implementing CI/CD pipelines that contain test measures to identify errors in their early phases before customers face them while using them.
Continuous Integration (CI) is an automatic method to develop, integrate and test software builds consistently. It gives certain level of confidence to the developers toward their application, like using its source code version control suites, they can ensure its security and build quality-related integrity. This methodology checks all-software repositories from its main branch to the endpoints.
The continuous delivery methodology delivers good quality application to the deployment platform. But this does not mean making that particular application live in the public zone. Usually, developers start to push the build into the development pipeline, and after practicing all quality checking processes, put the software into the beta testing environment. In this ecosystem, they closely monitor all processes and find difficult bugs and resolve them. If the application performs well in that ecosystem, only then will they put the new version into the public platform/production environment.
In CD (continuous delivery), there are chances for developers to revert to the older version if anything gets wrong, and customers can generate tickets for them to solve application bugs. The main goal of Continuous Delivery is not about putting several builds into production but improving the customer experience of the product consistently without any backsliding. This whole CI/CD process is also known as the DevOps methodology.
Reasons To Deploy CI/CD Pipeline into The Cloud Platform:
Most companies prefer to host their application, data, or any new platform within their secured firewall, which is considered a sensible decision. For that, they must require an expert and dedicated developers’ team to maintain the efficiency of the enterprise IT infrastructure and might find a significant increase in the server’s capital spendings.
Having an advantage of hosting applications in the cloud environment is a viable option. As it costs less than usual on-premises services. Also its operating costs considers by the following maintenance measures of a production environment, infrastructure, support, security, and CI/CD pipeline.
If CI/CD application and their repositories are deployed in the same cloud environment, they can efficiently interact. Cloud platform hosting becomes more advantageous for organizations when developers and testers are working from remote locations.
We can also deploy CI/CD software on a hybrid server containing both on-premises and cloud platforms. The latest version of the CI/CD pipeline allows the software to run in Kubernetes clusters with the same efficiency as there were used to in on-premises and cloud platforms.
If an organization wants to deploy CI/CD software in a hybrid environment, they’ll have the advantage of placing each application component in a physical location where it can perform much better with the network configuration of other servers.
Why Should CI/CD Pipeline Be Integrated with Present Infrastructure Repositories?
Repositories are endpoints for software quality check-in and testing processes and are an essential part of the CI/CD. However, these repositories are beyond the endpoint as they allow CI/CD to store their pipeline scripts and valuable resources internally. Additionally, it is advisable to keep the repository outside of the version control tools for better application performance.
Most CI/CD pipeline supports Git repositories and interact directly with them. Some CI/CD also interact with different versions with GitHub, Bitbucket, Subversion, and Mercurial.
CI/CD Platform Must Support Organizational Technology Stack:
Being a developer, you must have an idea about each programming language group containing its own set of tools for different procedures. When you choose your CI/CD tool or platform, ensure that it is configurable/versatile. In short, it must support all types of programming languages and their respective tools. If CI/CD is not compatible with specific technology stack, you will need to add more support plug-ins or write more library codes.
CI/CD Platform Must Be Simpler and Understandable by Any Developer:
Many CI/CD platforms’ principles may seem understandable, but their internal configurations actually are more tangled. Plus, each CI/CD platform contains various levels of reporting and support systems. For example, you’ll find multiple documentation and support guides for Jenkins, but it is not possible for other CI/CD tools. You need to do some extra research on them to understand their way of working or sometimes along with some paid support like licensed support tools.
For example, to understand the general background of CI, Addison-Wesley CI Book by “Duvall et al”, and for CD, “Continuous Delivery” by Humble and Farley are the most recommended ones.
Choose CI/CD Platforms According to Future Migration Plans:
Technology is an extremely dynamic field, that transforms every single day. In that case, it is silly to guess that particular CI/CD platform will serve forever for that project. Hence, always keep a habit of storing software scripts in repositories instead of in the CI/CD tools.
Go For Serverless CI/CD Platform When Necessary:
Cloud serverless deployments are less expensive than cloud container and server instance deployments. However, not all CI/CD platforms are compatible with running serverless deployment in terms of writing codes. The reason is that in CI/CD, all programming events are a type of code that searches the solutions in the specific branch of repositories to launch a serverless process.
A serverless CI/CD is an enhanced version of a serverless framework built to deploy all types of serverless applications running on cloud platforms. When choosing a serverless CI/CD platform, you have to check its compatibility with applications.
Final Words:
After implementing the CI/CD platform into the enterprise IT infrastructure, it becomes an integral part of the entire system. Proof checking of the newly designed CI/CD pipeline code is necessary before rolling it out in the production line. Because the main purpose of CI/CD tools is to automate application production from development, integration, testing to its delivery to the production environment. Thus, it is advisable to use all the above-mentioned tips for choosing the best CI/CD tool or platform that suits your project type.
In case you need any expert support for the CI/CD implementation and management, consider CloudStakes Technology Pvt. Ltd. the best option that provides clients with the best DevOps solution in India.