What is continuous integration and continuous delivery in software development?

CI/CD is an important aspect of DevOps engineering for the efficient implementation of automation in the software development life cycle

Continuous Integration (CI)

Continuous Integration is the first part of a software delivery pipeline. It is where we integrate, build and test the code. Modern software development requires IT teams to work together on different areas, features and to fix bugs all at the same time for a single product. Integrating these changes manually can lead to conflicts in the code. Continuous Integration helps to save time and resources by offering an automated platform to properly validate, test and give feedback. CI also enhances the quality of the code itself as it quickly identifies code errors with a shorter automated feedback cycle.

Continuous Delivery (CD)

Continuous Delivery comes into play at the next stage of the software development process, when all codes are deployed to a testing environment or a production environment. Continuous Delivery addresses this need by offering an automation of the entire delivery process. Continuous Delivery supports multi-stage deployments, infrastructure and configuration changes, as well as monitoring and maintaining the application. It can also be extended to infrastructure management. CD’s main asset is that it notably increases the reliability and robustness of the application.

When does your company need CI/CD?

A properly designed CI/CD pipeline allows companies to adapt quickly to consumer needs and to deploy new innovations easily

If you want to succeed as a company, you ought to act fast. The world of technologies is constantly changing, and your organization needs to ensure both fast time to market and customer satisfaction. In traditional software development, providing changes requested by clients or adapting new technology to the market is a long-winded process. DevOps is a way to keep up with the market demands by providing a more flexible CI/CD pipeline.

With DevOps, a software developer can quickly identify, analyze, develop and deploy the software product without disrupting its normal development flow. Also, CI/CD allows deploying even small changes to the product by addressing user needs. As the product grows under the eyes of end-users, it also helps with bringing more visibility to the overall development process. This strictly differs from the traditional “waterfall model” under which the end-users see the final product only when the development process is done.

CONTACT US NOW

What are the advantages of Continuous Integration & Delivery for software development?

CI/CD’s principal benefit is that it considerably increases the speed and the efficiency of the software development process

CI/CD is no longer a platform which only supports application delivery. It now can help with the delivery of database changes and infrastructure management. As such, CI/CD tools and platforms’ benefits can reach all aspects of the organization.

Improve developer and QA productivity

Save time and resources

Improve overall code quality

Increase the feedback cycles

Reduce bugs and defects in the system

Support other areas of application delivery

Support varying architectures and platforms

Ensure the application’s reliability

Tools we use for CI/CD pipeline & workflows

Our DevOps engineers at IT BOTS will select for you the best CI/CD tools to support your IT infrastructure and improve your workflows

CI/CD pipeline

Commit change

Commit change

Trigger build

Trigger build

Build

Build

Notify of build outcome

Notify of build outcome

Run tests

Run tests

Notify of tests outcome

Notify of tests outcome

Deliver build to environment

Deliver build to environment

Deploy when necessary

Deploy when necessary

The choice of a good CI/CD tool can help your organization build a strong CI/CD pipeline. The complexity and the stages of the CI/CD pipeline may vary according to the development requirements for the software delivery process. Properly setting a CI/CD pipeline is key to ensure that your organization benefits from all the assets of CI/CD and DevOps methodology.

Our DevOps engineers at IT BOTS work only with the best CI/CD tools

Jenkins: Jenkins is an open-source, Java-based automation server that supports building, deploying, and automating software development processes.

GitLab: GitLab provides a suite of tools to manage the software development lifecycle. You can perform builds, run tests, and deploy code. It also allows you to build jobs in a VM, Docker container, or a different server.

Azure DevOps: Azure DevOps provides a variety of CI/CD tools, like Git repo management, testing, reporting, and more. It provides support for Azure, Kubernetes, and VM-based resources.

AWS CodePipeline: AWS CodePipeline is a continuous delivery service that allows you to automate release pipelines. It easily integrates with third-party services like GitHub.