A Comprehensive Introduction to CI/CD Pipelines

#webdev #devops #programming #software

Introduction
CI/CD Definition
Concepts of CI/CD
CI/CD Pipelines Explained
The CI/CD Workflow
Benefits of CI/CD Implementation
CI/CD and DevOps
Conclusion

Introduction

Pipelines for continuous integration, delivery, and deployment are extremely useful when producing high-quality software promptly. Basically, the automation of CI/CD helps you create better code more quickly and securely. In this article, I’ll describe what CI/CD means, the CI/CD pipeline workflow, the benefits, how to implement a good CI/CD pipeline, and how CI/CD fits into the DevOps universe.

CI/CD Definition

CI/CD is the acronym for the words Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, and Continuous Deployment which are modern development techniques that help optimize software development processes. The CI/CD process involves automatically integrating code updates from several developers into a single codebase.

Using CI/CD, teams can provide updates to their code more frequently and coherently, and errors are found earlier. Thus the coding, testing, and development procedures have been streamlined thanks to CI/CD.

Concepts of CI/CD

Continuous Integration: In this practice, developers will regularly commit their code changes to a common/shared repository as part of the CI development methodology. With every commit, an automatic build procedure gets triggered, and then the code gets compiled and executed in a series of automated tests to find any errors early.

Each commit creates an automated workflow on a CI server and the CI server notifies developers of any issues in their code.

A benefit to continuous integration is that since developers get input right away, they can fix any problems that come up immediately which helps to reduce the likelihood of code conflict.

When validating your code quality in the CI process, a static code analysis helps confirm your code’s quality, and when the static tests are passed, automated CI procedures help compile the code for additional testing.

Once a build passes the early static testing, it is prepared to go to more thorough testing, and the continuous integration (CI) comes to an end. If the build fails testing, the build/test cycle can be repeated until a successful build is achieved. Therefore, a continuous integration pipeline may perform code reviews, run unit tests, run builds automatically, and configure the CI pipeline to be activated whenever there is a commit/merge in your codebase.

Also, CI procedures typically have a version control system that helps monitor changes. So popular CI tools like Jenkins and GitlabCI can be integrated with version control systems like Git to automate the CI process.

The Continuous Integration Process:

Continuous Delivery: In the continuous delivery process, your code release is automated to a pre-production environment where you can personally test your code and validate it before it is officially deployed. During this process, code from the repository is compiled and the build is created and tested out. The software is then prepped to be ready for release automatically when it’s ready.

This process helps to prevent post-production surprises by running a series of tests like load testing, UI testing, and so on which is useful in resolving defects beforehand.

Continuous delivery works together with continuous integration to automate the release process of your application.

The Continuous Delivery Process:

Continuous Deployment: Here, your code changes that pass automated testing are automatically pushed to production without the need for human/manual interaction.

At this stage, after the DevOps teams establish the requirements for code releases, the code is then released into the production environment once those requirements have been satisfied.

The continuous deployment process is entirely automated.

The entire process of continuous integration, delivery, and deployment helps businesses provide new services rapidly. For example, Amazon is constantly deploying and deploys more than 125k times daily, and according to the 2024 State of DevOps Report, powerful companies with high-performing teams have the capacity to deploy multiple times daily.

The continuous deployment process:

CI/CD Pipelines Explained

The automated process of moving your software from code commit to final production deployment is known as a CI/CD pipeline. These pipelines are the foundation of the CI/CD process and help to automatically coordinate software development, testing, and deployment processes.

It is the automated DevOps workflow of continuous integration, continuous delivery, and continuous deployment as described above.

The CI/CD Workflow

A CI/CD pipeline contains a series of steps/stages that make up a CI/CD workflow. These stages include:

Source: This is the first stage of a CI/CD pipeline process and it involves the creation of your source code. Here, source code changes can be managed using version control systems like Git, Bitbucket, and so on. When change is made into your code and pushed into your repository, a CI/CD pipeline will be triggered to go into the ‘build’ stage.
Build: Here the source code is drawn from your repository and compiled and executable/runnable artifacts (EXE files) are created. Depending on the stage of your project, the build frequency may be daily or even multiple times each day. The code is combined with dependencies and libraries to create a build that can be deployed.
Test: A series of automated tests like integrated tests, functional tests, regression tests, and unit tests are run to validate your code, resolve any issues, and ensure your application behaves like it’s supposed to. This is one of the longer stages in your pipeline because running a series of tests can take a good amount of time.

The form of testing depends on the particular project requirements.

If mistakes are found during testing, the developers are notified so they can examine the results and fix them in later releases.
Deployment: After your code passes all required tests, it can be deployed. The tested code can be deployed to a staging or production environment/server. In continuous delivery, the code is uploaded to repositories and, after human approval, is either deployed or put into production. However, in continuous deployment, this stage is automated.

Tool Options:

Benefits of CI/CD Implementation

CI/CD helps you automate things that will otherwise have been done manually by developers.
CI/CD ensures consistency by making sure all your configurations are utilized in all environments and lowers the possibility of differences between testing and production settings.
They help shorten the code commit to production time by enabling developer teams to release new features consistently. This helps promote efficient software development. This also helps free up developers’ time since it’s an automated process.
CI/CD lowers the possibility of human error by eliminating the need for human interaction in repetitive processes. In this way, it detects small problems before they can grow into major disasters leading to higher code quality.
CI/CD pipelines allow developers to experiment with creative or unconventional coding techniques with significantly lower risk as opposed to the original/manual software development process.
It helps developers collaborate more effectively than if it were to be done manually.
They also help increase a company’s competitive edge due to fast delivery speed. As was mentioned earlier, Amazon is one of the biggest companies in the world making constant deployments multiple times daily.

CI/CD and DevOps

DevOps short for Development Operations is a combination of two practices ‘Development’ and ‘Operations’, and what it is essentially is a set of practices to build, test, and release your code in small frequent steps or iterations.

‘Development’ has to do with preparing your source code while ‘Operations’ has to do with deploying the source code to a specific environment. The foundation for the DevOps pipeline is CI/CD which offers the automation and dependability required for ongoing development, integration, testing, and delivery of your application.

One of the core practices of DevOps is CI/CD.

The typical steps of a DevOps pipeline begin with planning your application by defining the features and content of your app, then actually writing the code for the app, and then comes CI/CD through continuous integration, delivery, and deployment. After that, you can monitor your application and receive user feedback that would help in future releases.

CI/CD is one of the fundamental practices of the DevOps framework.

Therefore, CI/CD fits well within DevOp's objectives of enhancing teamwork, product productivity, and quality by helping close the gap between development(Dev) and operations(Ops) through the automation of dependable software releases.

Conclusion

The lifecycle of your application can be transformed by a well-implemented CI/CD pipeline. So if you want to produce high-quality software more quickly, you should utilize the tips given in this article. Adhering to CI/CD best practices and selecting the best tools for you will help you to improve your pipeline and optimize performance.