By nature, software development is a highly chaotic process, even for professional teams. If juggling features, fixing bugs, and meeting deadlines without breaking anything in production feels overwhelming, then it’s time to introduce Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) into your workflow.

CI/CD isn’t just a buzzword; when implemented correctly, a CI/CD pipeline powered by DevOps automation can mean less debugging and more time for developing and innovating. According to Forrester Research Inc., implementation has resulted in a 10% growth within the first year for 38% of companies.

In this article, we’ll break down what CI/CD is, share best practices for CI/CD, and recommend essential CI/CD tools and plugins to help you get started. Let’s dive in!

CI/CD Explained

For starters, CI/CD is an umbrella term that encompasses several stages of the DevOps automation process. It embodies a culture of operating principles that development teams use to deliver code changes both more frequently and reliably.

By integrating CI/CD into your agile methodology, you can automate tasks such as code integration and delivery. This allows teams to focus on meeting business goals while ensuring that software remains high-quality and secure.

What does CI/CD stand for?

Continuous integration (CI) is a set of development practices that drive teams to frequently implement small code changes in a shared code repository, also known as the mainline repository, maintained within a VCS. 

Practicing CI establishes an automated way to build, package, merge, and test applications, resulting in cleaner code at a faster rate. 

CD picks up where CI ends, and it can be understood in 2 ways: Continuous deployment and continuous delivery, these processes are related, but they are not the same. 

Continuous deployment aims to automatically test and deploy code changes consistently into production from the central repository once the build is stable.

Continuous delivery refers to the building, testing, and delivery of code changes to software. In this process, code passes through various testing environments, such as automated unit testing, integration testing, and system testing, before being pushed to production. 

In short, CI integrates code into the build with automation; CD completes that process. DevOps automations evaluate the quality of the updates. Once they are clear of errors, they’re automatically deployed to production.

What is a CI/CD pipeline?

The traditional Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) looks something like this: 

1. Planning         
2. Implementation
3. Testing
4. Documentation
5. Deployment and maintenance

These methods, as reliable as they are, are also considered by many to be outdated by now. Most modern applications require developing code using several platforms and tools simultaneously, so teams need a consistent mechanism to integrate and validate changes.

Thanks to AI and increased connectivity, many of these processes can be automated, in a nutshell, that’s what a CI/CD pipeline is.

Stages in the Continuous Delivery Pipeline

Modern software development teams typically have several environments to stage application changes for testing and review. A typical continuous delivery pipeline has built, test, and deploy stages, all of which can include the following activities: 

• Pulling code from version control and executing a build.
• Enabling stage gates for automated security, quality, and compliance checks and supporting approvals when required.
• Executing any required infrastructure steps automated as code to stand up or tear down cloud infrastructure.
• Moving code to the target computing environment.
• Managing environment variables and configuring them for the target environment.
• Pushing application components to their appropriate services, such as web servers, APIs, and database services.
• Executing any steps required to restart services or call service endpoints needed for new code pushes.
• Executing continuous tests and rollback environments if tests fail.
• Providing log data and alerts on the state of the delivery.
• Updating configuration management databases and sending alerts to IT service management workflows on completed deployments.

A more sophisticated continuous delivery pipeline might have additional steps such as synchronizing data, archiving information resources, or patching applications and libraries.

CI/CD tools and plugins

Nowadays, there are entire marketplaces of CI/CD tools and plugins that support integration with third-party platforms, user interface, administration, source code management, and build management.

Some of the more popular options include:

• Jenkins: Known for its extensive marketplace of over 1,800 plugins.
• CircleCI: Ideal for automating continuous testing and delivery.
• AWS CodeBuild: A cloud-based CI/CD solution for scalable builds.
• Azure DevOps: Offers end-to-end DevOps automation.

Once the development team has selected a CI/CD tool, it must ensure that all environment variables are configured outside the application. CI/CD tools allow development teams to set these variables, mask them if necessary, and configure them at the time of deployment..

Continuous delivery tools also provide dashboard and reporting functions, which are enhanced when DevOps teams implement observable CI/CD pipelines. The dashboard and reporting functions integrate with version control and agile tools to help developers determine what code changes and user stories made up the build.

Applications for CI/CD

You may be wondering about some of the more advanced areas for CI/CD pipeline development and management. Here are a few notable ones:

• MLOps: Supporting the training, infrastructure, and deployment of machine learning models.
• Synthetic data generation: Automating test data creation for APIs and models trained by data scientists.
• AIOps: Using automation to manage IT operations and trigger CI/CD rollbacks when needed.
• Microservices: Building reusable pipelines to support and scale development.
• IoT and AR/VR: Managing updates and testing for connected devices and immersive technologies.

Conclusion

For years now, CI/CD has been more than just a methodology; it’s a transformative approach that can revolutionize how teams develop and deliver software. 

By integrating a CI/CD pipeline into your agile methodology, you can harness the power of DevOps automation to improve efficiency, reduce errors, and scale innovation. And with the right CI/CD tools and plugins, your team will be well-equipped to tackle modern software challenges and deliver high-quality solutions consistently.