Recently, the topic of CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery) methodology has been increasingly raised among IT professionals, including developers and project managers. This is an automation system that simplifies the testing and delivery of new project modules to all stakeholders: developers, analysts, quality engineers, and end users.
Key Principles of CI/CD
Division of responsibilities: In the development process, participants and users are responsible for different stages of the product lifecycle. Developers and designers are responsible for developing business logic and user experience, quality engineers are responsible for testing, and DevOps engineers are responsible for code logistics.
Risk reduction: Each group of participants minimizes risks at all stages of the product lifecycle, ensuring control over the integrity of business logic and user experience.
Short feedback cycle: It is important to respond quickly to errors and requests for new functionality, striving to automate code building and testing. In cases requiring human intervention, it is recommended to reduce the number of information intermediaries.
Environment implementation: It is necessary to provide a unified working environment for version control and branch creation for testing and assessing the quality, acceptability, scalability, and fault tolerance of the code.
Stages of CI/CD
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Coding: Developers write code, conduct manual testing, and merge it into the main branch of the project.
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Building: Automatic building and testing of the project are initiated by the version control system.
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Manual testing: After verification by the CI system, the code is sent to testers for further manual examination.
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Release: Fixes in the code increase the version number, and a client version of the product is released.
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Deployment: The working version of the product is automatically published on the developer's servers.
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Support and monitoring: Developers maintain the product and analyze user experience.
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Planning: Based on feedback, requests for new functionality are formed, and a plan for improvements is prepared.
Advantages and Disadvantages of CI/CD
Advantages:
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Rapid introduction of new functionality to the market.
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Optimization of resource costs through automation of initial testing.
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Improvement of product quality due to parallel testing.
Disadvantages:
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Perception of the methodology as a universal solution can lead to project complexity.
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The importance of the human factor in organizing interaction between project teams.
Tools for CI/CD
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GitLab: This is a comprehensive tool that not only manages repositories but also provides powerful features for documenting and tracking development. Users can track changes in code, manage branches and releases, and document every aspect of the project right within GitLab.
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Docker: This tool allows for containerizing applications, ensuring their packaging and isolation from the environment. This significantly simplifies the deployment process of projects and guarantees their stable operation in various environments, as the application will work the same regardless of where it is launched.
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Travis-CI: This is a cloud-based continuous integration service that closely integrates with GitHub. It requires minimal setup and automatically initiates testing and building processes for projects stored on GitHub.
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Circle-CI: Another continuous integration and deployment tool that also integrates with GitHub. A distinctive feature of Circle-CI is its web interface, which allows users to easily track CI/CD processes and manage project versions.
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Jenkins: This is one of the most popular CI/CD tools, known for its flexibility. With a variety of plugins, Jenkins can be configured to automate almost any building, testing, and deployment processes.
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TeamCity: This tool from JetBrains offers a convenient way to manage CI/CD processes. In the free version, TeamCity provides the ability to work with a limited number of build agents, which is suitable for small and medium projects.
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PHP Censor: This is a specialized CI server for PHP projects. It requires manual setup but provides tools specific to PHP development.
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Rex: A tool focused on automating CI processes in data centers. Rex operates based on Perl scripts and is suitable for complex environments where management of a large number of servers is required.
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Open Build Service (OBS): This tool is designed to automate CI/CD processes, especially in the context of application development. OBS helps simplify the building and distribution of software packages for various operating systems.
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Buildbot: This is a system that allows for flexible configuration of building and testing processes. It is written in Python and provides powerful capabilities for customizing CI/CD processes according to the individual requirements of the project.
Conclusion
CI/CD is a powerful tool in modern software development that can significantly accelerate product time-to-market and improve its quality, but it requires proper application and understanding of its principles and limitations.