Foundations of Software Development: CI / CD

What is Continuous Integration (CI)?

Continuous Integration (CI) is the practice where developers continuously integrate their code into a shared code repository to receive rapid feedback on the code's viability. CI supports automated builds and tests, enabling teams to collaborate rapidly on a single project. Additionally, CI allows software companies to have more frequent and shorter release cycles, facilitating the swift and reliable deployment of developed applications into live environments. CI encourages development teams to build software in short iterations and merge functional code with the main codebase as soon as possible.

Key Points about Continuous Integration (CI):

• It is the initial phase of the software development process.
• Developers regularly submit their code to a central repository, often using a version control system like Git.
• Automated tests, including unit tests, integration tests, and sometimes static code analysis, run automatically with each code submission.
• This stage ensures continuous testing of the software, leading to early detection of errors.

Continuous Integration Involves the Following Steps:

1. Code Submission
2. Compilation and Automated Tests
3. Feedback and Notifications
4. Reproducibility

What is Continuous Delivery (CD)?

The goal of Continuous Delivery (CD) is to deliver a packaged structure to the production environment. CD automates the entire delivery process, including infrastructure provisioning, change management (ticketing), artifact deployment, verification, monitoring, and preventing changes from occurring in case of any issues. CD automates the delivery of applications to selected infrastructure environments.

Advantages of CI/CD:

• Efficient Software Development
• Competitive Software Products
• Freedom to Fail
• Better Software Maintenance
• Improved Operational Support

Benefits of CI/CD:

1. Early detection of errors: Every code change is automatically tested, ensuring early error detection.
2. Continuous Feedback: Provides continuous feedback to developers, allowing quick correction of errors.
3. Continuous Deployment: Facilitates the rapid deployment of software into a live environment, enabling quick release of new features and fixes.
4. Automation: Automates many aspects of the software development process, reducing human errors and repetitive tasks.

Difference Between CI and CD:

CI aims to make software development processes easier and more traceable. It involves working with code, addressing conflicts, developing, merging, managing code, and testing, contributing to long deployment times, infrequent releases, and high change error rates. CD's goal is to repeatedly and safely deliver a structure to the production environment. CD occurs after CI in the software development lifecycle.

Commonly Used CI/CD Tools:

• Jenkins (widely used open-source tool)
• Azure DevOps
• Travis CI
• CircleCI
• Jetbrains TeamCity
• Atlassian Bamboo
• GitLab
• Codeship
• Buddy
• Semaphore

Implementing these strategies is crucial to optimizing software development processes and delivering software more efficiently and reliably. Adopting CI/CD is a critical step in gaining a competitive advantage in today's rapidly evolving software industry.

Mehmet KEKEÇ