What is CI/CD?

Overview

CI/CD, which stands for Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery/Deployment, is a key practice designed to enhance the software development process, making it more efficient and faster.

Continuous Integration (CI) refers to the practice of routinely merging code changes into a shared repository, ensuring that the codebase remains functional through automated testing. Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment (CD), on the other hand, focus on testing, preparing, and ultimately deploying these changes. Continuous delivery ensures code is always in a deployable state, but manual approval is required for production releases, while continuous deployment fully automates this final step.

Together, these processes form what is commonly referred to as a “CI/CD pipeline,” enabling development and operations teams to collaborate in an agile manner, often within a DevOps or Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) framework.

Why is CI/CD valuable?

CI/CD is vital for organizations aiming to prevent bugs and code errors while maintaining a steady flow of software updates. As applications grow more complex, the automation provided by CI/CD simplifies workflows, reduces human errors, and enhances overall productivity.

By automating the traditionally manual steps of getting code from commit to production, CI/CD minimizes downtime and speeds up the release cycle. This allows teams to integrate user feedback more effectively and consistently, resulting in better user experiences and higher customer satisfaction.

What is Continuous Integration?

In the context of CI/CD, Continuous Integration (CI) refers to automating the process by which developers frequently merge their code changes into a shared branch. Automated tests are triggered to ensure these changes do not introduce any issues.

In modern development, it’s common for multiple developers to work on different parts of the same application simultaneously. Without CI, this could lead to conflicts when integrating their work, often resulting in tedious, manual “merge days.”

CI solves this by automatically validating new changes through building the application and running tests, such as unit and integration tests, ensuring that new code doesn’t break the system. This process allows bugs to be caught and fixed quickly, improving the reliability of the application.

What does CD stand for in CI/CD?

The CD in CI/CD stands for Continuous Delivery and/or Continuous Deployment. While both focus on automating different stages of the pipeline, the distinction lies in how far the automation extends. The choice between these two often depends on the team’s risk tolerance and specific needs.

What is Continuous Delivery?

Continuous Delivery (CD) is the practice of automating the release of validated code into a repository, once it has passed the CI stage. It involves automation at every step, from code merging to the release of production-ready builds, allowing the operations team to deploy these builds swiftly when needed.

In continuous delivery, the process ensures that the application is always in a deployable state, with the operations team having the final say in whether or not to push the code to production. The goal is to make deployments low-effort and efficient.

What is Continuous Deployment?

Continuous Deployment takes automation a step further by automatically pushing code to production without any manual intervention. After code passes all the required tests, it’s deployed directly into the live environment, making updates available to users almost instantly.

Continuous deployment removes bottlenecks that could slow down app releases and enables a much quicker response to user feedback. However, it also relies heavily on a solid framework of automated testing to ensure no issues make it to production, requiring significant upfront investment.

CI/CD and DevOps

CI/CD is an integral part of DevOps, a methodology aimed at fostering collaboration between development and operations teams. Both CI/CD and DevOps emphasize automation to accelerate the path from idea to deployment, ensuring that new features or fixes reach production more quickly and efficiently.

In DevOps, security is integrated into every step, often referred to as DevSecOps, which ensures that security concerns are addressed throughout the development lifecycle, not just as an afterthought. A well-designed CI/CD pipeline plays a key role in ensuring secure, high-quality software delivery.

CI/CD Security

Security in CI/CD pipelines is crucial, as it helps to identify vulnerabilities early and ensure that code is secure before reaching production. Implementing practices like “shift-left” security, where testing is done earlier in the development process, helps prevent security issues and improves code quality.

Potential risks in CI/CD pipelines include exposing sensitive data, using insecure code, or unauthorized access to repositories and build tools. Addressing these concerns through automated security checks is essential to maintaining a secure development environment.

Common CI/CD Tools

There are a variety of tools available to help teams implement CI/CD, from integration-focused ones to deployment automation tools. Examples include:

• Tekton Pipelines, which provides a CI/CD framework tailored for Kubernetes environments.
• Jenkins, known for its versatility, supporting everything from simple CI setups to full-fledged CD hubs.
• Spinnaker, a multi-cloud CD platform.
• GoCD, with a focus on modeling and visualization of pipelines.
• Concourse, an open-source platform for continuous delivery.
• Screwdriver, designed specifically for continuous deployment.

Many cloud providers offer managed CI/CD services, such as GitLab, CircleCI, and AWS, making it easier to build, test, and deploy applications in cloud-native environments.

By using platforms like Red Hat OpenShift on AWS, organizations can automate their CI/CD pipelines across hybrid cloud setups, ensuring consistency in application development, testing, and deployment.