Continuous integration provides a streamlined, automated process that allows developers to integrate code changes at least daily into the mainline branch in version control. This leads to better collaboration among the development team and improved software quality.

Continuous deployment takes it one step further and automatically deploys those code changes to production once they pass the verifications in the build pipeline.

Test Automation

The goal of test automation is to reduce the manual testing effort in software development. It works by creating automated scripts in a programming or scripting language that navigate through the software under test (SUT) and compare pre-defined expected results with actual ones. Automated scripts are executed automatically and generate detailed test results after they are done running.

Unit tests, which test individual components of an application, are among the most cost-effective and fastest to automate. It’s recommended to use a tool that optimizes the execution of these tests, so they don’t require excessive processor and memory resources. System tests, which test entire applications, are often more complex to write but can also be highly efficient if designed properly. They should be designed to cover all inputs, including expected and unexpected ones, ensuring all components are working together.

Functional UI testing is another good candidate for automation, especially with the advent of frameworks that allow the automated script to interact with your UI and replicate actions that a human would perform. These tools are a great way to speed up the QA process and eliminate the need for a dedicated team of quality engineers, which can be expensive.

A CI/CD pipeline must be set up in such a way that every successful build gets deployed to at least one pre-production environment. This allows additional layers of testing to take place, including security and load tests. It can also provide a sandbox for support teams to familiarize themselves with new features and an acceptance testing environment for product and QA teams to confirm that all changes work correctly.

Deployment Automation

Deployment automation is the process of creating a fully automated pipeline to test if software works as intended when deployed to an environment. This can include deploying to a development or production server, running unit and integration tests, enabling and disabling features, and ensuring the proper setup of all tools and dependencies. It’s important to note that deployment automation doesn’t replace CI or CD, but it can be used in conjunction with both processes to enable a more seamless release pipeline.

Deploying code to a pre-production environment for testing and acceptance is an essential part of the development cycle. However, manual deployments can be prone to human error, leading to essential steps being missed or broken software ending up in the hands of customers. Deployment automation helps to reduce these errors by automating the deployment process.

Continuous integration (CI) involves regularly merging code changes into a repository and running automated tests to ensure the build isn’t broken. Continuous delivery (CD) takes CI a step further by deploying a successful build to various environments, including production. This allows developers to test their work in a live environment and ensures that only stable, bug-free code is released to end users. When combined with deployment automation, CI/CD speeds up the development cycle and increases overall productivity.

Continuous Integration

Continuous integration (CI) is the process by which developers merge code changes into the mainline of a project on a regular basis, often several times a day. This helps prevent individual changes from diverging too far from one another, and it gives teams a quick way to detect problems. The practice also allows teams to make small, frequent changes, improving overall product quality and enabling faster deployments.

Once a team has established CI, they should work toward Continuous Deployment (CD), which automates the delivery of release-candidate builds to production environments following automated testing. CD is the final step in a CI/CD pipeline, and it can help ensure that all changes are ready to be released to users.

With the right tool in place, it’s possible for a development team to fully automate their entire workflow from the moment code is committed to version control to when it’s ready to be deployed. This can have a significant impact on developer happiness, team productivity, and product quality.

DevOps

Assuming that multiple developers are working on software projects, at some point they need to combine the various pieces and check that the overall result works as intended. Continuous integration makes sure that this happens automatically, ideally on a daily or hourly basis. The next step is continuous deployment, which ensures that once code changes have been successfully tested they are deployed to production.

This shortens the feedback loop with customers, and helps to keep product requirements on target. Combined with a DevOps approach, which eliminates silos between development and operations teams and streamlines workflows through automation and collaboration, it allows for faster release cycles.

While CI/CD is the core of DevOps, it must be used in conjunction with other processes to maximize its benefits. For example, it is essential to establish a reliable build and testing system that can handle the high volumes of changes made through CI/CD. This requires automated deployment and configuration management, and a process that ensures that the right versions are being delivered to each customer environment.

In addition, it is important to create a culture of team responsibility and ownership for fixing broken builds. Otherwise, blame is shifted from one developer to another and the overall process will not work as well. Finally, it is essential to ensure that other departments can keep up with the rapid release cadence of CI/CD, such as documentation, support, and marketing.