Continuous Integration is a DevOps software development methods with which developers regularly integrate their code changes with a central repository, followed by automatic creation and testing. Continuous integration often refers to creating or integrating the software publishing process and involves an automated aspect (an IC or creative service) and a cultural aspect (learning to integrate frequently). The primary goals of continuous integration are to find and fix bugs faster, improve software quality, and reduce the time required to validate and publish new software updates. Continuous delivery vs. continuous deployment With continuous delivery, each code change is applied, tested, and sent to a non-production test or preparation environment. Several test procedures can be run in parallel before production deployment.
The difference between continuous delivery and continuous deployment is the presence of manual approval to update and produce. With continuous deployment, production is done automatically, without explicit approval.
Benefits of continuous delivery
- Automate the software publishing process Ongoing delivery allows your team to create automatically, test and prepare code changes for production, to improve the speed and efficiency of your software delivery projects.
- Improve developer productivity These practices help your team gain productivity by limiting the number of manual tasks that developers must perform and encouraging behaviors that help reduce the number of errors and bugs in releases to customers.
- Find and fix bugs faster Your team can discover and fix bugs faster before they grow, with more frequent testing and more. Continuous delivery allows you to perform easily other types of testing of your code because the entire process has been automated.
- Deliver updates faster Ongoing delivery helps your team deliver updates to customers faster and more frequently. Good continuous delivery allows you to always have an artifact ready for deployment after following a standardized test process.
Why is continuous integration necessary? In the past, developers within the same team tended to work separately for extended periods of time and only to integrate their changes to the central repository after they had finished working. This made code change merging difficult and time-consuming and also resulted in bugs for a long time without correction. The combination of these factors made it difficult to deliver updates to customers quickly.
How does continuous integration work? With continuous integration, developers regularly apply their changes to a shared repository, with a version control system like Git. Before sending their code, developers can run tests on local devices to further verify it before the integration. A Continuous Integration Service automatically creates and runs unit tests on new code changes to detect immediately any errors.
Continuous integration refers to the unit creation and testing steps of the software publishing process. Each applied revision triggers an automated creation and testing process. With continuous delivery, code changes are automatically applied, tested and prepared for production. Continuous Delivery extends the principle of continuous integration by deploying all code changes in a test environment and/or a production environment after the creation stage.
The benefits of continuous integration
- Improve developer productivity Continuous integration helps your team gain productivity by limiting the number of manual tasks that developers must perform and encouraging behaviors that help reduce the number of errors and bugs in releases to customers.
- Find and fix bugs faster With more frequent testing, your team can discover and fix bugs faster before they grow.
- Deliver updates faster Continuous Integration helps your team deliver updates faster and more frequently to customers.
SourceSup Continuous Integration Plugin
This plugin allows a SourceSup project to use a set of tools present on the forge related to continuous integration. These tools are:
- Jenkins
- Sonar
- Nexus
They make it possible to have a more complete continuous integration cycle, to analyze the source code of the projects and to make artifacts on repositories.
Tools of DevOps and continuous delivery: stepping stones for the digital company
The digital economy is changing rapidly. The “need for speed” has revolutionized the distribution of software and applications: DevOps and continuous delivery have become key competencies in eCommerce development. Yesterday’s tools and practices, which relied heavily on human expertise and manual processes, are no longer viable. In addition, the development and support of modern applications require a collaborative decision-making process that involves a new level of skills, knowledge and multi-disciplinary judgments.
