Jakub Organiściak's Blog
What is Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery?

Photo by AltumCode on Unsplash

What is Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery?

Jakub Organiściak's photo
Jakub Organiściak
·

3 min read

Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) are practices in software development aimed at improving the efficiency, reliability, and speed of the development and delivery processes.

Continuous Integration (CI):

1. Definition: Continuous Integration is a software development practice where developers integrate their code changes into a shared repository multiple times a day. Each integration is verified by an automated build (including tests) to detect integration errors as quickly as possible.

2. Key Components:

  • Version Control System (VCS): Developers use a version control system (e.g., Git, SVN) to manage and track changes to the source code.

  • Automated Build System: A build server compiles the code, runs tests, and produces a build artifact.

  • Automated Tests: A suite of tests (unit tests, integration tests, etc.) that automatically verify the correctness of the code.

3. Benefits:

  • Early detection of integration issues.

  • Reduced integration and testing time.

  • Increased code quality and stability.

4. Continuous Integration Process:

  • Developers clone the latest code from the repository.

  • They make changes and commit them to the repository.

  • Automated build and tests are triggered.

  • If tests pass, the changes are integrated into the shared codebase.

Continuous Delivery (CD):

1. Definition: Continuous Delivery extends the principles of CI by automating the deployment process. It ensures that the software is always in a deployable state, allowing for rapid and reliable release of new features, improvements, and bug fixes.

2. Key Components:

  • Deployment Automation: Scripts or tools that automate the deployment process to various environments (development, testing, staging, production).

  • Continuous Testing: Automated testing is extended to cover a broader range of scenarios, including performance and acceptance testing.

  • Configuration Management: Managing and versioning configurations for different environments.

3. Benefits:

  • Faster and more reliable software releases.

  • Reduced manual intervention in the deployment process.

  • Consistent and repeatable deployment processes.

4. Continuous Delivery Process:

  • After successful CI, the code moves through various testing environments.

  • Automated tests, including acceptance and performance tests, are executed.

  • If all tests pass, the code is automatically deployed to production or made ready for manual deployment.

CI/CD Pipeline:

CI and CD are often collectively referred to as the CI/CD pipeline. This pipeline represents the workflow from code changes to the release of the software. It typically includes stages like code compilation, automated testing, deployment to different environments, and final release to production.

In summary, CI focuses on integrating code changes frequently and verifying their correctness through automated testing, while CD extends this process to automate the entire delivery pipeline, ensuring that software is always in a deployable state and can be released rapidly and reliably. These practices are crucial in modern software development to achieve agility, collaboration, and high-quality releases.

ci-cdDevopsContinuous Integrationcontinuous delivery