Continuous Deployment (CD): a modern strategy for software development and release
Continuous Deployment (CD) is a software development strategy that allows changes to code to be automatically deployed to the production environment. This approach offers many benefits for developers, as well as faster delivery and feedback. In this article, we will take a closer look at the process of continuous deployment. We will look at how it differs from continuous delivery and integration. We will look at its benefits and the tools that can be used to achieve it.
What is Continuous Deployment (CD)?
Continuous Deployment is an automated process based on a series of predefined tests. Once new updates pass these tests, the system automatically delivers them to users.
Automatic regression testing is essential for continuous deployment, replacing costly manual testing processes. In addition, the systems needed to manage large-scale changes, such as release planning and approval meetings, are often unnecessary.
Continuous deployment relies heavily on automation to ensure consistent and reliable deployment of changes.
What are the benefits of Continuous Deployment?
Continuous deployment has many benefits for development teams, let's look at them now!
Faster software delivery
The biggest advantage of continuous deployment is that it speeds up the implementation of code changes by eliminating existing bottlenecks at every stage. Code is executed with minimal downtime, so end users can enjoy new features faster.
Faster feedback
More frequently updated applications result in shorter feedback cycles with customers. With continuous deployment, a developer or product manager only needs to wait a few minutes to monitor the impact of changes on user behavior or engagement and adjust the product accordingly.
Reduced development risks
Continuous deployment reduces development risks. When teams integrate changes consistently and frequently, they significantly reduce potential risks because they are always aware of the current state of the system.
Reduced manual processes
Continuous deployment encourages engineers to automate software development and code release processes as much as possible, including release testing.
Automation allows developers to get new releases out faster and save time on manual processes.
Enhanced cooperation
Continuous deployment encourages teams to comment regularly, so the product iterations can be improved and developed through.
Continuous Delivery vs. Continuous Deployment vs. Continuous Integration
Continuous Delivery vs. Deployment is an important issue because the two approaches may seem similar in many ways, but in fact they are different. It is also very important to talk about Continuous Integration. Indeed, Continuous Integration is essential to ensure the seamlessness of Continuous Delivery.
Continuous Delivery
With Continuous Delivery, software is developed in such a way that it can be released to the production environment at any time. This process requires automated quality assurance test environments where new builds are automatically tested. If the code passes all tests, human approval is required for release.
Continuous Deployment
In contrast, Continuous Deployment goes one step further and eliminates manual approval. Here, tests and developers are trusted so much that deployment to production environments happens automatically as soon as the tests have run successfully.
Continuous deployment is an excellent way to speed up the feedback cycle with users and reduce pressure on the team, as there are no more release dates. Developers can focus on building the software.
Continuous Integration
This process allows developers to communicate effectively about changes made to the project.
Developers often work from a master branch of code, but when different developers combine their changes, functional problems and bugs can occur. Continuous integration addresses this by having each developer merge their code changes into the central database at least once a day. Automated build tests are run during new updates, ensuring that changes remain compatible with the master branch.
WORTH KNOWING: Continuous integration, delivery and deployment are collectively referred to as continuous software development and are linked to Agile and DevOps methodologies.
How do these practices relate to each other?
Simply put, continuous integration is part of both continuous delivery and continuous deployment. And continuous deployment is like continuous delivery, except that the releases are automatic.
For new projects, without users
When starting a new project without users, it can be easier to deploy all commits to the production environment. First, we can automate the deployments and release the alpha version to the production environment without users. Then we can gradually strengthen the testing culture and increase code coverage during the build of the application. And by the time we are ready to accept users, we will have an excellent continuous deployment process where all new changes are tested before release.
For existing users
Once we have users, we need to move much more slowly and start with continuous integration and continuous delivery first.
It is worth starting with basic unit tests that run automatically, no need to run complex end-to-end tests. Instead, try to automate deployments as soon as possible and get to the stage where deployments to a staging environment are automatic.
Automatic deployments allow us to focus on improving tests, rather than stopping from time to time to align releases.
Daily software releases
If software is released daily, we can move to continuous deployment. However, it is important to make sure that the rest of the organisation is ready: documentation, support, marketing, etc. These functions need to adapt to the new release schedule and it is important not to miss significant changes that may affect users.
What tools are used for Continuous Deployment?
To effectively implement continuous deployment, developers need the right tools. They ensure optimal communication between departments and minimise errors in the software delivery process.
Continuous deployment channels use similar tools as continuous delivery, but with an increased emphasis on testing the code before and after deployment to the production environment.
Here are some important tools in the ongoing installation workflow!
Continuous integration tools
Continuous integration, a key element of continuous deployment, reduces development bottlenecks when multiple developers work on the same project.
CHAIR: AWS CodeBuild, CircleCI, Jenkins, Travis CI
Version management systems
Version management helps continuous integration by tracking changes to projects. It enables teams to collaborate effectively, wherever and whenever they work, by increasing visibility of project updates and changes.
Version management systems are critical for continuous deployment, as they allow users to keep track of new versions and manage code changes.
KEY WORDS: Git, Apache Subversion, Mercurial
Configuration management tools
The configuration management process ensures that all software and hardware is kept in a constant state. This can include the proper configuration and automation of all servers, network, storage and software.
CHAIR: Ansible, Chef, Puppet
Monitoring and surveillance equipment
Monitoring and incident handling of continuous deployment settings should be as close to real-time as possible to shorten recovery time in case of problems in the code.
CHAIR: Datadog, Elastic stack, Grafana, New Relic, Prometheus, Splunk
Containerisation and orchestration equipment
Some applications can be deployed in containers to isolate updates from the underlying infrastructure. Containerisation tools allow applications and dependencies to be packaged in a portable format, making scaling and deployment easier.
CHAIR: Amazon Elastic Container Service, Docker, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Kubernetes
Installation of automation tools
Powerful tools are also already available to automate the deployment of code changes in production environments.
CHAIR: AWS CodeDeploy, Azure DevOps, Google Cloud Build
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