Six Continuous CI/CD Innovation & Development Strategies
Published: 2019-07-23 15:09:51

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title: Six Continuous CI/CD Innovation & Development Strategies
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Defining CI/CD and its core attributes

The best practices In software engineering to streamline the development and delivery of high quality software is centered on CI/CD. An acronym, CI/CD stands for continuous integration and continuous delivery. It fosters the technology solutions currently available to allow development team members to perform independently on single or multiple software project build. The CI/CD methodologies implement automated testing, error correction and quality control with a shared environment.

Successful application development automation requires a collaborative approach

Development tasks can be delegated to team members as part of the continuous [project lifecycle] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_development_life_cycle). Integration of multiple updates in code is held in a shared repository with automatic checking of registered updates as they occur. This shared approach, fosters greater collaboration among developers through continuous integration during the build process. As updates and changes occur, synchronization gives team leaders the ability manage version types more effectively to reach project deadlines utilizing automated CI/CD methodologies.

During the lifecycle broken builds can be affordably avoided

As part of the organic development oversight, improper or inefficient syntax can be corrected without jeopardizing corrupting the codebase. The core attribute of a CI/CD based software project is to deliver the highest quality even within an error prone environment and save time and resources. Continuous Delivery of the error-free software using active integration, combined with automated tests, and quality metrics is the overall promise.

Production and reassurance that builds cannot be broken

Developers can approach their individual coding process by running an automated acceptance test before pushing their work to the build server. This pipeline makes unlikely a production build can be broken. If there are critical conflicts within the code, the acceptance tests should consistently flag it. Shared repositories allow team members to examine, synchronize, collaborate and deliver quality code within a [controlled CI/CD Pipeline] (https://lightstep.com/cicd). The pipeline, is a linear representation of key points of changes and updates which make up the entire build. From a project management standpoint, the pipeline is a graphical non-stop workflow of how data is interacting at each stage of the build process, as updated by team members and prevents loss during handoffs. It's necessary for the team leader to know which features of a project are being delivered at any particular stage.

Driving continuous Integration helps refine development tasks

An established CI/CD program filters bugs earlier and decreases the chances of defects immediately through a continuous interrogative process. These processes are normally based on the organizations quality initiatives and methodologies of unacceptable defects by each opportunity.

Using a shared database to managed integration and automation results 

A CI/CD solution will include a unique database established to maintain the results, conclusion and notes from integration and automated acceptance tests. The database provides the critical juncture to ensure developer code and data is in a known state, and can be tested without the risk of mutation of the build. The [shared database] (https://www.ben-morris.com/a-shared-database-is-still-an-anti-pattern-no-matter-what-the-justification/) methodology is refined to allow repeatable development tasks to be tested independently and the results chronologically logged for continuous integration. Use of performance reports or audit trails on each task can reduce the overall build cost and reveal defects in a project's life cycle.

Key Performance Indicators and a successful CI/CD production environment

A successful CI/CD infrastructure should allow discretionary testing at any point during the develop-build-test cycle. The software features to be delivered can be selected within build environment. Even when the development teams work in separate or in different environments. This allows continuous delivery that is not dependent on the other aspect within deployment pipeline during automated tests. In the event of a failure during a critical tests, team members can be alerted but the process still continues.

Build updates and continuous automated testing within the pipeline

As successive tests are passed, the results are sent to the next segment of the pipeline. Key indicators allow the automated pipeline to execute a set of test suites against the build, every time the software’s code is changed.