How to implement an effective CI/CD pipeline?

A wide assortment of business entities adopts CI/CD pipeline which helps in streamlining the software development. The latest workflows offer a helping hand in making the life of all people easy. Within the DevOps environment, accuracy and productivity are crucial. Hence, deployment automation features have gained high prominence across a plethora of software development modalities.

The CI/CD pipelines need robust Quality Assurance testing practices techniques. Such kind of automation testing methodologies brings an improvement in the already present manual testing processes. It decreases the robust QA testing practices implementation.

Such kind automated testing methodologies bring an improvement in the ever-existing manual testing techniques. It decreases the efforts and time. As the issues are detected at an early phase, you can be ensured that you will be capable of fixing the bugs at an early phase. Thus, it plays an integral role in streamlining the process and devops consulting services companies helps these to implement effective CI/CD pipeline. 

Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery

Continuous Integration refers to the software development practice in which specific adjustments within the underlying code within the app get tested. Continuous Integration allows the business entity in detecting and fixing the vulnerabilities at the earlier phase of the development cycle. It offers a boost to the release cycle. It offers motivation for stronger collaboration between different developers. Hence, it is believed to be a suitable practice for the majority of agile teams.

Continuous delivery contributes to being the process to create new builds into the users' hands faster. It happens to be the natural step beyond Continuous Integration. This approach helps to reduce the risks, which are interlinked with the launch of the software and different features. You should remember that software updates launch consumes an ample amount of time.

The continuous delivery decreases the efforts and risks which are present in the process. It assures that all the changes, which are introduced to the app's underlying code, are launched. It indicates that every update is smaller. Hence, you will be successful in delivering it to the potential audience more frequently.

As less dramatic events are executed, the software development team plays an integral role in making the development process less risky, more efficient, and seeking more feedback from the potential audience faster. As more problems are detected at an early phase, it is possible to squash them by rolling the next update.

Tips to implement the effective CI/CD pipeline

Now, we will tell you about the steps, you need to follow to implement a proper CI/CD pipeline:

Writing a bit of Python program

You will need a bit of software, which is going to travel through different stages of the pipeline. Such kind of software will be a bit of CI/CD buzz generator program, which gets written in Python. In the beginning, you need to generate the new directory.

Inside it, you have to generate the directory, referred to as buzz. After this, you need to generate the new empty file, referred to as '_init_py' within the same directory. You will be capable of executing a specific Python script from the specific command line, within the buzz directory.

Addition of automated tests

If you want to get the unit tests' proper set for the buzz generator, you will be capable of developing a new directory, referred to as tests in the project root's directory. It would be wise to save the snippet to the new file within the tests directory. If you want to execute the tests, you should make the right use of 'pytest' framework. For the installation of pytests, you should use the Python Virtual Environment.

Placing the code upon the GitHub

You need to sign into Github after which you should develop a new public repository, referred to as cicd-buzz. Within the project directory, you need to develop the new file, referred to as .gitignore.

Connection of Travis CI for the execution of the tests

Travis CI happens to be the hosted service to execute Continuous Integration work. It is known to be free for different public GitHub repositories. You should allow Travis CI to create a build at the specific Push and Pull Request from the repository. The final step to activate Travis CI is the addition of .travis.yml in the project directory's root.

After the addition of the file to GIT, you can introduce the changes.

Now, you need to move to Travis CI dashboard. Once a shorter time period is completed, Travis needs to notice the code changes and initiate the build/test process.

Addition of improved Code Hub to the pipeline

A well-oiled pipeline is introduced, which monitors the code's functionality along with the automated tests. Better Code Hub happens to be a hosted platform that monitors code quality. Better Code Hub happens to be a watchdog, which tracks the development work. It offers notification as the quality will be at risk.

Better Code Hub happens to be a service, which will integrate with GitHub seamlessly. Once you have signed in with the GitHub credentials, the next page will enlist a plethora of GitHub repositories. You should opt for the repository, after which it is referred to as cicd-buzz.

Now, you need to tap on the play button. Better Code Hub will notify whether it is okay to execute the analysis through the default configuration. Now, you should press on "Go" and wait for some time. Now, you can find the analysis report on the screen.

Turning the buzz generator

A continuous integration pipeline is created which monitors quality and functionality. The next phase is the deployment of the software after all the tests are tested. Here, you have to turn the specific buzz generator.

Using Docker to containerize the web application

You should make the right use of Docker to generate the deployable and self-contained unit of the web application. You need to create the Docker configuration's image and release it.

Deployment to the Docker Hub

As the containers are deployed to the centralized Docker image registry, it will be easy for Docker Hub to share the containers in various environments. If you are willing to accomplish the step, you require signing at https://docker.com after which you need to add a specific command to the file, within the new directory, referred to as .travis in the project directory.

Deployment to Heroku

Heroku happens to be the cloud platform to host scalable and smaller web apps. It provides a free plan. Hence, you should sign up on its official website and install it. After the specific commands, you will be capable of accessing the specific application at the URL, which is generated by the specific Heroku create command.

CI/CD

Once a pipeline is executed, the fun to ship the functionality in the shorter interactions and a bit of increment will begin.