Every software project has as its main objective the automation of business processes in order to generate revenue. The more quickly you can roll out new versions to clients, the better for business. However, how can the release procedure be implemented quickly? You could certainly do it manually. For instance, SSH can be used to establish a connection to a distant server. After that, you may build and run the new code using the command line after cloning the repository containing it. Despite the fact that it works, the method is ineffective. The automation of product releases and the development process itself is what we’re talking about today.
What is a CI/CD pipeline?A CI/CD pipeline enables you to automate phases in your product delivery process, such as beginning code constructions, performing automated tests, and delivering to an organising or creating condition. Automation eliminates human errors, provides institutionalised improvement critique circles, and facilitates speedy item focus.
What are the differences between continuous integration, continuous delivery, and continuous deployment (CI/CD)?
Continuous integration
Continuous integration encourages developers to merge changes back to the main branch as frequently as feasible. By making a build and testing it with automated tools, the developer’s modifications are verified. You can avoid integration issues by doing this rather than waiting until release day to integrate modifications into the release branch.When integrating new commits into the main branch, continuous integration heavily emphasises testing automation to ensure that the application is not damaged.
Continuous delivery
Continuous delivery is an extension of continuous integration since it automatically deploys all code changes to a testing and/or production environment after the build stage.As a result, you have an automated release process in addition to automated testing, and you can deploy your application at any moment by pressing a button.Theoretically, continuous delivery allows you to choose whether to release on a daily, weekly, fortnightly, or other schedule that best matches your business needs. However, if you genuinely want to reap the rewards of continuous delivery, you should deploy to production as soon as possible to ensure that you release small batches that are simple to debug in the event of a problem.
Continuous deployment
Continuous delivery is followed by continuous deployment. With this procedure, each update that successfully completes your production pipeline is made available to your clients. There is no human involvement, and the only thing that will stop a new update from being implemented in production is a failed test.Since there is no longer a “release day,” continuous deployment is a great method to shorten the feedback loop with your customers and relieve team stress. Software developers can concentrate on creating it while watching it go online shortly after they’re done.
Tools
Numerous CI/CD process automation options are available on the market. Let’s examine a few of them.GitHub Actions – The GitHub and GitHub Enterprise versions both include with the CI/CD tool. Declarative builds with YAML settings are offered by GitHub Actions. The solution also offers numerous connections with various quality assurance systems.GitLab CI – It resembles GitHub Actions a lot. However, it has unique characteristics. GitLab CI, for instance, can identify the precise tests that failed the build.Bitbucket Pipeline – Bitbucket Pipelines is an integrated CI/CD solution built within Bitbucket. Using a configuration file in your repository as a basis, it enables you to automatically build, test, and even deploy your code. In essence, we build your cloud containers. You may run commands within these containers, just like you would on a local machine, but with all the benefits of a fresh system, customised and configured for your needs.
CI/CD in AWS
CodeBuild
AWS CodeBuild is a fully managed continuous integration service that assembles source code, conducts tests, and generates deployable software packages. You can provision, manage, and scale your own build servers without using CodeBuild. Your builds won’t be kept in a queue because CodeBuild scales constantly and handles several builds at once. Using prepackaged build environments or making your own build environments with your own build tools will allow you to get going quickly.CodeBuild performs unit tests, builds your source code, and creates deployable artifacts.
CodePipeline
AWS CodePipeline, a fully managed continuous delivery service, to model, visualise, and automate the steps necessary to deploy your programme. The various phases of a software release process are easily modelled and set up. The procedures needed to regularly release your software modifications are automated using CodePipeline.You can model the entire release process for creating your code, deploying it to test environments, testing your application, and releasing it to production with AWS CodePipeline.
Let’s Create our pipeline
In this tutorial, We will create and configure a pipeline with actions: Source, Build and Pipeline.
CodePipeline :
- Open the AWS CodePipeline console.
- Click on Create Pipeline.
- Pipeline name: Enter the name for your pipeline.
- Click the Next step.
Source provider : Bitbucket
We will be using bitbucket but you can use GitHub, Amazon S3, AWS ECR as well as AWS Code Commit.
- Source provider: Choose the Bitbucket as a Source Provider.
- Connection : Choose the existing connection or Click connect to bitbucket
- Repository name: Choose the name of your AWS CodeCommit repository.
- Branch name: Choose the name of the branch that contains the sample file.
- Click the Next step.
Build provider : AWS CodeBuild
We will be using AWS CodeBuild but you can use the Jenkins Open source build tool also.
- Build provider: Choose the AWS CodeBuild as a Build Provider.
- Click Create Project.
It will open a new screen to create CodeBuild Project.
CodeBuild :
There are 4 steps in CodeBuild Project.
- Project Configuration
- Project Name: Enter the name of your pipeline
- Description: Enter the Description for your pipeline
- Environment
- Environment image: Choose the Managed image.
- Operating system: Choose the Ubuntu OS.
- Privileged: Unchecked.
- Service role: Choose to Create a new Role.
- Role name: Enter the name for your Service Role.
- Buildspec
- Build specifications: Choose Insert build commands
- Click on Switch to editor.
- Enter code in Code Editor.
- Logs
- CloudWatch: Choose CloudWatch logs.
- Click on Continue to CodePipeline.
Deploy provider
We will be using AWS Elastic Beanstalk but we can use AWS ECS, AWS Cloudformation, Amazon S3, AWS Code Deploy and AWS Config
- Deploy Provider : Choose the AWS ElasticBeanstalk as deploy provider.
- Region : Choose the region where the elastic beanstalk application created.
- Application Name : Choose the application name, Select the elastic beanstalk application name which need to be deployed.
- Environment Name : Choose the environment name, Select the elastic beanstalk environment name which need to be deployed.
- Click the Next step.
- Review our Pipeline.
- Click on Create Pipeline.
Our AWS CodePipeline for the Elastic Beanstalk deployment is ready now.
Gowtham D, DevOps Team
Mallow Technologies Pvt Ltd