The goal of a continuous integration (CI) and contiguous deployment (CD) pipeline is to enable a constant flow of application updates into production to speed up releases, lower costs and reduce risks associated with manual deployments. As mentioned in our previous blog, ‘Three Tips for Successful Applications with CI/CD’ this process is the core of a DevOps culture and the first step to success.
CI is an application development process, where adjustments can be made to existing code, allowing for testing of each change made and aimed at speeding up the release process, while continuous deployment is the act of getting the new, updated application versions to users.
Utilizing an automated pipeline saves time on manual work, reduces human error, and results in an overall higher quality user experience. Here are four benefits of automating this process:
- Faster Releases
As the old saying goes, time equals money - that’s absolutely true when it comes to application deployment. Automation means getting new features or products into production and to consumers faster.
- Reduced Risk
Ultimately the goal here is to make releases painless for all involved from the team behind the scenes to the user receiving the update. Continuous releases reduce bugs in the production phase and helps resolve deficiencies quickly.
- Lower Costs
Automation eliminates costs associated with building and testing changes to applications. By continuously checking code, less time and money will be spent reactively fixing bugs.
- Higher Quality
When implementing a CI/CD strategy, there is often a fear of overlooking quality for speed in deployments, but this doesn’t have to be the case. Continuous integration actually enables collaboration between application developers, meaning potential problems can be found and fixed faster and earlier in the process, without affecting the end user.
While there are many advantages to implementing this automated process, the greatest benefit of CI/CD automation is reduced risk. This process provides a path to automation across many levels, including application building, testing and continuous deployment, all of which aim to create higher quality applications, faster.
Interested in learning more about CI/CD automation for your applications? Reliable Software can provide tools, counsel and so much more to help you take advantage of all these benefits. Contact us today to learn more.
