As software development processes and operations are becoming more and more popular among various business owners, you might have heard that an increasing number of entrepreneurs decide to invest in CI/CD systems that are supposed to help them create powerful pipelines. What are CI/CD systems, and how can they profit your company?
CI/CD systems – what are they?
CI and CD are acronyms that respectively stand for continuous integration and continuous delivery.
CI systems are supposed to benefit from automation tools in order to develop and test code efficiently. Thanks to it, you can sleep soundly knowing that the code created by programmers is correct and doesn’t cause any errors. Moreover, quality automated tests make it possible to detect and troubleshoot potential problems with your software solutions earlier to avoid numerous unpleasant situations and financial losses.
On the other hand, CD is about releasing software gradually, but more frequently. This way, you, as a software owner, don’t have to wait till the entire software is ready to implement new functionalities or correct imperfections.
What are the benefits of CI/CD systems?
Quality CI/CD systems can bring a number of benefits to your organization. The list includes:
- the possibility to refine code quality,
- the possibility to shorten time-to-market of new functionalities,
- reduction of labor costs,
- regular feedback concerning the quality of your code,
- easier communication,
- a valuable insight into your application’s parameters and performance,
- greater customer satisfaction.
As you can see, investing in top-notch CI/CD systems can significantly profit your company.
Application development: cloud-based and cloud-native
When talking about CI/CD systems and pipelines, we need to mention that their incorporation is infeasible without proper tools.
Here, you can choose from cloud-based and cloud-native solutions. As the name suggests, the cloud-native option means that your software is created to be placed directly in the cloud. Flexibility is one of the main advantages of this option.
Although cloud-based apps can also be placed in the cloud, they approach the development process differently. They usually modify the architecture of existing apps and transform them into cloud-based solutions.
Popular CI/CD systems
There are a number of both free and paid popular CI/CD systems that can bring various benefits to your business. It’s worth paying particular attention to solutions like:
- Tekton
- Jenkins X
- GitLab CI/CD
- GitHub Actions
- TeamCity Cloud
- AWS CodePipeline
- Cloud Build from Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
- Microsoft Azure Pipelines
Choosing the right CI/CD systems tailored to your business needs will allow you to efficiently develop and deploy your dream software. Get to know available solutions and eliminate potential errors to make your company stand out from the crowd.