WHAT IS CI/CD in DEVOPS ?

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1 Problems before CI/CD and How CI/CD tools helped ?

1️ Manual Builds

  • Developers built code manually on their own machines
  • Different environments → “Works on my machine” problem – dependency conflicts issues
  • No standard build process
  • Result:
    – Inconsistent builds
    – frequent failures

2️ Late Detection of Bugs

  • Code was integrated after days or weeks
  • Bugs were found very late (during QA or production)
  • Result:
    – Costly bug fixes
    – Delayed releases

3️ No Automated Testing

  • Tests were run manually
  • Developers often skipped tests due to time pressure
  • Result:
    – Broken features
    – Low code quality

4️.Painful Code Integration (Merge Hell)

  • Developers worked on branches for a long time
  • Merging code caused conflicts and failures
  • Result:
    – Integration nightmares
    – Unstable main branch ( Which leads to delay for deployment )

5️ Manual Deployments

  • Deployment steps written in documents or emails
  • Human errors during deployment
  • Result:
    – Downtime
    – Rollback issues

6️ No Visibility

  • No single place to know:
  • Build status
  • Test results
  • Who broke the build
  • Result:
    – Blame game
    – Slow troubleshooting

7 What is CICD ?

  • CI/CD stands for Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (or Continuous Deployment).
  • It is a DevOps practice that automates the process of BUILDING, TESTING, and DEPLOYING code whenever developers make changes.

8 What is jenkins ?

  • Jenkins is an Open-source automation tool used to implement CI/CD (Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery) in DevOps.
  • It is widely used to build, test, and deploy applications automatically whenever code changes happen.

2 What Jenkins Solved ?

Jenkins introduced Continuous Integration (CI).

1 Automated Builds

  • Automatically builds code on every commit
  • Same environment for everyone
  • Solved: Inconsistent builds

2️ Early Bug Detection

  • Runs build + tests immediately after code push
  • Bugs found within minutes
  • Solved: Late bug discovery

3 Automated Testing

  • Unit, integration, regression tests run automatically
  • Solved: Skipped or manual testing

4️ Continuous Integration

  • Developers merge code frequently
  • Jenkins integrates and validates changes continuously
  • Solved: Merge hell

5️ Automated Pipelines

  • Build → Test → Package → Deploy
  • One-click or fully automated releases
  • Solved: Manual deployments

6️ Centralized Visibility

Dashboards show:
  • Build status
  • Logs
  • Test reports Solved: Lack of transparency

7️ Integration with DevOps Tools

Works with:

  • GitHub / GitLab
  • Docker
  • Kubernetes
  • SonarQube
  • AWS / Azure Solved: Tool fragmentation

3 CD (Continuous Delivery / Continuous Deployment)

  • While CI focuses on building and testing code, CD focuses on releasing that code to environments automatically.
  • In Continuous Delivery, code is automatically deployed to lower environments such as Dev, QA, and Staging, but production deployment requires manual approval.
  • Lower environments :
    – 1) Dev
    – 2) Qa
    – 3) Staging
  • Higher environments :
    – 4) Prod —-> Manual intervention needed through approvals

In Continuous Deployment, the entire process is fully automated, and successful builds are deployed to production without any manual intervention.

## Flow : Git → CI → Deploy to Dev → QA → (Manual Approve) → Prod

## Typical stages in pipeline : Commit → Build → Test → Deploy to Dev → Deploy to QA → Deploy to Staging → Manual Approval → Deploy to Prod

## Continuous delivery vs continuous deployment ?

  • Continuous Delivery ensures code is always ready for production with manual approval,
  • whereas Continuous Deployment automatically deploys every successful build to production without human intervention.

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