There’s a concept in the tech world called continuous integration. While not all companies use it, many do. It’s worth talking about. If you’re running a company that’s not utilizing it yet, it’s at least worth considering. We’ll discuss continuous integration right now, as well as why it has become so popular in recent years.
What Does Continuous Integration Mean?
Understanding the core principles of continuous integration might come easily to those in the tech world. However, even those who don’t spend much time in this space can usually grasp it without too much difficulty.
Continuous integration refers to a software development practice. Essentially, it involves merging code changes with the use of a central repository. You then run a series of automated tests. By doing so, you build on the code that you introduced.
If you have the foundation of a code and you’re trying to build on it, this method makes a lot of sense. It’s accurate to say that the code changes and automated tests act as a series of quality controls. However, that doesn’t necessarily explain why many in the DevOps field utilize this strategy.
What Does DevOps Involve?
Before we get into the natural link between continuous integration and DevOps, we should define this term as well. DevOps constitutes another software development discipline or practice. When you get into DevOps in a serious way, you’re probably using a combination of workers, technology, and processes.
It might not look the same for each company. You can look at the term DevOps as kind of a catchall, like eCommerce or Big Data. They’re terms that include a wide range of concepts, companies, operations, and technology.
Like eCommerce or Big Data, DevOps continues to grow and develop at a nearly exponential rate despite the fact that none of these ideas or industries have a very long history. They’re all examples of concepts that came to light in the past forty years or so and spread like wildfire.
How Does Continuous Integration Relate to DevOps?
The more you look at continuous integration and DevOps and how each one functions, the easier it becomes to understand the potential connection between the two. You might think about it in this way.
Say you have a company that’s running DevOps. Maybe they’re doing that exclusively, or perhaps they’re integrating DevOps into a larger or more complex business model. In either case, continuous integration (or CI, as some companies abbreviate it) makes sense because when the business entity uses it, it helps their teams deliver high-quality software quickly and consistently.
As we mentioned earlier, CI involves testing and building of code at the same time. That works much better than building on a simple code model or premise without testing it every step of the way. When you test the base code you’ve created, you’re probing for weaknesses and redundancies.
If you implement continuous integration, you’re building that practice directly into the system. Logically, if you’re testing the efficacy of the code as you expand on it, you should end up with software that’s stronger and less likely to buckle when someone uses it in unexpected ways.
Other Ways Continuous Integration Makes Sense for DevOps
In addition, you can have improved collaborative efforts if you combine these two related concepts. Say you have a whole team working on creating software. Maybe you plan on eventually offering that bespoke software platform to individuals or companies via a SaaS (software as a service) model.
If so, you will definitely want to consider using continuous integration to help your team that’s working tirelessly to get the software up and running. Before you can offer it to customers, you need to probe and test it at every turn.
You can identify and resolve issues much easier if you have your IT professionals and developers use continuous integration. They will also happily do it rather than check each other’s work. If there’s an automated way to do that, it might save hurt feelings if someone notices a flaw in the software that got by someone else who worked on that aspect of the project.
In short, if you have a DevOps team as part of your company, or if that’s all your business entity does, and you set up and use continuous integration, you can probably come out with new software and other products a lot faster. It’s also more likely you’ll get a positive reception for your products.
