For IT-related businesses, staying updated on the latest technology and processes is required to be ahead of the competition. Not only that, but there are also protocols that your software development team must employ to help you achieve this goal. This comes in the form of continuous integration (CI) and continuous deployment (CD).
Simply put, CI and CD offer various benefits, such as easier release cycles, healthier relationships with your end-users, and higher revenue. If you still don’t have it in your workplace, it’s recommended that you implement it there as soon as possible.
This article will shed some light on CI and CD and how a business can grow through them. Read on below to learn more.
The CI/CD Pipeline
Implementing a CI/CD pipeline is necessary for any software project. The CI/CD pipeline automates most of the software development process, maximizing the manual labor needed during development. If appropriately implemented, the software development process—from development to launch—will be successful.
Understanding Continuous Integration
CI is where all of a team’s coders submit their bits of code for a project into a centralized server. The server integrates all of these separate pieces of code and completes the build. In other words, the disjointed code will run a project until it has been completed.
The primary benefit of having CI in your software development team’s process is detecting coding issues earlier, such as bugs and faulty portions of code. Since many people will be contributing to the code, you can never know if everyone’s part works as intended. It will also be a time-consuming process when you’re trying to find whose piece of code has the issue, making CI a necessary thing to have in the workplace.
CI also facilitates collaboration between team members since they will be detecting coding issues together. As a result, workplaces that use CI better understand their team dynamics and how their individual contributions to the project play in the final product. In essence, CI offers faster detection of coding errors, easier troubleshooting, and better working relationships among team members.
A Closer Look at Continuous Deployment
Continuous deployment involves the “low-risk” releases of a software project. Since software projects are designed for end-users, CD allows for instant feedback regarding crucial metrics. Did the project meet the user’s expectations, needs, and goals? Are there any technical issues that affect user experience (UX)? These are some of the most common questions that come up when CD processes are involved. You’ll also get answers to these questions very quickly, which is why they’re called “low-risk” releases. In other words, releasing a project version of your software to users before fully dedicating labor into development lets you know what to improve with it.
CD deployment may seem easy, but it becomes difficult if you don’t consider factors like your competitors, their methods of delivering to their users, and the general industry. You must have a general understanding of these factors so that you can succeed where others can’t.
Conclusion
If you want to be ahead, implementing both CI and CD is a must because having only one of the two won’t help your cause. CI deals with internal issues within the software while CD deals with user-related problems—both of which can make or break the success of a software project.
Any software must have solid customer support behind it. Creative Business Labs provides solutions for conversational AI for customer support to achieve this goal. We also offer other services to ensure that operations will keep on going smoothly. Contact us today to learn more!
