Why Do You Need CI/CD at Your Organization?

CI/CD is the answer to the back-breaking process that companies used to follow. CI/CD is simply the automated build-test-and-deploy process that enables incremental code changes to be delivered quickly and reliably to production. This article explores the benefits of CI/CD in your organization and how to get started.

Why do you need CI/CD at your organization?

Have you ever wondered why your organization should care about CI/CD? After all, setting up and maintaining can be a lot of work. Well, to answer that question, let's take a look at some of the benefits that CI/CD can bring to your organization:

1. Increased efficiency and developer team productivity

It is no secret that automation can increase productivity and efficiency. When you automate the build, test, and deploy process, you free up your team to focus on more critical tasks (psst! like launching!). It means that your team can focus on adding new features and improving the quality of your software rather than spend their time on tasks that a single platform can easily automate.

2. Reduced risk

By automating the build and testing process, you can reduce the risk of human error. In addition, CI/CD can also help you catch errors and bugs early on before they have a chance to make it into production. That can save you time, money, and headaches down the road.

3. Improved quality

CI/CD can also help improve the quality of your software. Automating the testing process ensures that your code is always well-tested and free of errors. In addition, by making sure that new code is integrated with the rest of your codebase, you can avoid potential conflicts and ensure that your code is always up-to-date.

4. Better collaboration

For any software project, collaboration is critical. CI/CD can help improve collaboration by making it easier for developers to work together on code. By automating the code review and integration process, developers can focus on writing code rather than on managing the process. Also, by using a shared repository, developers can easily see what changes have been made by other team members and provide feedback.

Also read: Top 13 CI/CD Best Practices to Use for Your Next Deployment

5. Faster delivery

Time is money! The faster you deliver your software, the better you can reach your customers for feedback. CI/CD can help improve the speed of delivery by automating many of the tasks involved in the software development process. You can avoid manual errors and get your software to market faster by automating the build, test, and deploy.

6. Reduced costs

CI/CD can help reduce the cost of development by automating many of the tasks involved in the process. You can avoid the need for expensive tools, infrastructure, and or specialized teams by automating the build, test, and deploy strategies.

7. Helps with compliance

Automating the software development process can help ensure that your software complies with industry standards and regulations. It is essential for companies that must adhere to strict compliance regulations. By automating the process, you can avoid manual errors and help ensure that your software meets all the necessary compliance requirements.

8. Increased transparency

One thing that is essential in any business is transparency. DevOps teams become siloed over time. Their learnings and processes become self-contained, counter-intuitive to what DevOps can help you achieve. When you automate the software development process, it can help increase transparency within your organization. That is because automation can help you track every process step, from requirements gathering to code deployment. This level of transparency can help improve communication and collaboration within your team.

9. Easier to scale

As your company grows, you will need to scale up your operations. Automating the CI/CD process can help make this scaling-up process scalable and effective. When everything is automated, adding new features and functionality becomes much more manageable than manually implementing each process.

How to get started with CI/CD at your organization?

Now that you know the benefits of CI/CD, you might wonder how to get started with it at your organization.

There are a few things that you will need to do to get started:

1. Choose the right tools

The first step is to choose the right tools for your organization. There are many different CI/CD tools available, so choosing the ones that best fit your needs is essential. Some popular CI/CD tools include Jenkins, GitLab, and TravisCI.

2. Set up your build server

Once you have chosen the tools, you must set up your build server. This server will be responsible for running the tests and building the software.

3. Configure your build server

The next step is to configure your build server. That includes setting up the environment, installing the dependencies, and configuring the CI/CD tools.

4. Create a build pipeline

The final step is to create a build pipeline. This pipeline will define the steps to be implemented by you to build, test, and deploy the software.

With so many benefits, it's no wonder that CI/CD has become the standard for software development. From faster feedback to easier deployments, CI/CD can help improve the quality of your software and make your development process more efficient. So if your organization isn't already using CI/CD, now is the time to start and reap the benefits.

Benefits of CI/CD:

1. Increased efficiency and developer team productivity: With CI/CD in place, developers can focus on writing code and adding features rather than worrying about getting their code into production.

2. Reduced risk: Automating the software development process can help reduce the risk of human errors and omissions.

3. Improved quality: CI/CD increases the overall quality of your software in automation; there is little room for error.

4. Better Collaboration: CI/CD encourages collaboration among developers, testers, and operations staff. All team members can work together to streamline the software development process.

5. Faster Delivery: With CI/CD in place, new features can be delivered to customers more quickly and efficiently.

6. Reduced Cost: By automating CI/CD, testing and deployment costs will decrease.

7. Helps with compliance: Automated CI/CD processes can help ensure that software meets industry and regulatory compliance standards.

8. Increased transparency: CI/CD provides increased transparency into the software development process, making it easier to identify and fix problems.

9. Easier to scale: With CI/CD in place, it is easier to scale software development projects as they grow in size and complexity.

Further Reading