Automating Application Development

(OBJ 4.7)

Automating Application Development

• Enhances efficiency, consistency, and the quality of software products
• Automation
  • In application development, it involves using technology to manage, test, and deploy applications or features with minimal human intervention
  • Relying on humans for every step takes a lot of hurdle
  • Automation gives features developed and released rapidly with continuous integration
  • Move from the Waterfall methodology of development to the agile or iterative one.

Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment

• Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) significantly improve software efficiency, consistency, and quality

• Continuous Integration (CI)

  • Practice in software development where developers merge code changes frequently in one place
    • Developers merge code changes frequently in a central repository
  • Automated build process verifies each check-in and detects problems during integration
  • Automation tools manage code integration, provide notifications for conflicts or errors
  • Automated tests ensure software quality and efficiency after integration
  • Developers receive feedback on detected issues to make necessary corrections
  • Release
    • Process of finalizing and preparing new software or updates
    • Enabling software installation and usage
    • Marks the transition point where a particular piece of software is ready for users to access it.
  • Deployment
    • Involves automated process of software releases to users
    • Actual installation of software in a new environment

• Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD)

  • CI/CD includes continuous integration
  • Continuous Delivery (CD) ensures code is always deployable after every change
    • Automated testing and build processes
    • CD stops short of automatic production deployment
    • CD is part of the release process
    • Full deployment process is automated only to a certain stage
      • Doesn’t deploy into the production environment automatically
    • Deployment to production environment is a manual business decision
      • Allows manual control of deploying changes to the live production environment
    • Allows flexibility in timing, market conditions, and stakeholder readiness

• Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment

  • Takes CI/CD further by automatically deploying code changes to testing and production environments
  • All changes passing through the production pipeline are fully released with no human intervention
  • Automation ensures consistent deployments, faster releases, and offers rollback capabilities
    • Removes human-error from the process
    • Rollback capability is crucial for ensuring service continuity in a continuous deployment model
  • Requires a paradigm shift, more developer involvement in the deployment process
    • Constantly deploying changes into the live production network
  • Promotes increased communication and collaboration within teams for collective responsibility
    • IN CI/DC, developers take responsibility for code testing and deployment, moving away from the traditional hand-off approach

• Benefits of CI/CD

  • Adapting to changing market demands more quickly
  • Efficient workflow from development to deployment
  • Improves code quality, streamlines deployment processes, and allows flexible production release
  • Reduces deployment risks and enhances software reliability
  • Example:
    • GitHub Repository