There are nearly 23.9 million software developers who code and build programs for businesses and enterprises that look to providing solutions for a better living. This means that there are millions of lines of program code being written this very instant as you read. While there is a lot of programming and development that is going on worldwide, how are people and businesses able to execute these lines of code into real-world practical applications is a question that we must ask. The future of application or software development lies in testing and deployment technologies like DevOps, CI/CD Pipeline, automation, etc.
Software testing has gone through different eras from manual testing to automation to continuous testing. The current testing technologies that most software firms are looking to explore is what is called the DevOps which is part of the broader framework of Continuous Testing, and CI/CD is part of this broader piece of the pie.
What is CI/CD Pipeline?
In the software testing domain, CI/CD pipelines have been exhaustively used to speed up the testing and deployment processes to produce results that are effective and efficient. While some of us already know of the CI/CD technologies and how they function, most of us are still exploring its features and possibilities. To get our fundamentals right, CI stands for Continuous Integration which means that there is a continuous generation of build and test sequences to any program or software package that is built using code. CI monitors the code consistently for any changes or modifications to automatically generate the build and test sequence for the project that you build.
CD on the other hand also called Continuous Delivery ensures the administration of the automatic infrastructure deployment for the builds. While the CI/CD pipeline is a framework that is available to use, there are different tools that implement this technology to help businesses release their software applications faster.
Bamboo is one such application that implements the CI/CD framework.
What is Bamboo CI Server?
Bamboo is a continuous integration server that is used to automate the testing of any software program or application for a quicker release creating a continuous delivery pipeline. The CI/CD pipeline is instrumental in automating builds, documenting logs, executing tests to assess different parameters of the program and its functionality of the code that is committed. Bamboo integration enables developers to create automated build and test processes for any software program. It also provides a platform to segregate builds that have different targets and requirements, an added advantage is its ability to deploy the program automatically into the server for its release, which saves a lot of time as compared to manual testing. Below is a list of features that are available on the Bamboo platform.
Bamboo uses a repository of code that developers provide to schedule and coordinate the building and testing processes of your application. In order to schedule these automated processes, one would need to have the complete source code of the project, the build, and test scripts.
Advantages of Bamboo integration
A CI server like Bamboo advances the amounts of time it takes to perform builds and deployments. Some of its advantages include –
Umteen integrations that are compatible with Bamboo make it all the more faster for businesses to assess and make changes using the test analytical data.
End-to-end visibility into quality, release management and status of builds all in one place.
Most of the Functionality is pre-built into the platform with minimal to no need for plugins.
Seamless integration with products such as Jira and Bitbucket
Bamboo’s CI makes it deployment-ready as well.
Tinder and intuitive user-interface makes it easy to navigate through options and tools for a fast and easy functionality.
Different staging environments available on Bamboo allows the QA and developer teams to deploy environments on demand without causing any disturbance to the production environment.
Workflow of Bamboo CI Server
Bamboo’s workflow is pretty straightforward when it comes to coordinating the builds and test suites. The configuration of the order of actions in its workflow is generally divided into different segments and sections which make up the building blocks of its workflow. A high-level understanding of the building blocks of a Bamboo workflow would point you to Plans, Jobs, and Tasks.
Plans consist of a single-stage by default. However, it can be used to group jobs into multiple stages to execute the jobs as and when required. Plans use the same repository to run a series of one or more stages sequentially for faster execution and app testing needs. While you can have separate stages to segregate jobs and tasks within them, Plans ensure that you have everything in one place.
Jobs consists of tasks that are run sequentially on the same agent. They provide you control over the order of the tasks that need to be performed for your build. Jobs collect the requirements of the tasks to map out the capabilities required for it in the understanding of the Bamboo CI Server.
Tasks are the smallest discrete working units that execute the commands given to any system. A general task would comprise of parsing test results, executing Maven goals, running scripts, or executing source code checkouts. Tasks run sequentially within a job on the working Bamboo directory.
Integrating Bamboo CI server for your testing needs is sure to help you scale up the pace of your builds and deployments. The several integrations that are supported by Bamboo will help gather all your requirements in one place for execution and implementation. You can easily integrate pCloudy as your cross-browser testing tool to test your websites and web-apps and analyze your test result on the go. For a detailed summary of the steps you need to follow, you can click on the Bamboo integration link here.
Top comments (0)