Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery, aka CI/CD, is the mainstream approach to today’s software development process. Although over the years, the pipeline has matured and developed quite a lot. However, developers, QAs, and tech lead still face roadblocks and challenges while implementing the CI/CD pipeline. Although there are many CI/CD tools to assist you with the challenges, it is always good to know what you can face down the road.
Challenges in CI/CD pipeline
Limited environment challenges
Due to limited resources offered to testers, they always rely on a shared testing environment. However, a shared testing environment is not a reliable option for CI/CD pipeline. With several teams using a parallel testing process multiple times, it can give rise to environment configuration issues. This is because different tests might need a different environment.
A fix to this could be an on-demand dedicated testing environment on the cloud. This could omit this CI/CD implementation challenge and improve the testing performance of the testing teams.
Lack of meaningful dashboards and metrics
It is generally the responsibility of the scrum team to create dashboards for CI/CD implementation. The pitfall over here is that different teams in an IT organization have different priorities. Few might like traffic light dashboards, while others might prefer an intuitive dashboard. The solution to this problem is to assess everyone’s data and establish a standard format that suits everyone. This will make everyone on the same page and improve collaboration between teams.
Implementing multiple CI/CD pipelines for large-scale projects
Enterprise-level firms parallelly run multiple projects at the same time. These projects are handled by multiple teams. A single code repository is shared between teams for making code commits, building, testing, and deploying cycles. This makes it hard to analyze and resolve any issues whatsoever and get them fixed.
The solution to this problem is to make a fixed template across the organization and break down larger projects into smaller modules. This will speed up the feedback process and improve code quality.
Cost and resource management
Although CI/CD implementation has expenses connected with it, proper implementation has long-term benefits for business agility, product robustness, security, and the feature release cycle. The costs of the project are greatly increased by the need for resources, equipment, and infrastructure.
In addition, each person has a preference for the tools and other resources that are most convenient for them. If developers and executives don't have access to the right guidance and training, it might potentially slow down operations and reduce developer productivity.
Automating the wrong processes first
Whether you are implementing CI/CD from scratch or making an iterative change to DevOps from the traditional waterfall approach, it will take several months for proper implementation. During this time, you are likely to undergo multiple iterations. Try asking questions to yourself like
- Does this process need to be automated now?
- Is the process error-prone if not automated?
- How long is the process and can automation cut short the processing time?
Using the above checklist, you can figure out which processes to prioritize in the CI/CD implementation. One thing you need to keep in mind is that there is no such thing as “over automating.” As long as you have resources, automating as many processes is the viable choice to make.
Conclusion
Proper implementation of CI/CD benefits organizations on a massive scale. However, the reverse is also true. Poor implementation of CI/CD has cost enterprises billions of dollars. Such situations arise due to poor practices and not picking the right tools for execution. Let me know if you have any questions regarding the same in the comments below.
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