Building a website is like building a house. Developers create the blueprint with their code, and engineers construct it. In the same way a shoddy plan can derail a new building, and miscommunication and errors can delay progress on a new website. You need a guiding hand to keep communication clear and ensure a smooth software development cycle, where tested code becomes a successful live launch.
Continuous integration and continuous delivery/deployment (CI/CD) is like the crew that makes it happen: integrating, testing, and deploying the code. Here’s what CI/CD is and how it can help streamline workflows in your ecommerce website operations.
What is CI/CD?
Continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery/deployment (CD) are a set of practices and tools designed to improve software quality throughout the development lifecycle by automating the building, testing, and deployment of applications.
CI/CD is not just a phase that’s implemented at the beginning of building a website. It’s an “always on” approach that becomes an integral part of the day-to-day responsibilities of software engineers.
Examples of CI/CD pipeline tools include Jenkins, GitLab CI, CircleCI, and Travis CI. They ensure a continuous flow of updates in the software production pipeline, from integrating code changes to delivering and deploying updates.
Continuous integration vs. continuous delivery vs. continuous deployment
Continuous delivery tools promote a symbiotic development life cycle, in which code building, testing, staging, deployment, and performance monitoring create a positive feedback loop. This helps software development teams accelerate software improvements. Here’s how the phases all work together:
Continuous integration tests code changes on the fly
CI serves the input side of the development pipeline, automatically and continuously merging code changes into a shared source code repository. In a typical CI scenario, once changes enter the repository, static code analysis (SCA) tools analyze new code for issues like insecure code, then generate detailed reports for developers to address.
CI is like the checkpoint for new code changes, sending code through a battery of automated tests including:
- Unit tests on individual bits of code
- Integration tests for key component interaction
- Security testing
- Regression testing
Regression tests ensure that functionalities like login, account management, product browsing, shopping cart, checkout, and payment work as expected.
Continuous delivery pushes code to a staging environment
Continuous delivery takes CI a step further by moving tested code changes to a staging area that closely replicates the live production environment. This part of the process involves running automated tests on the code change. If issues are found, the problem is reported back to the development team. After code passes all CI tests, it’s automatically packaged and deployed to this staging environment.
Continuous deployment releases code when it’s ready
Continuous deployment automates the final step, publishing code directly to the live site after passing all stages (CI and CD). This process can be automatic, making it ideal for rapid releases and fast feedback. Rather than wait for a single big update, this ongoing process allows for regular small updates.
CI/CD vs. DevOps
CI/CD and DevOps are related, but distinct concepts in the software development lifecycle. DevOps establishes the vision for better software development, while CI/CD is a toolset used to realize that vision. Here’s more on how they differ:
CI/CD
CI/CD, which focuses on continuous code integration and software delivery, has existed since the late 1990s, but became widely adopted with the rise of DevOps. CI/CD gained traction as a practical means to deliver the goals set by DevOps. CI/CD enables faster delivery and improved quality by automating the processes of building, continuous testing, and deploying software updates within a DevOps framework.
DevOps
DevOps gained popularity around 2010 when IT professionals were concerned about divisions between the development team and operations team. DevOps sets a vision for better software development through a holistic philosophy promoting collaboration between development and operations teams. It breaks down silos to minimize conflicts and delays. It encourages developers to share responsibility for code quality, performance, and security vulnerabilities, as their code moves into the production environment.
The DevOps approach benefits site developers by improving responsiveness to user feedback. It also helps operations teams push frequent updates and fixes, ensuring smooth web storefront performance.
What is IaC?
CI/CD can enhance ecommerce website development by implementing infrastructure as code (IaC). This approach treats your website’s infrastructure—its servers, databases, and database scripts—just like application code. While CI/CD pipelines can manage application code changes without IaC, using IaC automates infrastructure management and ensures consistency in website updates.
Start by defining your website’s infrastructure as code files. Many cloud platforms offer tools and services to define infrastructure (servers, databases) that can be integrated into your CI/CD pipeline. Platforms like AWS, Azure, and GCP provide built-in CI/CD services or integrations with popular tools like Jenkins or GitLab to host the central repository, maintaining code storage and version control.
Benefits of CI/CD for ecommerce
- Faster time to market
- Reduced manual intervention
- Increased productivity
- Smoother customer experience
- Bug prevention
- Reduced development costs
- More efficient workflow
- Improved scalability
Here are eight key benefits of automating software development, website updates, and the deployment process through CI/CD:
Faster time to market
Competition waits for no one. In the fast-paced world of ecommerce, you need to act quickly on continuous customer feedback to deliver software improvements. CI/CD fosters agility, enabling you to deploy a new feature or bug fix quickly.
Reduced manual intervention
CI/CD automates repetitive tasks like building, testing, and deployment, eliminating the need for manual human intervention. This means less context switching (having to switch between coding, testing tools, and deployment configurations). Less code switching allows developers to focus on core activities like writing new features and fixing bugs. Automated deployment services also reduce human error.
Increased productivity
Today’s CI/CD tools boost developer productivity. In the traditional process, the master branch (the primary branch in a version control system) was the only source of stable, deployable code. A single mistake in the master branch could disrupt the live website, akin to a single-lane bridge where one accident halts all traffic.
With the modern approach to CI/CD, developers’ code features in separate branches, which they test independently before merging into a staging branch. This staging environment replicates the live website but is not publicly accessible. They can test new features and approve them in the staging site before live deployment, minimizing the risk of bugs.
Smoother customer experience
When code releases happen faster thanks to a streamlined development and deployment pipeline, applications and websites are more responsive to customer feedback. A better user experience can translate into more sales and return visits.
Bug prevention
The ecommerce storefront relies on various back-end tools and applications, yet customers should remain blissfully unaware of these complexities behind the scenes. The CI/CD pipeline uses automated testing to produce better-quality code. It fixes bugs before they leech into the live website, which would mar the customer experience.
Reduced development costs
Automation in CI/CD takes the drudgery out of coding and testing, leading to more efficient incremental code changes. This cuts development costs by requiring less time to release new code. With reduced errors and faster deployment, you can reduce your overall development budget.
More efficient workflow
A smooth and stable pipeline allows development teams to collaborate more with testers and operations. CI/CD automates repetitive tasks like testing and deployment, granting developers more freedom to innovate.
Developers don’t need to manually configure changes for staging and production environments. Because CI/CD relies on version control systems, the same code version can be deployed consistently with no manual intervention, enabling faster, more consistent application and website updates.
Improved scalability
CI/CD makes it easier to scale your ecommerce platform as business requirements change and traffic grows. As website traffic increases, CI/CD can automatically provision additional servers. It also supports microservices architecture, allowing individual scaling of the services experiencing high traffic. Automated performance testing tools can identify bottlenecks before deployment, so if a new feature doesn’t scale, you can see it before it impacts the end user.
CI/CD FAQ
What is a CI/CD pipeline?
The CI/CD pipeline is like a software assembly line. Code updates get integrated, tested in a staging environment, and then deployed to production. Deployment can occur after manual review or automatically with continuous deployment.
What is an example of CI/CD?
As developers commit changes to the version control system, the CI process detects the new code, triggers the build, runs unit tests to ensure stability, and executes automated tests to verify user interactions and data accuracy. After testing, the code is deployed to a staging environment for bug and usability checks before going live.
What is the meaning of CI/CD?
CI/CD stands for continuous integration and continuous delivery/deployment. It automates the software and web development process. Code changes are continuously merged and automatically tested, allowing for less context switching, quicker releases, and fewer errors. This leads to faster development velocity and a more reliable experience for ecommerce customers.
How does CI/CD work?
With each coding change, CI automates testing to ensure everything works together. If all tests pass, CD automatically delivers the update to a staging environment for review. Once approved, CI/CD can then deploy the update to your live website, streamlining the entire process.
