In the autumn of 1968, the first NATO Software Engineering Conference gathered programmers to tackle the “software crisis”. The period that followed not only harnessed the need for effective software solutions but also laid the foundation for the development of a standard lifecycle model. Since then, from the traditional waterfall model to the growing trend of DevOps adoption, the ultimate focus have always been to solve the perennial need for maximizing productivity by optimizing resource allocation.

From Agile to DevOps: The story of continuous and collaborative software development

By 2001 when the agile model got envisioned, it introduced the approach of collaborative software development by allowing the development and the testing teams to work together. Nearly a decade later, DevOps, with its extensive automation approach, expanded agile’s vision by bringing together even the non-IT decision makers (operations team) into the picture and thus internalized the concept of Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) in the mainstream project development methods.

In the recently concluded “Continuous Delivery conference”, Diego Lo Guidice from Forrester laid out seven essential steps for an organization to align itself to the DevOps lifestyle. One of the most important points that were emphasized was the importance of Continuous Integration in the DevOps process, especially from a business perspective, as the procedure ensures high quality of delivery.

The CI/CD methods have largely been considered as a single entity, but in reality there is a world of difference to the two processes; so much so that some businesses even choose to adopt one without the other. The Continuous Integration (CI) process allows smaller, individual fixes that gets committed to the main line at the end of the day, thereby minimizing the risks of breakouts. The Continuous Delivery (CD) process on the other hand stages production at various levels (among QA and operations team) so that the delivery of the end product is largely fault-free and continuous.

The CI/CD method, with its increased focus on tools and processes, has further empowered the DevOps teams to innovate, collaborate and has allowed enterprises to seamlessly manage larger teams. The incorporation of this entire exercise has proven to not just improve the quality of the output but also the internal project teams as well. No wonder that Gartner, in their report on “2015 Hype Cycle for Application Development”, has estimated that the mainstream adoption of CI/CD practices will have a real transformational impact.

Learn more about how enterprises can leverage CI/CD practices with the right tools in their DevOps setup by signing up for our webinar here.

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