Table of Contents

    Deployment Pipeline

    Rumman Ansari February 11, 2025 426 views
    Deployment Pipeline

    Automated implementation of an application’s build, test, deploy and release process is known as deployment pipeline.

    Shown are the typical stages a change passes through in the pipeline.

    • Any change in application’s configuration, source code, data or environment triggers a new instance of the pipeline.

    • In the pipeline, binaries and installers are created first.

    • Tests are run on the binaries.

    • A combination of code, configuration, data, and the environment is considered releasable only after passing the pipeline successfully.

    Deployment Pipeline Advantages

    • Enables collaboration (each step is visible to the team).

    • Ensures issues are identified and resolved at an early stage.

    • Helps team to automatically deploy and release a software version anytime.

    • Aids team to identify inefficiencies in the release process.

    • Enables metrics collection (such as cycle time).

    Pipeline Flow
    Commit Stage

    The commit stage includes:

    • Code compilation

    • Execution of commit tests

    • Binaries creation (for use at later stages)

    • Static code analysis

    • Artifacts creation (like test databases)

    • The release candidate is created after passing this stage.

    • Eliminates the code changes that are unfit for production.

    • Reports at the earliest to the developer if the application is broken.

    • The owner is the developer.

    Commit Stage Practices

    • Create efficient, fast, non-environment dependent scripts.

    • Fail commit, if the build fails due to the compilation, test or environmental issues.

    • Design a fast user feedback mechanism.

    Acceptance Testing Stage

    • A critical threshold in the deployment pipeline.

    • Takes delivery teams beyond basic continuous integration.

    • Tests every version of the software that passes the commit stage.

    • Changes that fails at this stage, is not deployed.

    • Validates if the system meets the business criteria.

    Capacity Testing Stage
        • Specific real-world scenarios are tested.

    Practices to follow:

      • Set threshold limit for concluding the test result.

      • Plan short duration tests.

      • Tests must be repeatable.

    Manual Testing Stage

    • Ensures system is usable and fulfills its requirements.

    • Detects bugs that are not identified in the previous stages.

    • This stage includes:

      • User Acceptance Testing

      • Testing in an exploratory or integration environment.

    Release Stage

    • Delivers the system to users:

      • As packaged software or

      • Deploys it into a production or staging environment.

    • Also known as deployment stage.

    Steps to deploy or release software:

    • Create and manage the infrastructure (like hardware, networking, etc.) on which your application will run.

    • Install the correct version of the application.

    • Configure the application, including any data it requires.

    What are Dependencies?

    Dependencies occur, when a piece of code depends on:

    • another part of the code (components) or

    • software (like libraries) to build or run.

    Dependencies are represented by a Directed Acyclic Graph.

    Dependency Types

    • Build-time: To be present when the code is compiled and linked.

    • Run-time: To be present when the application runs in an environment.

    Managing Libraries

    • Check-in the libraries to the artifact repository.

    • Use a dependency management tool like Maven or Ivy to declare the libraries. It fetches the libraries from artifact repository when required.

    Next section Component Pipeline elaborates on components dependency.

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