How to avoid Top 5 Common Mistakes in CI/CD
Software development companies are the witness of significant changes in the software development process – from traditional systems to adopting DevOps, automation, and CI/CD. The results are also beyond expectation. Companies using DevOps and CI/CD have improved a lot over the years. They are ensuring faster and quality delivery. While most companies enjoy the benefits of CI/CD, some companies are lagging and failing to meet expectations after adopting CI/CD. Are you wondering how and why?
The reason is a lack of knowledge about CI/CD and implementing and using them in the wrong way. Here are the top five common mistakes to avoid in CI/CD:
Unreliable CI and Building CD
A CD must build on a reliable CI flow. A reliable CI ensures that the release unit will not break the system’s performance. It also provides the processes are repeatable and automated. If the CI process cannot maintain these two points, the CD will stop working midway. Thus engineers and developers have to bear the burden of catching and fixing errors.
To avoid this hectic situation, teams need to implement CI at every stage. They also need to test the code early to guarantee it is error-free and will work in the future.
Over Automation and Potential Risks
Automation is everywhere. Is it worth it to be everywhere? Its true automation saves a lot of time and energy. However, implementing it in every stage can cost more than using human staff. As an example – implementing automation in day-to-day tasks are acceptable. But using automation in tasks that repeat once/ twice in a month or a year is a waste of time and money.
To avoid over automation, teams need to find answers including, how often the tasks repeat, time is taken to replicate, involved people and resources, and the cost. If members find positive answers, they can start automating the parts of the CI/CD process.
Lack of Understanding about Continuous Delivery and Deployment
Continuous delivery differs from continuous deployment. Continuous deployment is the process of auto-deployment of the code changes into production. Continuous delivery ensures delivering quality software quickly. Continuous deployment can never replace continuous delivery. Members need to consider continuous deployment as a separate mechanism from CI/CD.
Organizations need to prepare their project according to the need for continuous deployment in advance. Otherwise, it may hamper the user experience. Using the feature flag method is also useful. Thus it gets easier to turn on and off for the users at the right time.
Error Testing System
Tests are a must to guarantee the code is error-free, working correctly, and ready to release. However, to make the software reliable, the tests must be reliable too. If developers find the tests not reliable, they manually conduct the tests. As a result, they deliver software full of errors.
To make the tests reliable, teams need to focus on covering all the functionality by tests. Remember, individual tests are trustable. If any part of the functionality passes, the test becomes reliable.
Choosing the Wrong Dashboards and Metrics
Receiving a metrics list before understanding the project and the software is a waste of time. Teams cannot get an accurate result from the metrics if they do not know where to focus, what is valid, and what to track. Agile and CI/CD have different goals, but both approaches are connected. Members need to focus on continuous improvement, analyze the success, review, and get better. Without knowing about the bottlenecks of the processes, members can never concentrate on improvement.
To analyze the CI/CD process, members need to choose the right metrics. It must show errors at an early stage. So that teams can proactively respond and fix the mistakes.
CI/CD is meant to make teams more productive, improve software quality, and ensure fast delivery. All these are possible when members guarantee that CI/CD process has been built correctly. The above solutions allow organizations to avoid significant mistakes.
