Continuous Integrationfrom server to cloud

Agile Software Developer at XPeppers

Erlang addicted since 2009

Twitter: @pdincau

Paolo D’Incau

Who am I?

Contents

IntroIn House

CI aaSDrone

Conclusions

Contents

Our road to CI...but what is CI?Your dear old blade serverTravis and friendsThe new kid in townQuestions & maybe mild criticism

Once upon a time...

A team composed by several developers with strong passions, different cultures and skills

Multiple projects ranging from mobile applications to complex backend applications

How can we further improve the quality of our work to get a better product?

Continuous Integration to the rescue!

Retrospective question

CI: Pragmatic definition

Codebase is owned by several developers that continuously integrate their changes to a common version control system.

For each integration the system runs a predefined set of tasks automatically; these tasks may vary from running all the tests to building all the components

confidence+

automation=

better product** with attitude and agreement

CI for me is...

Confidence

Fast feedback for my work

Easy merge of changes

I can always download a working copy of codebase

Automation

Using IDE is not automating

Not only unit tests but also infrastructure

Reduce human error

Better product

Less time spent in fixing

Integrate now and not later

“Pay me now or pay more later”

confidence

+

automation

=

better product*

* with attitude and agreement

CI for me is...

Now you know what CI is, but...

CI is obviously not...

“WELL, IT BUILDS ON MY MACHINE”

“PROBABLY YOU DON’T HAVE VERSION ABC OF XYZ”

“I SWEAR, TEST PASSED ON ECLIPSE”“IT IS NOT AN ERROR, IT’S JUST A FAILURE”

“I PUSHED WITHOUT RUNNING THE TESTS”

“WHEN WAS THIS FEATURE INTRODUCED?”

“MY MACHINE IS NOT CONFIGURED”“THE BUILD HAS BEEN BROKEN FOR 3 DAYS”

“MY TEST DB IS NOT CLEAN” “DO YOU HAVE DEFAULT MAVEN PROFILE?”

“INTEGRATION IS LAST PART”

Starting a new project?

True story I:

“Full Metal Blade”

In-House CI

Freedom to install anything we need

Full control over the build pipeline

Good if you have security constraints

In-House CI

Maintenance is up to you!

time + knowledge + patienceBut well... Murphy’s law is behind the corner!

In-House to the cloud

Our blade server doesn’t scale very much...

...why don’t we go to the cloud?

Scalable system obtained with little effort

Jenkins CI

Formerly knows as Hudson Battle tested over the years

Many plugins available...

A kid’s dream...

True story II:

“In my other life I am a developer”

CI aaS

Travis CIFirst CI aaS in town

Easy integration with GitHub repos

Configuration takes minutes

On push builds starts

Travis CIConfiguration obtained by adding .travis.yml file

to your repository

Travis CI - Pros

Free for ∞ public repos and collaborators

Great variety of languages

Supports datastores and services

Travis CI - Cons

Free plan means no private repos...

... and no priority on build pipeline

Shippable CI

Startup founded in 2013

Supports both GitHub and Bitbucket

Configuration similar to Travis’ one

Shippable CI

Shippable CI - Pros

Up to 5 private repos for free

New stuff continuously added

They want your feedback

Shippable CI - Cons

Probably still not mature as Travis is

Sometimes behaves in unexpected ways

Very small story:

“Can we Go-lang to Docker?”

Drone CI

Open source project

Prevents configuration headaches

Based on Docker

Linux containers are really great!

Sometimes slower than other CIs

Collapsed mails made my crazy!

Drone CI

Conclusions

Much more than a bunch of tools

Automation is essential

Experiment and see what fits your needs best

Thank you!

Questions???