What is Continuous Delivery Infrastructure?

Continuous delivery infrastructure might seem like business jargon, but it's an important concept if you want to assure the most efficient communications processes. Here's what you need to know.

The world of DevOps seems to be awash in terms that describe "continuous" processes. It's a genericized term, like Xerox for copier, or Band-Aid for self-adhesive bandage. Essentially, it's shorthand for a complex series of processes; terms for the full software delivery channel are "Continuous Delivery" and "Continuous Integration." Nevertheless, these two descriptors describe dissimilar objectives and processes. Further complicating matters, there is the subject of "Continuous Deployment" to reconcile.

Releases performed every quarter seem foolish now with the rise of Agile Development. New processes have been bringing progressively more functionality to the market as efficiently as possible. For changes to occur swiftly, the appropriate infrastructure and practices must be in place.

It can be difficult to prevent the confusion that technology semantics inevitably cause, but in the case of continuous processes, each practice is structured differently.

How do Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment, and Continuous Delivery differ?

Software delivery pipelines are designed to get your ideas into practice. As generous as that may sound, there are undoubtedly many steps to be taken. If you're a software engineer, once your external customers access a feature, they don't care how you delivered it. However, development teams definitely care about the implementation process -- after all, it affects them directly.

Continuous Delivery is a software development process designed so that products can be released continuously.

Continuous Delivery happens when:

• The software you develop can be deployed throughout its full lifecycle.
• Instead of focusing on new features, you prioritize keeping the software deployable.
• Every time someone makes a change to their systems, anyone can receive fast, automated feedback.
• By using push-button deployments, any software version can be deployed on-demand to any environment.

Continuous Delivery is made possible by seamlessly integrating the software created by the development team, constructing executables, and performing automated tests on those executables. Additionally, you move the executables into progressively more complex environments to confirm the software will function in practice.

The primary test is that a significant stakeholder could insist that you deploy the newest development version of the software onto a live system at any time - and nobody would worry or even care.

Continuous Delivery requires:

• A tight, cohesive partnership between parties engaged in the delivery.
• Comprehensive automation of every conceivable part of the delivery cycle.

Continuous Delivery is often conflated with Continuous Deployment. Continuous Deployment implies that each revision flows through the appropriate channels and is instantly launched, leading to numerous daily deployments. Continuous Delivery enables you to perform innumerable deployments, but also offers flexibility. If you want Continuous Deployment, you need Continuous Delivery.

Continuous Integration typically involves integrating, creating, and testing code from the development system. Continuous Delivery expands on this concept, addressing the last steps necessary for production.

Continuous Delivery provides the following benefits:

• Minimized Deployment Risk: By deploying smaller changes, there are fewer things that could malfunction, and any issues are simpler to fix.
• Credible Progress: In the tech environment, progress is too often measured by the completion of incremental steps rather than how streamlined production is.
• User Feedback: One of the biggest risks of building software is creating something of little value to end-users. By getting working software in front of real users earlier and more consistently, you're more likely to find out if it's useful.

The feedback you receive from users necessitates Continuous Deployment, which makes having a Continuous Delivery infrastructure essential. In a VDI context, it is essential to ensure your team's experience is as smooth and efficient as possible to assure productivity. At GCSIT, we partner with organizations to determine the best solutions for their operations. We specialize in cloud agile infrastructure for organizations seeking to optimize their productivity, flexibility, and profitability. To learn more about how Continuous Delivery could affect your bottom line, please contact our helpful representatives today.

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