Definitions of DevOps Pipeline

DevOps Pipeline is a pipeline that includes stages in the form of phases. Each stage includes manual things to be automated following continuous integration and development rules. The main and the most beautiful feature of a DevOps pipeline is that it provides an environment for the developer as well as a tester and the automation team to streamline the complex process of development and deployment as it is structured in a way where provisioning of different stages of DevOps lifecycle (development, testing, integration, quality assurance, staging, deployment, and production) is fulfilled.

Why do We Need DevOps Pipeline?

DevOps is considered a process of mitigating the gap between developers and the operational team, extending the agile method, or automating the complete end-to-end flow of anyone process, but that does not signify that an overall DevOps have been achieved. Many other factors influence the entire DevOps lifecycle. In a real sense, the DevOps pipeline creates an environment for the developers and the testers to make them experience the software-defined life cycle stages in actuality. Automation is the utmost important factor in the software world but without any compromise with the quality of the product, which indeed is taken care of by the DevOps Pipeline. Thus, it is very much needed to design a good pipeline and follow the phases of staging in the DevOps Pipeline.

Components of DevOps Pipeline

Every organization will have different requirements, depending on the components if we consider a DevOps pipeline. Of course, there are many components, but the focus mainly revolves around a few mandate components without which to achieve a complete quality product with less time and quality will take time. Below listed are a few mandate components of a DevOps Pipeline:

Continuous Development (Continuous Coding)
Automation with Quality testing
Continuous Integration
Continuous Deployment
Continuous Monitoring

1. Continuous Development

It involves people from the entire organization. Whether it is the dev or ops team, both have the equal responsibility to ensure that the coding environment is proper as it will be moved ahead for production. Otherwise, if the code’s functionality breaks in between or is not satisfying, the entire process of incorporating DevOps with hope will become useless. The goal is to maintain a quality code using version control or any good artifact to maintain the codebase.

2. Automation with Quality Testing

Testing is the next crucial phase not only in terms of conventional software life cycle practices but also in terms of the DevOps lifecycle. Automation is incorporated with testing to encounter more bugs and provide developers the insight to provide quality code using automation that consumes less time and makes the process of mutual interplay between the developers and testers easy.

3. Continuous Integration

Automation testing is performed when a developer provides a codebase to the tester; continuous integration of the codebase after each phase of release and development also plays an important role. Only then will this satisfy another crucial phase of the DevOps lifecycle.

4. Continuous Deployment

Any DevOps lifecycle is incomplete without this phase or stage being introduced in the pipeline as a component because this will not only include phases with something in the form of containers or clusters having the main application, but this application, once deployed, will go into production for end customers with releases being made incrementally.

5. Continuous Monitoring

At last, a phase or stage is an inevitable component of a DevOps Pipeline and a DevOps lifecycle. Many monitoring tools have been used, but then again, it depends on the requirement of the project, whether they are needed or not, because before going into the production environment, a constant check has been made in these phases on whether to deliver the product and whether every functionality of the application or product development is working as desired.

6. Working on DevOps Pipeline

All the components mentioned above of a DevOps pipeline play a pivotal role. It will take care of the entire end-to-end application development flow to application deployment with continuous integration and monitoring as its other important feature. But then again, it depends and varies according to the organizational requirements. If we take coding as the main requirement, i.e., to provide a coding environment, then the DevOps Pipeline will be staged in this fashion:

Code Commit or Code Pull: codebase is also maintained using an artifact and versioned. Example: git, SVN.
Continuous Testing: A test-driven environment is created for the developer before it Is moved to the tester. Then, using SonarQube, a dynamic form of testing with the suggestion is provided to the developer.
Continuous integration: Continuous integration Is performed once testing is done with Jenkins.
Continuous deployment: the application, once containerized, is ready to be deployed, which is done using many containerization technologies, namely Docker and Kubernetes.
Continuous Monitoring: A complete and constant check on the application using a tool like Nagios, AWS, etc.

7. DevOps Pipeline Tool

Every stage of the DevOps Pipeline requires a tool, but again, it is necessary to keep clarity in mind the requirement for application development. DevOps, it’s not just a mere play of tools; it is a methodology to optimize the overall end-to-end process and streamline the method from development to deployment. The tools can be enlisted as below:

SVN, Git, Bitbucket: To be used as version control for maintaining codebase.
SonarQube: Static Tool Analysis
Jenkins: continuous integration and testing
Allure and TestNG: for test generating report
Docker and Kubernetes: For containerization and deployment
Continuous Monitoring: AWS and Nagios etc.

Advantages of DevOps Pipeline

Bridges the gap and dependency between the teams.
Time optimization with a trigger of a single application pipeline.
Can achieve full optimization using a customized DevOps pipeline.
Ensures quality code and product deliverance to end-user, thus providing customer satisfaction.

Conclusion

DevOps itself is a topic still taking pace with the market scenario. Many organizations cannot accept or welcome this methodology wholeheartedly. Still, it is becoming tough for every developer to slowly mitigate and fill the gap between the development and operational team. DevOps Pipeline has enhanced the overall DevOps lifecycle.

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