Web application development using CI/CD

Dr. Vishal Shrivastava1, Dr. Akhil Pandey2, Er. Sangeeta Sharma, 1,2Professor, 3Assistant Professor
Computer Science & Engineering
Arya College of Engineering & I.T. India, Jaipur
1
[email protected],[email protected],[email protected]

ABSTRACT Continuous Integration (CI), ensures that new code

Continuous enhancement and constant delivery or in changes are promptly tested, verified, and integrated
other words CI/CD is a method that simplifies with the existing codebase. The immediate feedback
software development, testing and deployment, loop created by CI‘helps to identify and rectify‘
making it convenient and reliable. CI ensures code integration problems ‘early in the process of
changes work together seamlessly, while continuous development, decreasing the likelihood of ‘conflicts
and errors that can become problematic as a project
import/export automates the publishing process for
progresses.
fast, error-free deployment. It is a software
development method that aids to create, test, and use In addition, Continuous Deployment and Continuous
software by simply making it active and improved. Delivery are two closely related but distinct concepts:
CI ensures code changes work together seamlessly,
1. Continuous Deployment (CD): In a
whereas continuous import/export automates the
continuous deployment setup, any code change
publishing process for fast, error-free delivery.
that successfully passes the CI process is
deployed automatically to‘the production
Keyword: Continuous Integration, Continuous
environment. This approach is well-suited for
Deployment, Continuous Delivery, Automation,
applications and services where rapid iteration
Software development, Code integration, Testing,
and immediate deployment are critical, such as
Deployment pipeline, Collaboration, Release cycles,
web applications. ‘
Quality assurance, Deployment automation, Software
delivery, Development operations (DevOps). 2. Continuous Delivery (CD): Continuous
Delivery involves automatically delivering code
modifies to a staging or pre-production
Introduction environment for further testing and approval
before manual deployment to the production
In the ever-evolving software development field,
environment. It provides a more controlled
‘CI/CD‘ approach‘has come out as a pivotal strategy‘.
release cycle, making it suitable for applications
This approach represents a fundamental
with stringent quality assurance and compliance
transformation in how software is developed, tested,
requirements.
and deployed. CI/CD has achieved widespread
adoption due to its capability to address critical What sets CI/CD apart is its reliance on
challenges in software development, such as the need automation and orchestration. CI/CD pipelines,
for quicker release cycles, improved software quality, composed of tools, scripts, and configurations,
and better collaboration between ‘development and automate various stages of the software delivery
operations teams. ‘ process. These stages may include code
building, testing, packaging, and deployment.
At its core,‘CI/CD‘is a combination of principles and
Automation reduces the risk of human error,
practices which focus on automation and streamlining
ensures consistency in the release process, and
the software delivery pipeline. It involves simplifying
allows development and operations teams to
the development process into smaller, manageable
collaborate effectively.
units and integrating modifications into a shared code
repository continuously. This practice, known as The advantages of CI/CD are manifold. It
results in higher software quality, faster time-to-
 market, and more. It facilitates a collaborative • Create a CI/CD team: Assemble a dedicated
culture among‘development and operations team responsible for implementing and
teams, breaking‘ down traditional‘silos and managing the CI/CD pipeline.
fostering responsibility shared for the success of
a project. ‘ 2. Version Control:

As organizations seek to stay competitive and • Choose a version control system: Select a
responsive to customer needs, CI/CD has source code management system (e.g., Git) and
‘become a foundation in modern software establish branching and merging strategies.
development. It offers flexibility to adapt to • Create a central repository: Host the code in a
various technology stacks, development centralized location, ensuring access control and
workflows, and business requirements, making a consistent codebase.
it an indispensable tool for any organization that
values efficient software delivery. In the 3. Continuous Integration:
following sections, we will explore the
• Code-integration: ‘Developer commit code that
individual components of CI/CD pipelines, the
get modified frequently to a shared directory. ‘
benefits they bring to the development process,
and the tools and technologies that enable their • Automated builds: Implement automated build
implementation.[1] processes that compile the code and produce
deployable artifacts.

• Automated testing: Execute a suite of tests,

which includes unit tests, integration tests,
regression tests, as part of the CI pipeline.

• Early feedback: Ensure that developers receive

immediate feedback on success of code
commits.

4. Continuous Deployment:

• Environment setup: Automate the provisioning

and configuration of development, staging, and
production.
Fig: - 1 Components of CI/CD pipelines
• Automated deployments: Develop scripts to
automatically deploy applications into various
environments.
CI/CD Methodology
• Canary releases: Implement strategies to
The implementation of a Continuous enhancement release new features gradually or control feature
and constant delivery methodology involves a visibility in production.
structured approach that integrates various practices, 5. Testing and Quality Assurance:
tools, and principles into the software development
and release process. Below is a detailed methodology • Automated testing: Integrate comprehensive
for adopting CI/CD: testing, including load, security, performance
testing, into pipeline.
1. Planning and Preparation:
• Continuous monitoring: Implement monitoring
• Define clear objectives: Understand the goals and alerting systems to detect issues in
and benefits you aim to achieve through CI/CD, production and provide real-time feedback to the
such as faster releases, higher software quality, team.
and improved collaboration.
6. Collaboration and Communication:
• Assess current processes: Evaluate your
existing development, testing, and deployment • Foster collaboration: Encourage open
workflows to identify areas that can be communication between‘development, testing,
improved. and operations teams. ‘
 • Shared responsibility: Promote a culture of Tools
shared ownership and responsibility for the
entire software delivery process. 1. Version Control:

7. Security and Compliance: • Git: ‘A distributed version control system

which provides developers to collaborate on
• Implement security practices: Integrate code and manage versions. ‘
security scans and audits into the “CI/CD
pipeline” to identify vulnerabilities early. 2. Continuous Integration:

• Compliance checks: Ensure that the pipeline • Jenkins: It is a automation server which
adheres to industry-specific compliance orchestrates CI process, including code building,
standards and regulations. testing, and reporting.

8. Feedback and Iteration: • ‘Travis CI: A cloud-based CI service that

integrates with GitHub repositories. ‘
• Feedback loop: Gather feedback from end-
users, track performance metrics, and use this • CircleCI: It is cloud-based CI/CD platform
information to guide further development and for automating software development
deployment decisions. workflows.

• Continuous improvement: Continuously assess • GitLab CI/CD: Integrated CI/CD platform

and enhance the CI/CD pipeline with that comes with GitLab.
development practices based on lessons learned.
• TeamCity: A “CI/CD server” that supports
9. Documentation and Training: various programming languages.

• Document the CI/CD pipeline: Maintain 3. Containerization and Orchestration:

comprehensive documentation for the pipeline's
• Docker: A platform for creating, deploying,
architecture, components, and configurations.
and running applications in containers.
• Training and onboarding: Provide training and
• ‘Kubernetes: It is platform for automating the
onboarding for team members to ensure they
deployment, scaling, and management of
understand and use CI/CD effectively.
containerized applications. ‘
10. Monitoring and Maintenance:
4. Continuous Delivery/Deployment:
• Regular maintenance: Keep all components,
• Spinnaker: It is platform for multi-cloud
tools, and scripts up to date to ensure the
continuous delivery.
pipeline's reliability.[2]
• AWS CodePipeline: A fully managed CI/CD
service.

• Google Cloud Build: A “CI/CD” platform for

building, testing, deploy applications on Google
Cloud.

• Azure DevOps: A combination of development

tools given by Microsoft, including Azure
Pipelines for “CI/CD”.

5. Artifact Repository:

• Artifactory: A universal binary repository

manager that supports various package types.

• Nexus Repository: A repository manager used

Fig:-2 Regular maintenance: Keep all components, for storing and managing binaries.
tools, and scripts up to date to ensure the pipeline's
6. Testing:
reliability
• Selenium: An open-source tool for automated
web browser testing. Fig :-3 Microsoft Teams: collaboration platform
integrated with the Microsoft ecosystem.
• JUnit: A popular framework for Java
applications.
Case Study
• Jest: JavaScript framework used for full-stack
development.

• Postman: A tool for testing and documenting Modernizing an E-Commerce Platform with
APIs. CI/CD

• JIRA: A project management and issue Background:

tracking tool often used for managing testing
and development tasks. XYZ Electronics, a well-established e-
commerce company, sought to modernize its
7. Code Quality and Security: aging e-commerce platform to improve user
• SonarQube: ‘It is platform for inspection of experience, increase scalability, and accelerate
code quality. ‘ time-to-market for new features and products.
The company faced challenges with manual
• Veracode: A tool for testing of application deployments, frequent production issues, and a
security. slow release cycle, which resulted in lost
revenue and customer dissatisfaction.
• Checkmarx: A security testing platform for
static and dynamic application security testing. Challenges:

8. Monitoring and Logging: 1. Frequent production issues and downtime.

• Prometheus: It is a toolkit for monitoring and 2. Slow and error-prone manual deployments.
alerting.
3. Inefficient collaboration between
• Grafana: It is a platform for monitoring with development and operations teams.
observability.
4. Inability to respond fastly to market
• ELK Stack: ‘Tools for centralized logging and demands.
log analysis. ‘
Solution: XYZ Electronics decided to
9. Collaboration and Communication: implement a CI/CD pipeline to address these
challenges and transform their software
• Slack: team collaboration and messaging development and delivery process.
platform.
Implementation Steps:
• Microsoft Teams: collaboration platform
integrated with the Microsoft ecosystem.[3] 1. Assessment and Planning:

• Formed a dedicated CI/CD team composed

of developers, testers, and DevOps engineers.

• Conducted an assessment of the existing

infrastructure and development processes.

2. Version Control and Code Repository:

• Adopted Git as the version control system.

• Established branching and merging strategies

to manage code changes effectively.

3. Continuous Integration (CI):

• Set up a Jenkins CI server for automation.

• Developers committed code modifies to

shared Git directory.
•‘Automated build along with testing processes • Maintained and updated the pipeline
for each code commit. ‘ components and tools regularly.

4. Continuous Deployment/Delivery (CD): Results:

• Automated environment provisioning and • Reduced production issues and downtime
configuration using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) significantly, resulting in increased customer
with tools like Terraform. satisfaction.
• Created deployment scripts to automatically • Cut release cycle time from weeks to hours,
deploy the application to staging and production to get faster time-to-market regarding new
environments. products, and features.
5. Testing and Quality Assurance: • Improved collaboration between operations
and development teams, leading to a more fast
• Integrated automated testing into the “CI/CD
and responsive development process.
pipeline”, along with unit tests, integration tests,
and many more. • Enhanced scalability, allowing the platform
to handle increased traffic and sales during peak
• Implemented performance testing using tools
seasons.
like JMeter to ensure the platform's scalability.
In this, the implementation of a CI/CD pipeline
6. Collaboration and Communication:
enabled XYZ Electronics to modernize their e-
• Introduced cross-functional teams with commerce platform, leading to improved
shared responsibilities and daily stand-up software quality, faster releases, and a more
meetings to facilitate communication. competitive position in the market. The
automated pipeline transformed their software
7. Security and Compliance: development and delivery process and fostered a
• ‘Integrated security scanning tools into culture of continuous improvement and
the‘”CI/CD pipeline” to detect susceptibility collaboration.[4]
early in development process‘.

• Ensured that the pipeline complied with data Conclusion

security and compliance regulations.

8. Feedback and Iteration:

In today's dynamic and competitive software
• Implemented continuous monitoring and development landscape, CI/CD has been an
used tools like Prometheus and Grafana to indispensable tool for organizations striving to deliver
collect and analyze real-time performance data. high-quality software, respond to customer needs
swiftly, and maintain a competitive edge. The adoption
• Collected user feedback and used it to of CI/CD may pose challenges, but it offers a
prioritize feature development and transformative path toward improved software
improvements. development practices, increased efficiency, and a
more collaborative and agile development culture.
9. Documentation and Training:

• Maintained comprehensive documentation As we look to the future, the continued evolution of

for the CI/CD pipeline, development standards, CI/CD practices and technologies will likely play an
and best practices. important part in reforming the software development
landscape, enabling organizations to achieve the ever-
• Conducted training sessions for team growing demands of digital age.
members to ensure they were well-versed in
CI/CD practices. References
10. Monitoring and Maintenance:

• Established monitoring and alerting for the

CI/CD infrastructure to detect and address issues  https://www.ijraset.com/research-paper/ci-cd-
promptly. pipeline-for-web-applications
 https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2218/paper31.pdf
 https://www.tatvasoft.com/blog/ci-cd-jenkins/