The time between code changes and their deployment into production decreases
As a result, users get to use new functionalities faster, and issues that might have crept in during QA are found and fixed sooner rather than later. Continuous deployment also ensures that the code deployment process becomes simpler and more streamlined.
With this quicker release cycle developers are more motivated to work on new features and fix bugs, because they know the changes will be available to users quicker. This creates a virtuous cycle- better infrastructure, better QA and code quality, wider user adoption of service, more active development and higher staff job satisfaction.
While the traditional software development lifecycle has long been a well-known and understood process, DevOps is becoming an increasingly important part of this success. Continuous deployment is a big part of the process, but it is by no means the only or even the most important part. It can be a significant change in how teams develop and test software, not to mention how they manage their projects.
Using continuous deployment for testing can help you avoid some common problems related to testing and deployment processes.
In this article, you’ll find out how to leverage continuous deployment in your development process. First, you’ll learn the basics of continuous deployment in software development. Then you’ll learn how to implement continuous deployment at work, step by step. Finally, you’ll discover some ways in which testing has a big impact on the development process and Continuous Delivery.
The number of manual steps needed to deploy code into production decreases
Automated deployments reduce the need for manual steps, and thus eliminate the factor of human error. As a result, the number of steps and the possibility for error are both reduced.
A script which is used for automating deployments can be executed by a continuous integration server, thus automating the entire process. Such scripts not only automate the process of deploying code and releasing to production, but also perform the necessary steps of testing, verification, and deployment in an automated fashion.
An automated deployment can also provide notifications of release to other parts of the organization such as marketing or sales departments so they may prepare for launch.
More than simply automating the deployment process, a continuous deployment server can also streamline the release process, decreasing the amount of work required from less technical individuals.
With an automated deployment system, one can decrease their risk of bugs in the code by ramping up quickly and releasing within minutes. If there is a bug in production, no more changes need to be made to production. Instead there can be a roll back to the last configuration which was working prior to deployment.
Another significant benefit of an automated deployment system is security. Because the deployment process is automated, there is less risk of a rogue engineer trying to deploy code through a backdoor. This risk can be eliminated because a correct script must be used and the configuration should be tested first and enforced as production before any changes are made.
