You've probably heard the term CI/CD pipeline. You've probably heard of these practices: continuous integration, continuous delivery, and also continuous deployment.
But the uncertainty remains: what are the differences between continuous delivery and continuous deployment? What should apply to your CI/CD pipeline? How are these terms related to each other? How do you know which one best suits your team?
This blog will clear up the confusion, from definitions to differences, and help you choose the best practice for your team.
What is continuous delivery?
continuous deliveryIt is a software engineering practice in which code changes are prepared for release into production. However, keep in mind that code must pass automated unit tests, integration tests, and system tests before it is released to production.
The transition between continuous integration and continuous delivery is usually completed automatically, includingautomated testsat unit, integration and system level.
Automated tests provide more complete validation. Developers can update and fix issues before the release is publicly available. Furthermore, when incorporated into an automated release process, it is a perfect match for establishing a continuous mechanized pipeline.
With versions available in the staging environment, continuous delivery allows developers to release at their chosen pace, with the push of a button. This means that the decision to initiate a release must be made by a human, and only after that does continuous delivery take place.
What is Continuous Deployment?
continuous deploymentgoes one step further than continuous delivery. It is a software engineering practice that ensures that code changes are continually released to the production environment. The goal is to release a new version whenever developers make changes and automatically push those changes to end users.
This is the ultimate goal of software development companies. Your company's IT and development teams need to be properly prepared to handle continuous deployment, as well as preparing production-ready environments and best practices to ensure your production environment is running smoothly.
In continuous deployment, code is run and maintained in a simulated environment, ensuring the highest quality is taken into account. Real-time monitoring of the live environment is also a requirement to keep track of any issues that arise and resolve them quickly.
Continuous delivery vs deployment:Differences
This question is often asked:What is CD in CI/CD?Does this mean implementation or delivery?
well the answer isboth. Based on existing workflow and requirements, your team would choose the best practice for them and their products.
Continuous delivery is the best option for companies that want to take control and be the last filter before new versions are released to end users. This practice also allows companies to operate in a more regulated way: they automatically test the final product withautomation tools, ask the QA team to manually review it.
Continuous deployment can be considered a special case of continuous delivery. In this practice, the team must ensure that the builds have passed all tests and that the test suites are good enough to qualify the builds and deploy them automatically.
Both continuous deployment and continuous delivery rely on real-time infrastructure and application monitoring tools to maintain the product and discover any issues not found before release.
Continuously testing and monitoring the product and incorporating new versions into testing is the last aspect of quality control that any successful product needs.
Continuous Delivery versus Deployment | table comparison
| Definition | Benefits | For whom? | Effort | |
| continuous delivery | A software engineering practice in which code changes are prepared for release into production. | – Ensures frequent releases. – Ensures releases are completed in smaller chunks. – Enables instant responses to defects. – Makes launches more stable, reliable and controllable. | Organizations that want to introduce new features and releases frequently | – Requires the use of continuous delivery solutions to automate deployment. – Test automation is leveraged to identify whether the software meets the exit criteria or not. |
| continuous implementation | A software engineering practice that ensures that code changes are continually released to the production environment. | – Ensures that each step of the implementation is completed quickly and reliably. – Eliminate manual steps and automate the entire process. – Enables teams to build a fully automated CI/CD pipeline. | Organizations releasing new features every day and every hour. Make sure coordination across departments (development, support, marketing, business, etc.) is maintained. | – Same as continuous delivery with added emphasis on testing once in production. – The ability to automate the reversal of production functions should also be considered. |
Benefits of each practice
continuous delivery
Continuous delivery ensures that releases are regularly completed in smaller chunks. Even if end users don't notice the significant changes, posting on a smaller scale several times a day is often more effective than a giant post on a weekly or even longer timescale.
End users are more receptive to small changes than large ones. These smaller gears are also more stable, reliable and controllable.
Failed test cases can arise at any level and environment. Therefore, theCI/CD channelingshould include a feedback channel to quickly report bugs to developers. These feedback loops need to be as short as possible to keep up with the constant stream of releases.Developers can put failed tests back in the backlog to fix them in a later sprint or, if the failure is critical, fix them immediately. Quick responses to critical failures is one of the key benefits of implementing a CI/CD pipeline in every development cycle.
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continuous implementation
Successful continuous deployment occurs when teams rely on an automated infrastructure to ensure that every part of the deployment is done quickly and reliably. Manual testing is not an option in continuous deployment as it slows down the process and is generally notAlwaysso efficient compared to automated testing.
Continuous deployment allows teams to commit to a fully automated pipeline, including deployment to production. By automatically pushing new releases into production, the team no longer has to worry about "big releases" and getting feedback directly from end users about the product.
Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment vs. Continuous Delivery: How are they related?
This brings us to the question: what does CD mean in a CI/CD pipeline?
A typical CI/CD pipeline starts with the continuous integration process, which allows developers to integrate code changes into a shared repository on an ongoing basis.
This ensures that code can be continually tested, that developers don't duplicate other developers' efforts, and that integration into the code base is seamless.
After the continuous integration phase, production moves to continuous delivery and then to deployment. Code changes will go through various corrections and comments before being pushed to a production environment.In continuous delivery, the team decides what and when to release new updates to customers.
The deployment process can go further with continuous deployment, completely free of human interference. These two concepts do not share the same definition, but they have the common goal of automating and optimizing the development process.Continuous delivery is sometimes combined with continuous deployment to fully reap the benefits of both practices.
see whycontinuous integration and continuous deliveryit is also so importanthere.
Continuous Delivery vs Deployment: CI/CD done right with Katalon Studio
Whether your team integrates continuous delivery or continuous deployment into the CI/CD pipeline, both are best practices to ensure your team is always up to date on releases and keep customers happy.
From planning to building your code implementation, the most important part is testing your pipeline continuously and thoroughly. The workflow continues to release the code to production, deploy the changes to the live environment, operate and monitor the release to watch for anything that needs fixing or updating.
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