Implementing CI/CD Pipeline on AWS

CI stands for Continuous Integration and CD stands for Continuous Deployment/Delivery. CI refers to the practice of frequently integrating new code changes into a central repository. After integration, automated tests are typically run to catch and fix any bugs or issues early in the development cycle. CI emphasizes the "continuous" testing of code to ensure that it's always in a deployable state. CD means that every change that passes the automated tests is automatically deployed to production without human intervention.

The AWS Code Family (CodeCommit, CodeBuild, CodeDeploy, and CodePipeline) are native tools that easily integrate into a CI/CD pipeline, incorporating Git, testing, compilers, deployments, and release automation. AWS Lambda also makes a CI/CD process as simple as releasing a new function. But many third party tools are also well integrated with AWS, like Jenkins, GitHub, and others.

Rapid Release Cycle: CI/CD allows for quicker releases, which means features, fixes, and updates get to users faster.

Quality Assurance: Automated testing in CI ensures code quality prior to release. Bugs are caught early and often, reducing the chances of faulty code reaching production.

Efficiency: Automation means reduced manual intervention, which in turn reduces the chance of human errors during the deployment process.

Feedback Loop: With CI/CD, there's a constant feedback loop for your developers. If something breaks or doesn't work as expected, developers can quickly adjust and iterate.

Cost-Efficiency: Automating the build and deployment process can lead to cost savings in the long run, especially with reduced downtime and quicker time-to-market.

It can be, yes, but it must be properly integrated. Because of the automated nature of these tools, you can put yourself at risk of leaking secrets, sensitive information, and releasing code with vulnerabilities if you’re not careful. It’s critical to ensure that your testing accounts for these sorts of risks and that you have the necessary failsafes in place to prevent a release which would do damage to your security posture. But automating these kinds of security concerns has upside as well. When configured properly and with an appropriate testing regime, CI/CD will be more secure than a manual release process for all the same reasons.

The biggest change for your organization may actually be non-technical—moving to a faster release cadence can make for a major cultural change among your engineering teams. It’s important to have these teams appropriately equipped for a faster working cadence and to ensure that they are comfortable with the tooling as they transition. Among the other various technical changes you’ll experience with a CI/CD pipeline, this kind of change can be easily overlooked but it’s also where you have the opportunity to make a large impact on efficiency and productivity.

While there’s no single correct cadence for a software team, you should aim to maximize frequency, because the more frequently you test, the earlier you will catch issues and regressions, which is the major benefit of adopting CI/CD. Maximizing frequency can look differently for different teams and projects, but that is a metric to optimize for.