The Business Case for CI/CD

How the implementation of an end-to-end pipeline can enable a more efficient software development lifecycle

Aug 18, 2022 -- GigaBrief

What it Does

CI/CD is a methodology that enables optimization of software development stages based on agile processes and an end-to-end pipeline.

Benefits

50% or greater reductions in software deployment time.
Doubled, or even quadrupled, frequency of deployment.
At least a 25% improvement in build times
40% to 70% overall cost savings.

Urgency

High: Implementing CI/CD is urgent for automation of building, testing, and deploying applications in in companies engaged in software development.

Risk Level

Medium: Choice of platform may not suit the applications being developed and deployed, resulting in wasted effort and investment.

30/60/90 Plan

30 days: Assess and baseline existing pipelines to evaluate preparedness.
60 days: Build an appropriate CI/CD foundation, including socialization with teams.
90 days: Train engineering, operations, and management staff.

Time to Value

Initial efficiency improvements can be seen in three months, depending on business case, company size, and ability to accept new working practices.

What Is CI/CD?

Continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) is a methodology that enables optimization of software development stages through a set of agile processes and an end-to-end pipeline that enable a more frequent and efficient delivery of code changes (Figure 1).
Figure 1. The End-to-End CI/CD Pipeline

CI/CD enables enterprises to deliver innovation and business value quickly at speed and scale. From a business perspective, it offers an essential response to the demands of a rapidly evolving technological landscape.

At the practical level, CI/CD takes code from source control, builds it into a binary or artifact, then deploys the binary or artifact to a system (container, virtual machines, serverless, etc.). Some organizations may need to build code with just CI; automatically deploying it with code pushes using continuous delivery or deployment. CI/CD is also very useful for infrastructure automation.

What Is CI/CD?

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