Explore the Top 10 CI Software That Offers an Array of Benefits to the Modern Engineering Organisations
In software engineering, Continuous Integration (CI) is a set of software development practices that integrate code changes from several contributors into a single project. It is beneficial for developers as it helps implement small code changes into a central repository frequently. Automated devices are used to maintain the correct new code before integration. A source code version control system is referred to as the heart of the Continuous Integration process.
CI consists of many supporting technologies like version control systems, hosting infrastructure, orchestration technologies, etc. Version Control System (VCS) is the foundational dependency of CI, which includes Git, Mercurial and Subversion. After installing VCS, CI needs to find a version control hosting platform like Bitbucket, Github, and Gitlab.
Top 10 CI software
- JENKINS – This is one of the most popular software powered by Java and open source and is widely used for both continuous integration & delivery with real-time testing & reporting.
- TeamCity – Like Jenkins, it is also powered by Java and open source. It is perfect for continuous integration with Docker and Kubernetes.
- TRAVIS CI offers excellent security in continuous integration with Lamba Test to enhance the DevOps testing process across several browsers and platforms.
- BAMBOO – This one is considered the best tool for continuous integration. It offers the launching and testing process of 100 remote building agents.
- BUILDKITE – If the user has developed an app on their own infrastructure, Buildkite can be the perfect choice to streamline continuous integration.
- SEMAPHORE – This one is mainly used for iOS applications for both continuous integration & delivery.
- STRINDER – This customised software is integrated with Heroku and can offer efficient CI/CD tasks.
- WERCKER – It is a Docker-based CD tool by Oracle that can be used for free and premium.
- WEAVE FLUX – This is among the CI tools used at the end of the CD pipeline.
- NEVERCODE is a completely automated tool used to arrange testing scenarios, generate reports, and build codes.
The next phase
There are two more phases after CI, i.e. continuous delivery and continuous deployment. CI involves multiple developers who are attempting to combine their code changes with the main code repository of a project. The next phase, i.e. continuous delivery, is responsible for wrapping an artefact together through automated building devices to deliver it to end-users. Continuous deployment is the last phase which involves launching and distributing the software artefact to end-users.
Furthermore, the organisation should do a trial by creating a small test project to choose the best CI software. Also, it is essential to optimise the execution speed of the CI pipeline. Because only a faster CI pipeline can offer a faster product feedback loop, which can benefit the organisation & its competitors. CI is not only limited to engineering-specific business processes. The rest of the organisations, i.e. marketing, sales, and product teams, also benefit from a CI pipeline. Thus, CI can offer customers an overall higher quality experience, thereby offering exponential growth and revenue to the concerned organisation.
