Software Engineering

Software Engineering at its core has always been a decentralized process where each individual is responsible to deliver the outcome via code. However, this starts to fail and break with increasing software scale, size, complexity, and business demands. In order to address the ever so increasing challenges, either software is broken down into smaller manageable chunks or size of the teams is increased.

Managing complexity in software projects

Not long ago, software team members used to collaborate at a specific time /date /periodicity to merge their changes to the code, compile the required software and release it for downstream lifecycle processes. With each slice to the software or addition of a team member, we now add the complexity to manage an increasing number of variables of a software project i.e. scope, time, cost, and clutter the execution. Increasing the risks to the success of software projects, changes, and outcomes. We now have to manage and spend a significant amount of time ensuring that the process of collaboration is institutionalized, executed, adhered to, followed, etc. So teams are now spending more time on the process, and governance rather than scope and scale. So now we are trying to fix the process and risks rather than the required outcome on an ongoing basis.

CI as DevOps Software Development Practice

One such area of improvement modern software engineering teams can look at is Continuous Integration. Continuous Integration (CI) is a development practice that relies on just-in-time integration of code changes i.e. merging changes for your software after every developer check-in. CI tools efficiently help identify breaks to builds, more efficiently than their counterparts because they identify problems early and quickly.

Hence, the term “continuous” should be stressed over the term “integration.” We should focus on what aspects will make our integration continuous and the best approach is to implement automation with some of the popular CI tools like:

• Jenkins - Jenkins provides ways to set up your automated tasks with ease. You can start simple with basic CI or DM workflows, then build on the complexities of this system as needed for your project.
• Bamboo - Bamboo is a CI automation server,

I would like to refer you to the following article on DZone that compares Jenkins vs Bamboo, two of the best continuous integration tool suites out there. https://dzone.com/articles/jenkins-vs-bamboo-battle-of-the-best-cicd-tools

Conclusion: Companies that want to deliver automation to their stakeholders need to build in the automation of their own processes. These are often overlooked by stakeholders while they balance time, costs, and risks. In the true spirit of transformation, we believe that all software should be made quicker and with fewer people faster.  CI automation is needed for software engineering teams to deliver a sustainable and transformative digital experience.

About Us: ProDT Consulting Services are professionals in digital transformation. We are dedicated professionals who provide our clients with solutions that exploit all the latest technologies to maximise efficiency and minimise costs. Our focus is DevOps automation, business process transformation through NCLC, AI and RPA.

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