Continuous Integration: A case study

Vaibhav Kothari

Vaibhav Kothari

• Over 6 years of industry experience– Quality Assurance – Lead, Talentica Software– Quality Analyst, Infosys

• Education– B Tech, IIT Delhi

Abstract

• Developer’s dilemma• QA’s dilemma• Continuous Integration ?• Case study• What is accomplished?• Benefits of CI• Recommended Practices• Other Tools Available• Q&A

Thought Exercise

• Goliath: Can you please get the build for client demo?

• David: OK…..oOPs! The build is failing!

Developer’s dilemma

• Will my changes integrate successfully with all versions of code?

• How much time/effort will it take to build and deploy from different source repository branches?

• Why can’t QA take this up?

QA’s dilemma

• How much time/effort it will take to build and deploy from different source repository branches?

• How much time/effort will it take to test builds from different sources?

• I can't build that often!

Continuous Integration??

As wiki says

“ Continuous integration involves integrating early and often, so as to avoid the pitfalls of "integration hell". The practice aims to reduce rework and thus reduce cost and time.”

Continuous Integration….

Continuous Integration….

• Integrating the build process with continuous development.

• Concurrent build preparation from different branches.

• Integrating build system with deployment and test automation.

• Monitoring build and test.

CI in Agile development

Case Study

Current Product development Lifecycle

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Where does integration server stands ?

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Case Study

Features to look out for

• Basic Continuous Integration

• Build Triggering options

• Support for tools

• Set ups and usability

• Build logs and metrics

• Notifications

• Plugins, Extensions

Case Study

Hudson CI Open source tool available as deployable war file.

Each build and deployment process can be set up as a separate project and run concurrently or subsequently.

Supports distributed builds

The most used CI server in an informal developer survey!

Case Study

Tools to be Integrated

Windows XP/LinuxOS

Selenium RCTest Automation

Apache Tomcat 6.0Web server

Apache AntBuild Tool

SubversionVersion control

Hudson CIContinuous Integration

Case Study

Case Study: Setting up a Build Job…

Case Study: Defining Build Triggers…

Post build tasks

– Automate build and deployment process and server restart.

– Integrate Hudson with test automation suite

– Remote deployment of multiple builds and test suite invocation

Case Study

Case Study: Post build tasks…

Distributed Builds

– Build distribution using Single Hudson installation.

– Single click using Master/Slave mode.

– Concurrency in largely distributed projects.

Case Study

Master Server

Slave build servers

Case Study

Case Study…Slave set up in Hudson

Case Study….What’s achieved?

– Nobody minds it! Single click process.

– Early identification of build issues.

– Early identification of bugs.

– Incremental development.

– Constant availability of sane build.

– Efficient use of Test Automation.

– More time for Quality improvement.

Benefits of CI

– Maintain a code repository

– Automate the build and Deployment

– Make your build self-testing

– Everyone commits every day

– Every commit (to mainline) should be built

– Keep the build fast

– Test in a clone of the production environment

– Everyone can see the results of the latest build

Recommended Practices

Other Tools Available

Tools Advantages LimitationsCruise Control - Supports wide project and SCM tool.

- Good notification techniques

- Large number of plugins

- Complicated set up

- XML based configuration

Continuum - Easy to install and use

- Web Administrative console

- Not suitable for big projects

Luntbuild - Easy to install and use

- Web Administrative console

- Supports wide range of tools

- Not support remote project build up

TeamCity - Supports distributed build

- Professional support (JetBrains)

- Advanced options

-Commercial tool (free for 10 projects)

Bamboo -Advanced distributed build options

-Integrates with JIRA

- Commercial tools

Q&A