What is CI/CD?

The best way to understand CI/CD is to look at it as a method, a set of operating principles, and practices that enable development teams to deliver code changes more frequently and reliably.

Written by:
  • Nebojsa Radakovic

    Nebojsa Radakovic

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The acronym CI/CD has a few different meanings. While the CI always refers to continuous integration, the CD can be continuous delivery or continuous deployment. So, what does each one stand for, and what are the differences?

CI - Continuous integration is a coding practice that allows dev teams to merge their code changes to a shared project branch as often as possible for testing purposes. The aim is to provide dev teams with a better way of collaboration and ultimately better product quality.

CD - Continuous delivery approach automates the applications code change delivery to chosen infrastructure environments like testing and/or production. It aims to help teams build, test, and release projects with greater speed and frequency, and it is, in a certain way, a natural progression of the integration and a precursor to deployment.

CD - Continuous deployment refers to a release process that uses automated testing to validate if the code change is ready for release to your customers.

Further reading and references

If you want to dive deeper into Cloud Computing problematic visit the following pages:

Everything CI/CD - https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/devops/what-is-ci-cd
Continuous integration vs. continuous delivery vs. continuous deployment - https://www.atlassian.com/continuous-delivery/principles/continuous-integration-vs-delivery-vs-deployment
What is CI/CD Pipeline in DevOps? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8akdw4KGU5o

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