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Before discussing how to construct a Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery Pipe, we must define what CI/CD Technologies stands for in its common usage within the Salesforce ecosystem.
"CI/CD" refers to several automated processes, including continuous Integration, continual deployment, and continuous delivery - before delving deeper into components and benefits associated with Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD), we should have an understanding of this term and its features and benefits.
Continuous Integration
Continuous Integration (or "CI") involves automatically moving work items through a release pipeline, passing through environments that combine and test packages before being promoted into production.
To ensure there are no issues with the release of work items, they undergo testing, validation, and integration processes; automated tests reduce review/approval times considerably while assuring they can be deployed successfully into new environments at any point during the development process.
Continuous Deployment
Continuous deployment refers to quickly deploying changes through your release pipeline as soon as they have been approved and integrated with version management and the shift or item has been accepted into the versioning system.
It ensures that recent modifications can be immediately reflected within testing organizations or, depending on circumstances, directly deployed into production environments. Continuous deployment helps move toward constant delivery by automatically merging each change with its target environment as soon as they're available for implementation.
Continuous Delivery
Continuous delivery (CI/CD) aims for constant release. As an approach rather than a workflow, its goal is to rapidly introduce new functionality or added value soon after finishing custom development or customization work, with reduced lead times, making companies more flexible in meeting changing priorities more quickly.
In contrast, iterative work practices are promoted through small amounts being released continuously, offering faster feedback cycles and easier testing than larger, riskier releases.
What Is The Relationship Between CI/CD And Devops?
DevOps is an approach and set of tools that enables organizations to deliver services and applications more rapidly than traditional software development methods.
DevOps helps organizations better serve customers while remaining more cost-competitive on the market; successful organizations that use DevOps also "bake in" security into all phases of the development lifecycle - known as DevSecOps - increasing its efficiency further.
DevSecOps' cornerstone practice is integrating security into all workflows within DevOps. To effectively incorporate DevSecOps practices, security activities should occur as early and frequently during SDLC processes to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities early, helping organizations make intelligent decisions regarding risk and mitigation strategies.
Traditional security approaches typically address security at the production stage - an incompatible practice when applied in DevOps due to its faster method; to meet its more instantaneous development velocity without slowing development velocity, security tools must seamlessly be integrated seamlessly within developer workflows or CI/CD pipelines for smooth Integration into development workflows or CI/CD pipelines for continuous deployment and continuous monitoring/completion pipelines.
DevOps/DevSecOps encompasses many disciplines. To effectively implement and operate their CI/CD pipeline, organizations require tools that minimize friction points that impede Integration and delivery; teams require toolchains integrating technologies to enable unhindered development processes.
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What Is The Benefit Of CI/CD?
Automating Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment saves developers significant amounts of time by automating repetitive, time-consuming, and error-prone manual tasks they would otherwise spend managing this process themselves.
Automation can not only save your team time and resources, but it's also about giving them an effective means of consistently providing high-quality work to end users.
An extensive survey among Salesforce professionals revealed that approximately 80% are currently employing or planning on hiring continuous integration/deployment workflows this year.
CI/CD automates as much of the development and release process as possible, eliminating manual work errors while speeding up development time and stopping valuable work from piling up waiting to be released.
- Faster release cadences and shorter lead times
- Release processes that are robust and well-honed and can be trusted
- Releases of higher quality with less risk and error
- Rolling back mistakes: Safe options
- As a result, tight feedback loops are achieved with user-driven design
- Integration of project management, testing, and other tools into a single platform
What Is CI/CD Composed Of?
CI/CD development methods rely on versioning control as their basis of truth for new development, with your Git branching strategies determining how multiple workstreams are coordinated across environments.
Automation can speed up this process of conducting tests, validating deployment packages, and progressing work items up the pipeline.
Individual CI jobs can be created using Salesforce DevOps tools like Cisin or general-purpose automation tools like Jenkins; scheduled appointments run periodically while merging branches trigger them automatically to perform test deployments from version control into Salesforce environments.
Comparison Of Devops And CI/CD Tools
Various tools and options exist for Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD). Some are explicitly built into DevOps platforms specifically for Salesforce.
At the same time, other tools may be general automation platforms used across other software stacks.
Standard automation tools that are utilized across various platforms include:
- CircleCI
- Jenkins
- TeamCity
- Bamboo
- Travis CI
Many Git hosting platforms offer CI/CD functionality, including:
- GitHub Actions
- GitLab CI/CD
- Azure DevOps
- Bitbucket Pipelines
Salesforce's DevOps tools include CI/CD:
- Cisin
- Copado
- Flosum
- AutoRABIT
Many Salesforce teams prefer comprehensive DevOps packages over cross-platform tools for release management across platforms due to the former's numerous benefits.
Unfortunately, however, such options also present distinct drawbacks.
Configuring, setting up, and maintaining a CI/CD Security takes expertise in DevOps SFDX familiarity and time from developers.
However, doing this alone can result in issues related to troubleshooting CI scripts, configuring Integrations, or working around Salesforce Metadata types API, which prevent automated deployments from working correctly.
Considerations should be given when considering dedicated CI/CD for Salesforce, especially as your team becomes acquainted with new tools that may cause some disruption during onboarding.
Any change could bring additional processes that cause other inconveniences for them.
Automation must be introduced incrementally to gain buy-in from your team so as not to alienate anyone. Integrating existing workflows is vital; when selecting a Salesforce DevOps Tool, you should ask yourself several pertinent questions, including these:
- What level of support will you require to implement the tool?
- How soon will your team see the benefits of using the tool?
- Does the tool fit into your workflow?
- What is the Integration of this tool with your other services? Git hosting platforms, data backup solutions, project management systems, etc.
- What level of visibility can you expect from the tool regarding deployments?
- Can I test the software before buying a license?
- What other functionality could the tool provide for your team? Automated change monitoring, static analysis, SFDX Integration, etc.
- What are the opinions of current users about this tool?
- What is the price?
Fostering A Continuous Delivery Culture
Integrating Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment into your process goes beyond tools. If your team has yet to work iteratively, making the switch may be challenging, and they may struggle to perceive its benefits.
Your stakeholders' support will ensure the greatest possible return from automation, contributing to an iterative cycle with frequent, minor releases and rapid feedback loops.
Starting small is critical when building a new CI/CD system, starting by making sure everyone in your team feels at ease with version control and regular deployments of small projects with your environments synchronized.
Automating pipelines becomes much more straightforward if this goal has been accomplished.
Automating large-scale changes between Salesforce and version control environments should be optional. It increases the risk of failure and requires manual intervention to repair them, defeating the purpose of continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD).
Don't start your new project having to fix numerous deployment mistakes! Instead, please set up an automated flow for incremental changes so your environments stay aligned more often, and your team can reap its full benefits.
Challenges To CI/CD
Teams can face various challenges when implementing CI/CD in their processes.
- Your team may need help grasping new concepts. For continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) to be effective, all team members need to support it; DevOps adoption will only succeed if administrators and developers receive proper education on version control, CI/CD, DevOps methodologies, and any new techniques or concepts they encounter.
- Beginning a DevOps initiative may seem challenging for large enterprises. One practical approach to convincing your stakeholders of its value lies in showing how continuous integration/deployment (CI/CD) enables faster work delivery through more reliable pipelines.
- When automation jobs fail, it can be frustrating to intervene manually. It can be frustrating to intervene when your automation jobs constantly fail manually.
What Are The Different Types Of CI/CD Solutions Available?
Before selecting a Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment tool for Salesforce teams, carefully considering all available options is crucial.
When picking one that will help them meet these benefits and tackle any possible continuous integration hurdles that might come their way, when choosing their tool for continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD), these choices include cross-platform standard tools and CRM DevOps solutions.
Standard CI/CD Tools
Salesforce teams should consider adopting tools across software stacks, not solely the Salesforce platform. Incorporating existing CI/CD toolchains for another platform might make sense when considering tools used by Salesforce teams.
Standard pipeline tools can be found within version control systems like Azure DevOps, Bitbucket Pipelines, GitHub Actions, and GitLab CI/CD; other cross-platform tools include CircleCI, TeamCity Bamboo Travis CI and Jenkins as well as creating pipelines yourself using SFDX or Salesforce CLI.
Integrating Selenium and Jest, standard automation tools can be utilized for UX testing or Lightning Web Components tests using standard automation procedures.
There can be drawbacks associated with cross-platform CI/CD in your Salesforce release cycle, generally falling into three broad categories. These may include:
1. The Setup Process Is Lengthy
Setting up and configuring a Salesforce CI/CD Continuous Integration Pipeline takes considerable effort and time.
Cisin teams who switched over have reported spending an estimated 90 hours creating one, which only covers basic workflow. Setting up static code analysis and project tracking adds further steps that require additional time commitments.
2. Maintenance And Repairs Can Be Expensive
; maintaining these tools costs thousands, which is only the initial outlay. Maintenance expenses related to scripts, automation servers, and authentication methods add further fees, and teams must spend considerable effort tweaking processes whenever adding new environments or rolling back releases is desired.
3. Brittle Automation
Salesforce is an unprecedented platform, and employing generic tools via Metadata deployment may take more work.
Eighty percent of Salesforce development teams report seeing Continuous Integration (CI) builds fail regularly, requiring manual intervention to unblock automation processes - taking away time spent building features for end users, which should be the purpose of continuous delivery (CD).
A Single Platform For Salesforce Devops
As an alternative to these DIY tools, consider switching to Cisin as your CI/CD tool of choice; its DevOps solution includes all features necessary for building an effective release pipeline, while its unique CI solution stands out in several key respects.
1. Simple To Install
Cisin makes starting easy: it takes only 30 minutes with Cisin to build what would typically take 90 hours with generic tools, while its user-friendly UI enables quick configuration of Continuous Integration environments: you can choose metadata filters, add tests, integrate notifications and set outgoing webhooks for each CI environment.
Cisin will manage and administer your testing processes effortlessly for you. Furthermore, its modular system enables easy modification or adjustment to team workflow without getting bogged down with build agents, deployment scripts, or SFDX commands - ideal if your team members are still developing technical proficiency.
2. Reliable And Successful Deployments
Cisin's intelligent deploy engine can understand your metadata, ensuring successful deployments from start to finish every time.
It automatically detects and fixes common deployment problems like missing dependencies to make each deployment smooth and successful. Plus, automatic reports generated for every run of Continuous Integration jobs provide a complete history of every change made by your team; plus, you can clone or rollback any previous deployment with just a few mouse clicks!
Cisin teams boast a success rate for deployments of 90% versus only 50% when using native Salesforce tools, and our customers reported significant time reductions when switching from standard CI/CD to Cisin.
Plus, you will often experience successful deployments; saving each month adds up quickly!
3. Integrate Your Vcs
Cisin easily integrates with major Git hosting providers, so you can continue using your preferred VCS without disrupting its functionality.
Deploy between any Salesforce org, source control system, and continuous delivery process quickly using Cisin's flexible platform - we even offer advice on the optimal Git branching strategies! Here is an example of an ideal continuous delivery (CI/CD) workflow:
4. Pipelines: Visualize The Entire Workflow
Cisin can help you manage and visualize the entire release cycle with ease. Get an overarching view of CI/CD workflow to deploy changes upstream or downstream quickly; all team members will see it displayed for them to review and contribute accordingly.
Pipelines integrate smoothly with any Git host provider. Any changes made in your VCS will reflect in channels automatically, making tracking changes simple while pushing them through to completion - Cisin even helps resolve merge conflicts, which Git cannot.
5. DevOps Platform - A complete DevOps solution
Cisin provides an end-to-end DevOps platform. Your team can protect and manage all their Salesforce metadata with intuitive deployment options for deployment solutions that include intuitive metadata deployment.
With its superior functionality, Cisin stands apart from generic Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment tools, which explains why global companies prefer it over DIY open-source tools.
Implementation Of CI/CD In Salesforce
The Salesforce CI/CD Pipeline is divided into four phases:
- Source
- Build
- Tests
- Deployment
It must be completed successfully at each stage to move forward to the next. Our delivery team continually checks for any discrepancies or irregularities during this process.
DevOps uses a Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery pipeline to route all development work - bug fixes or feature enhancements - before it enters production.
Source
At Salesforce's Continuous Integration/Continuous DevOps process, DevOps pipeline activation occurs whenever any changes to programs or flagged items in code repositories occur.
This level of development is also concerned with version control and tracking changes over time.
When it detects changes to a central repository, an automated process will initiate tasks like code compilation and unit tests to address them.
Build
At this step, all dependencies and source code are converted to executable/runnable versions of development projects - for software builds and other buildable objects like Docker Containers.
Failure of this build could indicate issues within your codebase.
To simplify storing building artifacts, using JFrog or yarn can simplify this task, and we can roll back makes if there are issues with them.
Test
This stage encompasses all automated tests used to validate the behavior of software. This stage prevents software defects from reaching end-users; functional, Integration, and stress testing methods may all be utilized at this point in time to detect any remaining lingering defects.
Deploy
After progressing through all previous phases, your package is finally ready for deployment in various environments - beginning with quality assurance testing before moving it onto production sites for release.
At this stage, infrastructure provisioning, configuration, and containerization may occur using Terraform, Puppet Docker, and Kubernetes to meet delivery timelines and ensure optimal user experiences.
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Conclusion
As new business opportunities and needs emerge, Salesforce teams face increasing workloads, so many teams use Salesforce CI/CD to automate manual processes to meet growing workload demands more efficiently.
