Jenkins: Orchestrating Continuous Integration and Delivery Pipelines

The way Continuous Integration(CI)and Continuous Delivery(CD) are changing the application development and deployment lifecycle is adored by everyone in the application development industry. It allows developers to automate various stages of application development and release high-quality applications as soon as the code is committed to a repository.

CI/CD aims to provide a continuous and automated flow of application updates in production, as well as shorter release cycles at much lower costs. Jenkins is an automation server that provides efficient ways to assist in orchestrating CI/CD pipelines.

Curious to know what is Jenkins and why it stands out as the best among CI/CD tools available today. This in-depth guide will assist you in providing all the essential knowledge required. It will first provide a quick overview of Jenkins and how it is relevant to CI/CD; it will also discuss its key features and some best practices for creating an effective Jenkins CI/CD pipeline.

In short, Jenkins is the most recognized tool because of its simplicity, versatile plug-ins, adaptability, and resourcefulness. Its pipelines help testers combine the capabilities of CI/CD and GitOps into a unified release process. 

What Is Jenkins?

Jenkins is a widely used open-source automation testing tool that is written in Java. It allows testers to create and automate their CI/CD pipelines and provides various plugins for application development life cycle needs. Jenkins has several widely used CI/CD plugins, including Mailer, JUnit, Git, Pipeline, etc. These plugins are spread across several categories, including administration, build management, source code management, and development. 

The strong community support for Jenkins has made it easy to integrate with several testing tools. With Jenkins deployment, testers can quickly automate every step of the application development cycle, including build, test, deploy, and more. These incredible features make it a popular choice for continuous integration and delivery pipelines where CI facilitates developers to merge the gradual changes whereas CD facilitates the operations team to deploy the latest and most stable version to the production environment.

Understanding Jenkins Pipeline 

To execute Jenkins, pipelines are required. A pipeline is a series of steps that the Jenkins server will perform to complete the tasks required by the CI/CD process. It is a collection of plugins that enable Jenkins to create and integrate pipelines for continuous delivery.  

Jenkins Pipelines is a powerful technology that consists of a collection of tools for hosting, monitoring, compiling, and testing code or code modifications in a variety of tools. It is a continuous delivery pipeline paradigm created by users. It comes with several plugins to help with various stages, such as user-facing delivery and version control.

Key features of Jenkins for CI/CD Pipelines

Jenkins is simple to set up and customize and has many plugins that give it a lot of versatility. It provides code instantly, creates reports upon deployment, identifies test or code errors, and detects and resolves several problems in real-time. It is perfect for integration, as everything is done automatically. Let us discuss its strong features in more detail.

A variety of plugins

Extensions for the Jenkins system are known as Jenkins plugins. Providing integration points for CI/CD tools. The most often used plugin applications are sources and destinations that help to expand Jenkins’ capabilities and integrate it with other applications. These plugins help in adding new user interface components to the Jenkins web UI, and administration, enhance the source code, and build management.

Simple installation and configuration

Jenkins is an independent Java application that runs on all standard operating systems. Its interface is simple and easy to set up and configure via the web interface after installing it.  Jenkins learning materials make installing, managing, and troubleshooting much more accessible. Jenkins files create production pipelines by using coding in declarative or scripting languages to set up the instructions simple and clear.

Open-source availability

Jenkins is completely open-source and works on cloud platforms or on-premise virtual environments. It is supported by strong community support. Testers can download it without any hassle as it is available entirely free.

A significant degree of extensibility

Jenkins has been built to be flexible across all platforms and environments to enable faster development, testing, and deployment. Its extensive plug-in library, which aids in creating, deploying, and automating across several platforms, makes it more versatile. 

Jenkins and its plugins are written in Java. Fortunately, Java has a robust ecosystem and is a popular programming language. This proves Jenkins Foundation provides limitless capabilities making it accessible to a wide range of developers and testers due to its flexible architecture.

Security

Jenkins provides security tools to assist organizations in protecting their systems and data right out of the box. Features like encryption, session management, and role-based access control are included in it. To further improve its security capabilities, Jenkins integrates with several security-related plugins.

Different Types of Jenkins CI/CD Pipelines

The two main types of Jenkins pipelines are – Declarative and Scripted.

Scripted Pipeline

When Jenkins Pipeline was initially released, there was just one option available, which was a scripted pipeline. It is popular among developers because it allows them to add Groovy code to their pipelines at any time. Also, it provides a domain-specific language that streamlines multiple tasks that Jenkins developers would perform, allowing them to simplify complex CI/CD pipelines.

Declarative Pipeline

The more recent and modern implementation pipeline as code is the Jenkins declarative pipeline. Some testers find the Groovy learning curve inappropriate, a declarative pipeline helps them to create a more easy and well-structured syntax for creating efficient pipelines. It is the best option for simpler CI/CD pipelines since It restricts the user’s options with a more rigid and pre-configured structure.

Why use Jenkins for CI/CD Pipelines?

There are many CI/CD tools, and Jenkins is one of them. Below are some of the reasons why testers prefer using Jenkins over any other CI/CD solution. 

Jenkins’s active community support, easy-to-deploy, and open-source nature make it a preferred choice for testers. It also allows testers to customize the Jenkins distribution to their needs.

It is one one the extensively used build/test solutions for Agile development, CI/CD, and DevOps tools.

After configuring a particular task on the Jenkins server, the developer can execute it again in the same way as specified. Jenkins takes care of everything once the developer chooses which task to run and when.

Previously, in earlier releases of the application, developers had to manually select their deployment strategies using the Jenkins dashboard. Moreover, the Jenkins server has a specific function; therefore, upgrading or relocating deployments between servers proved quite challenging. As a result, the entire process took a lot of time and effort, particularly when dealing with a huge task that required multiple specifications. 

Fortunately, with the release of new Jenkins Pipelines, these problems are directly addressed.

Best practices for creating Jenkins CI/CD Pipelines

Orchestrating CI/CD pipelines with Jenkins involves managing and automating the entire lifecycle of application development, from code integration to deployment

Below are some of the recommended practices for orchestrating CI/CD processes using Jenkins and ensuring a streamlined workflow.

Version control system (VCS): Maintain the source code by using a version control system such as Git. Jenkins can easily integrate with Git repositories and start builds automatically with each new commit.

Minimal dependencies: Ensure there aren’t many dependencies in the build environment. Avoid relying on third-party libraries or resources, which might lead to instability or inconsistencies in the build process. 

Automated builds: Set up Jenkins so that it performs automated builds on every code commit. This will ensure the codebase is always working and help identify issues at an early stage.

Parallel builds: If possible, configure Jenkins to run parallel builds. This can speed up the build process significantly, especially with multiple projects or components.

Artifact management: The store builds artifacts in a repository such as Nexus or JFrog Artifactory to make them easily accessible and reproducible.

Automated testing: Testers need to integrate automated testing into the CI/CD pipeline, including unit tests, integration tests, etc. Automation testing is crucial in Agile approaches because it accelerates application development and emphasizes the value of repeatable code in complicated development environments. The CI/CD agile application development approach comes with the necessity to automate testing. 

Considering Jenkins’ capacity to drive CI/CD, integrating test automation with Jenkins is an obvious decision. There are so many online tools and platforms available for integrating test automation with Jenkins, and the LambdaTest platform is among the most preferred choices.

LambdaTest is an AI-powered test execution platform that provides a native Jenkins plugin to perform CI pipeline-specific automation scripts on Jenkins and get optimal performance. This platform also allows performing both web and mobile app automation testing at scale with over 3000+ browser and OS combinations.

With this platform testers can create a Jenkins pipeline successfully and incorporate automation testing on a secure, reliable, and scalable Selenium infrastructure. Additionally, with parallel testing and Jenkins CI, this platform provides high-quality builds more quickly while also cutting down on test execution time.

Additional Features like cross-browser testing, real-time browser testing, responsive resting, etc, make this platform a complete solution for testers, developers, and quality assurance.

Use shared libraries

Pipelines are designed by several teams within the same organization. It is helpful to share pipeline components throughout different projects to avoid duplication. To achieve this, Jenkins Pipeline enables the creation of shared libraries that can be loaded into the current pipelines or defined in a third-party source control repository.

Avoid groovy code for major functionalities.

Use single steps, like shell commands, instead of Groovy code in all the Jenkins CI/CD Pipeline steps. Use Groovy code to connect the stages. This will ensure that even if the number of steps increases, it can still operate without using a lot of controller resources and make the pipeline less complex.

Backup each Jenkins instance

Each Jenkins instance must have reliable backups. It helps in restoring mistakenly deleted or corrupted files. Backup techniques include shell scripts for backing up Jenkins instances, backup plugins, and file system snapshots. 

Code analysis: Use static code analysis tools such as SonarQube or ESLint for JavaScript projects. It helps identify potential issues and security vulnerabilities and maintain code quality. 

Environment isolation: Keep the Jenkins build and production environments separate to prevent conflicts and unexpected outcomes.

Monitoring and logging: For the CI/CD pipeline, use monitoring and logging to identify and fix any performance or stability issues. 

Continuous improvements: Review and improve the CI/CD pipeline regularly to identify areas for improvement and get input from the development team.

Backup and disaster recovery: Make regular backups of Jenkins configurations and settings to prevent data loss in case of system failures or disasters.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Jenkins is among the most commonly used developer tools. Testing organizations are using it to automate code build processes and speed up application development and releases. Jenkins’ versatility and plugin ecosystem have made it an essential component of DevOps operations. 

By orchestrating Jenkins for continuous integration and delivery pipelines, development teams can concentrate on innovation rather than manual build and release processes.