Simplified version of the CI/CD pipeline Explanation

  1. Source Code Management:

    • We use popular platforms like GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket to keep our code organized and enable collaboration among our development team.
  2. Target Platform:

    • Our target platform for deploying applications is Kubernetes, a leading container orchestration system known for its scalability and ability to handle big workloads.

      Note: Kubernetes can scale to zero during periods of inactivity, ensuring there are no wasted resources. This flexibility saves costs and resources, making it an ideal choice for modern, highly scalable applications.

  3. Code Commit and Review:

    • Our developers add their code changes to our Git repository.

    • Before any code changes are accepted, we ensure quality and teamwork by reviewing them thoroughly.

  4. Continuous Integration Orchestrator:

    • To automate our software delivery, we use Jenkins. It's a widely used tool that helps us manage the process.

    • Jenkins keeps an eye on our Git repository, and when new code is pushed, it kicks off our CI/CD pipeline.

  5. Continuous Integration (CI) Stages:

    • Our CI pipeline has a few key steps to make sure our code is reliable:

      • Checkout Stage: We begin by getting the latest code from our Git repository.

      • Build and Unit Testing: We use tools like Maven to create our applications and run tests to catch problems early.

      • Static Code Analysis: For extra code quality checks, we sometimes use tools like SonarQube.

  6. Image Building:

    • To get our application ready for Kubernetes, we build a container image using a Dockerfile in our Git repository.

    • This step ensures our app is packed in a standard way for deployment.

  7. Image Scanning:

    • Security is a big deal for us. We examine our container image for vulnerabilities.

    • We pay close attention to both our app's code and the base image to make sure everything is secure.

  8. Image Registry:

    • Once our image is good to go, we store it in a safe place called an image registry.

    • This could be a well-known registry like Docker Hub or one that's specific to a cloud platform like GCR or ECR.

  9. Updating Kubernetes Manifests:

    • We update our Kubernetes setup by changing YAML files or Helm charts.

    • This tells the Kubernetes system what version of our app to use.

  10. Deployment to Kubernetes:

    • To easily and automatically deploy our app to Kubernetes, we use a tool called Argo CD, which follows a GitOps approach.

    • Argo CD watches our Git repositories for changes and makes sure our app gets updated on the Kubernetes cluster.

  11. Alternative to GitOps:

    • If we ever need a different approach, we have options like Ansible, shell scripts, or Python scripts to handle the deployment.

    • These methods give us the flexibility to adapt to different situations.

  12. Scalability with GitOps:

    • Using GitOps, we maintain a consistent and efficient deployment process that can scale easily.

    • Whether we're managing one or many Kubernetes clusters, GitOps keeps everything reliable and in sync.

In our CI/CD pipeline, we focus on code quality, security, and automation, making sure we can adapt to changes quickly and confidently deploy our applications on Kubernetes.

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