The Amazing Pipelines to get from Development to Production
Software Development is a tough job and every software you use had gone through tons of crazy pipelines before going into production. There are many things that an average person doesn’t knows about software development. As a DevOps Engineer specializing in software development I may know a bit on this topic. Let us get to know a few of these crazy pipelines:
Automated Unit Testing
To begin, let us examine the unit test. There are many misconceptions around it and so let us first get our things right:
- Unit tests are small bits of code (often a function or method) that developers write, run, and maintain.
- These tests examine the code to a degree of detail that is typically uninteresting or unintelligible to non-developers.
- Unit testing primarily eliminates regression problems and instills trust in software engineers to make changes to the code without damaging anything.
Having a comprehensive unit testing methodology implies that developers write unit tests as part of their usual workflow. It is not a negotiated add-on that you may descope if you fall behind. You do not instruct them to stop developing unit tests any more than you instruct them to stop compiling or debugging their code. It’s all part of the package.
More broadly, a strong unit testing principle provides developers with a conceptual safety net. Completing a feature results in the creation of something new and more powerful. This indicates that the function has been implemented and that you now have the equivalent of your car’s check engine light to indicate when something is wrong with it.
This reduces the feedback loop for a large number of possible errors, allowing you to come to market faster.
Automatic User Validation
To get access, users must establish their identity with the website that they are who they claim to be. The User ID and password are sufficient to validate the user’s identity, allowing the system to authorize the user.
It’s critical to understand that authorisation, on the other hand, determines what users may view and do when they log in. While the words authorization and authentication are frequently used interchangeably, they refer to two distinct processes that operate in tandem to provide a safe login procedure.
Simply put user authentication performs three functions:
- Manage the human’s (user) connection to the website’s server (computer).
- Verify the identity of users.
- Accept (or deny) the authentication request so that the system may proceed with approving the user.
The procedure is rather straightforward; users just enter their credentials on the website’s login page. This information is subsequently submitted to the authentication server, where it is compared to all previously stored user credentials.
When a match is discovered, the system authenticates the user and grants access to their accounts. If no match is discovered, users are encouraged to re-enter their credentials and attempt again. Following numerous failed tries, the account may be reported for suspicious behavior or require other authentication measures such as a password reset or one-time password.
All of this needs to be done automatically and an average user might not realize how tedious the process is. It is also one of the most critical parts of a software and developers should not cut any corners in it. Developers also need to take care of security so that hackers don’t breach the site.
Browser Compatibility Tests
Cross browser testing is the process of ensuring that the websites and online applications you build are compatible with a sufficient number of web browsers. It is the job of the developer to ensure that their projects not only work, but also work for all of their users, regardless of their browser, device, or extra assistive technologies. Consider the following:
Other than the one or two browsers you use on a daily basis on your devices, including slightly older browsers that some users may still be using that do not support all of the newest, shiniest CSS and JavaScript capabilities.
Different devices have varying capabilities, ranging from the newest and finest tablets and smartphones to smart TVs and even inexpensive tablets and older feature phones with limited browser capabilities.
Individuals with impairments who use the Web using assistive technologies such as screenreaders or who do not use a mouse (some people use only the keyboard).
Browser compatibility tests are also an important part of software development and a cross-browser compatible software is the characterstic of a good software.
Automated Deployment: Development to Production
In software development, automated deployment is a method that allows you to ship code entirely or partially automatically at various phases of the development process, from basic development all the way through to production. It leads to more efficient and dependable deployments, among other things.
How can you be sure that the journey your code takes from development to production will not cause it to lose its ability to function? You should automate as much as possible in order to assure proper operation. A deployment pipeline is required for automation, and it is the process of extracting code from your version control system (for example, git) and making it available to users of your application.
There are several reasons why you would want the deployment to be automated.
Automated Deployment assists a team with the following tasks:
- Reduced likelihood of making mistakes manual deployment is prone to mistakes. There is always the risk of mistakes in any procedure that involves human input. Employee morale can be harmed when they are assigned to repetitive manual deployment tasks.
- Reducing the amount of time spent manual deployment requires a significant amount of time. In many cases, the duty is given to testers and developers on a development team who would otherwise be able to spend their time focusing on enhancing the software.
- Consistency and repeatability are important. Once configured, the process is the same every time you want to release a new version of the software. It adds to more frequent and stable releases, as well as higher quality. Because it lowers the number of possible variables, consistency is extremely helpful in the diagnosis of mistakes.
Repeated deployment cycles is one of the major bottlenecks in the software industry and a company is wasting a major chunk of their time if they don’t use automated deployments. Automated deployments also makes the entire process of software development more efficient.
Matthew J Fitzgerald is an experienced DevOps engineer, Company Founder, Author, and Programmer. He Founded Fitzgerald Tech Solutions and several other startups. He enjoys playing in his homelab, gardening, playing the drums, rooting for Chicago and Purdue sports, and hanging out with friends.