What is cloud native continuous integration?

Q: What is cloud native continuous integration?

Cloud native continuous integration (CI) is the practice of combining continuous integration processes, like automated building and testing of code, with cloud-native technologies such as Kubernetes, containers, and serverless computing. This allows development teams to scale faster, deploy more frequently, and build resilient cloud-native applications efficiently.

Q: How does cloud native CI differ from traditional CI?

Traditional CI often runs on fixed infrastructure, while cloud native CI is built to operate in dynamic, scalable cloud environments. It supports microservices, containerization, and orchestration tools like Kubernetes. This flexibility improves automation, reduces bottlenecks, and supports faster, more reliable deployments.

Q: Why is cloud native CI important for modern development teams?

Cloud native CI supports the velocity and complexity of modern software teams by offering scalability, automation, and built-in support for cloud services. It allows teams to test and integrate code quickly across distributed architectures, helping reduce release cycle times and improving software quality.

Q: What tools are used in cloud native CI pipelines?

Cloud native CI pipelines often include container orchestration tools like Kubernetes, CI/CD systems with pipeline-as-code support, built-in container registries, and integration with continuous delivery strategies like canary deployments. These tools enable teams to manage complexity and scale in cloud environments.

Q: What should a cloud native CI platform include?

A cloud native CI platform should support Kubernetes integration, pipeline automation, built-in container registry, and flexible deployment strategies. It must enable rapid builds, testing, and deployments across microservices and cloud-native architectures, ensuring consistent delivery in distributed environments.

Cloud native continuous integration (CI) combines the speed of CI with the scalability of cloud-native development. As DevOps teams aim to accelerate software delivery and handle complex, distributed systems, cloud native CI enables automated testing and deployment across dynamic environments using modern cloud services like containers and Kubernetes.

Cloud native continuous integration (CI) explained

Cloud native continuous integration (CI) combines the principles of CI with cloud services, supporting modern development teams by integrating and testing code changes in shared source code repositories. This approach leverages tools like Kubernetes and container registries to enhance the software development lifecycle and ensure efficient software delivery.

In modern software development, many teams already practice continuous integration, but to truly maximize efficiency and scale, embracing a cloud-native approach is essential.

Cloud native + continuous integration

Cloud native is a way to build and run applications that take advantage of the scalability of the cloud computing model. Cloud native computing uses modern cloud services, like container orchestration, serverless, and multicloud to name a few. Cloud native applications are built to run in the cloud.

CI is the practice of integrating code into a shared repository and building/testing each change automatically, several times per day. For teams using pipeline as code, they can configure builds, tests, and deployment in code that is trackable and stored in the same shared repository as their source code.

Cloud native continuous integration is simply continuous integration that can supports cloud services often used in cloud native development.

What a cloud native CI pipeline needs

Cloud native offers opportunities in terms of velocity and scale, but also increases complexity. Cloud native engineering teams need increased automation and stability, and CI/CD tools designed to support the complexity that comes from developing in a microservices environment.

For better cloud native development, teams should ensure their continuous integration solutions are optimized for the cloud services they commonly use:

Container orchestration tools, like Kubernetes, allow developers to coordinate the way in which an application’s containers will function, including scaling and deployment. For teams using Kubernetes, their cloud native CI should have a robust Kubernetes integration to support adding and/or managing multiple clusters.
Seamless continuous delivery (CD), in addition to continuous integration, is important for cloud native and microservices development. High-functioning deployment strategies, like canary deployments, can help cloud native teams test new features with the same velocity they use to build them.
Cloud native applications are often architectured using microservices instead of a monolithic application structure, and rely on containers to package the application’s libraries and processes for deployment. A cloud native CI tool with built-in container registry can help streamline this process.

Cloud native continuous integration is designed to support the cloud services and architectures cloud native teams use, and offers the automation teams need for speed and stability.

Conclusion

Cloud native continuous integration (CI) transforms the software development lifecycle by merging CI practices with a cloud-native approach, enhancing scalability and efficiency. This development process supports deployment processes through robust continuous integration tools, enabling software developers to maintain a stable production environment and deliver high-quality software.

By integrating cloud services such as container orchestration and serverless computing, development teams can accelerate their deployment cycles, improve the quality of software releases, and ensure efficient software delivery.

This seamless integration of CI with cloud-native practices fosters a more efficient and effective software development practice, ultimately leading to superior software quality and reliable production environments.