What is a Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) Pipeline?
What is a Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) Pipeline?
Continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) pipelines are software development practices that aim to streamline the development and deployment of software.
CI is a software development practice in which developers regularly integrate code changes into a shared version control repository, such as Git, open source distributed version control system. Each time a developer integrates their code, an automated build process is triggered, which checks the code for errors and runs tests to ensure the code is high quality. This helps to catch problems early in the development process and reduces the time and effort required to fix them.
The CD is a software development practice in which code changes are automatically built, tested, and deployed to production. CD pipelines are often used in conjunction with CI, and they can include a range of automated processes such as building, testing, and deploying code, as well as monitoring and scaling applications.
CI and CD aim to improve the speed and reliability of the software development process. By automating tasks such as building, testing, and deploying code, organizations can reduce the time and effort required to release new software and updates and more easily make changes to their applications in response to customer needs.
CI and CD pipelines can be implemented using various tools and technologies, such as build automation tools like Jenkins, testing frameworks like JUnit, and configuration management tools like Ansible. Organizations should consider their needs and goals carefully when choosing the tools and technologies for their CI and CD pipelines.
Overall, continuous integration and continuous delivery pipelines are essential software development practices that can help organizations streamline the development and deployment of software, improve the speed and reliability of the software development process, and respond more quickly to customer needs.
CI/CD Pipeline in the Workplace
Continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) pipelines are typically used in the following ways:
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Building and testing code: CI pipelines are often used to automate the building and testing code process. When a developer integrates their code changes into the shared repository, an automated build process is triggered, which checks the code for errors and runs tests to ensure the code is high quality.
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Deploying code: CD pipelines often automate deploying code to production. When code changes are ready to be deployed, they can be automatically built, tested, and deployed to the production environment without manual intervention.
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Monitoring and scaling applications: CD pipelines can also include automated processes for monitoring and scaling applications. For example, an automated process might be used to monitor the performance of an application and automatically scale it up or down based on demand.
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Releasing new features and updates: CI and CD pipelines can release new features and updates to an application more quickly and reliably. By automating the build, test, and deployment process, organizations can reduce the time and effort required to release new software and updates and more easily make changes to their applications in response to customer needs.
Collaborating with team members: CI and CD pipelines can also facilitate collaboration by providing a central repository for code changes and a consistent process for integrating and deploying code.
What is the difference between CI and CD?
Continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) are related software development practices that aim to streamline the development and deployment of software. However, there are some key differences between the two:
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Frequency of code changes: CI involves integrating code changes into a shared repository regularly, typically multiple times per day. CD involves delivering code changes to production, which may not occur as frequently as code integration.
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Automation: Both CI and CD involve automation, but the extent of automation may differ. CI typically involves automated processes for building and testing code, while CD may include additional automated processes such as deploying code to production and monitoring and scaling applications.
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Testing: CI involves running automated tests to ensure the quality of the code, while CD may involve additional testing in staging and production environments.
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Deployment: CI typically focuses on integrating code changes and ensuring the quality of the code, while CD involves deploying code changes to production.
Overall, the main difference between CI and CD is the focus and extent of automation. CI focuses on integrating code changes and ensuring the quality of the code, while CD involves deploying code changes to production and may include additional automated processes such as monitoring and scaling applications.
How have CI / CD pipelines affected app development?
Continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) pipelines have had a significant impact on app development in a number of ways:
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Improved speed and reliability: CI and CD pipelines can help organizations release new software and updates more quickly and reliably by automating the build, test, and deployment process.
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Increased efficiency: By streamlining the app development process, CI and CD pipelines can help organizations reduce the time and effort required to release new software and updates, and they can more easily make changes to their apps in response to customer needs.
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Better collaboration: CI and CD pipelines can facilitate collaboration between team members by providing a central repository for code changes and a consistent process for integrating and deploying code.
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Improved customer satisfaction: By releasing new features and updates more quickly and reliably, CI and CD pipelines can help organizations improve the quality and functionality of their apps, leading to increased customer satisfaction.
Let’s have a look at how Saviynt’s Cloud PAM solution helps secure your CI/CD pipeline.
Saviynt & CI/CD Pipeline
The Evolution of DevSecOps and the CI/CD Pipeline
Gone are the days of linear software development. To speed deployment, today’s developers build, integrate, and address errors iteratively in the cloud. DevOps’ main objective is convenience and agility. Unfortunately, when the CI/CD pipeline was conceptualized, security wasn’t a top consideration.
This has further been complicated by the addition of containerization into the CI/CD pipeline during software deployment. Containerization makes it even more important to ensure security is baked into the process. Security issues will be propagated out in containers and could be deployed in numerous areas simultaneously.
The Solution to Privilege Vulnerabilities: Cloud PAM
Saviynt’s Cloud PAM utilizes a single control plane for privilege access management across clouds, infrastructure, and applications so you can view risks in real-time and take immediate action. Let’s dive deeper into how privileged accounts create vulnerabilities and ways Cloud PAM technology solves the problem. Conflicts of interest are always possible when humans are involved in a process. And the CI/CD pipeline depends on human involvement.
Users produce the code, promote it for testing, and push it to production. This can lead to situations where individuals may be required to take multiple roles, creating a conflict of interest. Developers should never be promoting code to production themselves. But without visibility into who has what access and when, it’s difficult to prevent this — particularly when staffing shortages occur. Cloud PAM tools provide the means to grant access appropriately, oversee how access is being used, and take it away after the task has been completed.
In the CI/CD pipeline, standing privilege is dangerous. A single individual can easily promote bugs or security holes from code to production which can have far-reaching consequences. And hackers who gain access to keys or credentials that persist indefinitely can do extensive damage since they have all the time in the world to do so.
Read The Evolution of Privileged Access Management to learn more about Cloud PAM and how you can use it to secure your cloud infrastructure and resources beyond the CI/CD pipeline
Secrets Management is Critical
Secrets management is crucial for security because stolen secrets can provide clues to the architecture or give cybercriminals the direct ability to open up vast cloud infrastructure portions. Ensuring secrets such as access keys get generated when necessary —and destroyed once they are no longer needed — is critical because they are prime targets for cybercriminals.
Secrets and access keys left in the code undermine security. It is not uncommon for programmers to leave additional notes and information in the code. But it is imperative to remove any keys or passwords that have been used to expedite testing.
Criminals are constantly scanning online code bases for information that might contain secrets. Cloud PAM takes care of this problem, with the ability to tightly scope secret distribution and limited lifespans of credentials to limit the period where attacks can take place if credentials are compromised — and minimize the damage.
Overseeing Privileged Activity
Too often, the cloud is a Wild West when it comes to governance. But governance is crucial in the cloud space if companies expect to protect their infrastructure and resources. Organizations must extend compliance frameworks and organizational rules into the cloud.
Monitoring privileged activity is essential not only to maintain compliance but also to help identify suspicious activity and flag it for further review. For example, unusual activity patterns such as an erratic change in code deployment from a department with a normally consistent deployment schedule can trigger an alert.
Privileged access session recording not only makes it easier to prove continuous compliance but can also be a proactive tool in prevention.
Cloud PAM is Vital to Securing the CI/CD Pipeline
Agile companies can reduce cloud risk and accelerate solution development if they’re baking in security and governance from the start. Integrating a “cloud-native” PAM tool prevents bad actors from getting their hands into your codebase. Cloud PAM limits access, providing visibility and auditability into the entire CI/CD pipeline.
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