Jenkins : a must needed tool

What is jenkins ?

Jenkins is the simple to use automation application which is used for continuous Integration(CI) as well as continuous delivery (CD) using pipeline. It is a DevOps tool written in the Java programming language.

Or as the technical definition says:- Jenkins is a free and open source automation server. It helps automate the parts of software development related to building, testing, and deploying, facilitating continuous integration and continuous delivery. It is a server-based system that runs in servlet containers such as Apache Tomcat. It supports version control tools, including AccuRev, CVS, Subversion, Git, Mercurial, Perforce, ClearCase and RTC, and can execute Apache Ant, Apache Maven and sbt based projects as well as arbitrary shell scripts and Windows batch commands.

Jenkins Features

The following are some facts about Jenkins that makes it better than other Continuous Integration tools:

• Adoption: Jenkins is widespread, with more than 147,000 active installations and over 1 million users around the world.
• Plugins: Jenkins is interconnected with well over 1,000 plugins that allow it to integrate with most of the development, testing and deployment tools.

It is evident from the above points that Jenkins has a very high demand globally.

It is clearly can be seen that how vastly Jenkins is being used in the industry as version control system , continuous monitoring tool, building application , continuous testing , configuration management and continuous deployment.

Why use Continuous Integration with Jenkins?

To understand why Jenkins is such a popular product and widely used let’s consider following example.

Suppose, that there are around 10 developers who are working on a shared repository. Some developer completes their task in 25 days while others take 30 days to complete.

Some uses of Jenkins

Jenkins is open-source and hence free of cost. It can be easily configured and extended. Jenkins comes with a lot of plugins which ensure great flexibility. It deploys code instantly, produces a report after deployment, shows an error in code or tests and a lot of issues are detected and resolved in almost real-time. It is also great for integration as integration is automated. The great support community is also available.

Jenkins lowers the Effort of repeated coding

with the uses of Jenkins, one can convert a command prompt code into a GUI button click. This can be done by wrapping up the script as a Jenkins job. Parameterized Jenkins jobs can be created for customization or to take user input. Thus, hundreds of lines of code writing can be saved.

Integration of Individual Jobs

Jenkins jobs are usually small tools. They serve small purposes and quite simple. Jenkins provides pipeline plugin using which multiple jobs can be combined. Pipe lining provides such benefit which Linux users can understand more than anyone. Both sequential or parallel combination is possible.3. Synchronization with Slack

A large team uses a centralized platform for communication. Slack is one such most popular platform. Slack integration can be done to Jenkins and thus communication such as activities have been triggered, its time, users name, results etc. can be shared with other people.

Effortless Auditing

Jenkins jobs, when run, capture console output from stdout as well as stderr. Troubleshooting with the uses of Jenkins is also very clear. For performance tuning each individual job, run timing can be measured and slowest step can be identified using Time stamper plugin.

Option of Manual Tests

Sometimes things work great locally but fail when pushed on a central system. This happens because, by the time they push, things change. Continuous Integration tests the code against the current state of a code base and is done in the production-like environment.

How industry adopted Jenkins :-

1.Case Study : D4Science

Amping up scientific research with CI/CD powered by Jenkins

To promote open science practices and support scientific communities while serving 11k registered users in 45 countries, D4Science introduced a new delivery pipeline that replaced their per-existing build platform.

Of course, they had to build and release their software framework (gCube) in a way that would support multi-project releases at scale — from 200+ Git repositories within the same day! It had to be fast, automate all release activities, and it had to deliver incremental releases to address user requirements quickly. Most of all, the solution had to be cost-effective.

Using Jenkins, they created an innovative approach to software delivery: a continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline, scalable, easy to maintain, and up gradable at a minimal cost.

2.Case Study : Avoris Travel

Reinventing travel with an inventive technology platform

Part of Barceló Group, Ávoris Travel is behind prominent destination travel brands like LeSki, Le Musik, and a selection of author travels under its “Viagens Com Assinatura” signature travel concept. A proprietary database and a smart, dynamic booking engine are the tickets to offering differentiating and inventive travel opportunities.

Also unique to Avoris is a discreet machining technology that enables agents to enter specific criteria to search and find all types of trips and travel opportunities across the entire network.

“Our infrastructure is very important because we have to be online to meet customer demand anywhere in the world,” said Alejandro Alvarez Vazquez, Sysadmin, Avoris Travel. “Our CI/CD platform is used by 200 people. The services that we build and deploy are used by thousands of potential clients and by our network of 675 own agencies located in Spain and Portugal.”

The flexibility of Jenkins plugins helped Avoris reduce build times by over 50% and became a go-to, scalable infrastructure supporting 675 agencies and over 2.8 million international consumers.

Conclusion:

• In Continuous Integration, after a code commit, the software is built and tested immediately
• Jenkins is an open source Continuous Integration server capable of orchestrating a chain of actions
• Before Jenkins when all Developers had completed their assigned coding tasks, they used to commit their code all at same time. Later, Build is tested and deployed.
• After Jenkins the code is built and test as soon as Developer commits code. Jenkin will build and test code many times during the day
• By default, Jenkins comes with a limited set of features. If you want to integrate your Jenkins installation with version control tools like Git, then you need to install plugins related to Git
• The biggest pros of Jenkins is that it is managed by the community which holds public meetings and take inputs from the public for the development of Jenkins projects
• The biggest con of Jenkin is that Its interface is out dated and not user friendly compared to current UI trends.