Now that your CI/CD pipeline is up and running, it’s time to fine-tune the performance. This hands on guide will walk you through tweaks that will improve a CI/CD pipeline’s speed, functionality, security, and integration with other tools and platforms.
Built for speed
CI/CD and DevOps promises faster releases and we know it’s true: Even a basic automated pipeline is much speedier than the old days of manual handoffs. But there are ways to make the CI/CD pipeline even zippier. One straightforward option that guarantees faster builds is to autoscale runners. If you have 15 minutes to spare, you can link your GitLab CI pipeline to the Google Kubernetes engine. And it doesn’t get much faster than using the Auto DevOps option if you’re setting up a new pipeline from scratch.
Do more with less
Once a pipeline is humming along, it’s time to think about tinkering with what you have. This is one of our favorite things to do at GitLab – we even used our CI/D pipeline to turn our group conversation into a podcast. We had an unconventional CI/CD journey, which goes a long way to explaining our overall enthusiasm for this technology.
Our best advice when it comes to an effective CI/CD pipeline is to think outside the box. Need build images? It’s easy to do with your CI/CD pipeline. You can also create a cross-project pipeline, or build a bridge between Rust and Firebase.
Make it secure
It’s fun to play around with CI/CD functionality, but it’s critical to make sure your pipeline is secure. Start by making sure you know the threat landscape. If you store key data in secrets management service Vault, here’s how GitLab makes the integration process easier and safer.
And for Jenkins users, it’s simple to create deterministic security jobs from within GitLab.
Work with what you have
No effective CI/CD pipeline exists in a vacuum and to get the most out of yours it’s important to seamlessly integrate with other platforms and tools.
AWS users can set up multi-account SAM deployments or autoscale GitLab CI on Fargate.
Teams working on Android projects can can create a customized GitLab CI easily.
And finally it’s possible to take advantage of Google’s Firebase, a backend-as-a-service tool, so you can enable continuous deployment of database, serverless and apps.
Read more about CI/CD:
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The four big benefits of CI/CD
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CI/CD challenges to consider
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Everything you need to know about Auto DevOps
Cover image by Jacek Dylag on Unsplash
