Exploring Jenkins: The Hub of Continuous Integration

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Jenkins simplifies and automates the building, testing and deployment of software applications. It acts as a reliable and extensible platform and one of the best cost-effective build solutions. It enables developers to integrate code changes continuously, identify and fix issues early in the development cycle and efficiently deliver software to production. Jenkins facilitates collaboration among DevOps teams by automating repetitive tasks, reducing manual errors and accelerating the overall software delivery process. Here, in this blog, we’ll talk about what is Jenkins, how it works, its features and its key benefits. So, let’s dive in to explore Jenkins.

What is Jenkins?

Jenkins is an open-source automation server written in Java that helps automate the software development process. It is used to automate the various stages of software development such as build, test and deployment. Jenkins primarily focuses on continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD). It is one of the most popular CICD tools for MSME among developers due to its incredible features such as flexibility, extensibility and large community support.

Who created Jenkins?

Jenkins was created by Sun Microsystems principal engineer Kawaguchi. He realized that even with flaws in the code, he had to build and submit it to the repository on a regular basis. In order to prevent that, he created Hudson, an automation server, in 2004 that was capable of building and testing his work.

After Sun Microsystem was acquired by Oracle, the project was split off and given the Jenkins name. Developers utilized both Jenkins and Hudson for a while. Subsequently, Oracle discontinued supporting Hudson and Jenkins surpassed it in popularity as a result of its outstanding capabilities and the demands of the development community. Due to its robust security features, Jenkins enables and empowers DevSecOps integration and accelerates the software development lifecycle.

How does Jenkins work?

The code is first committed to the source code by a developer. The Jenkins server keeps a check and regularly monitors the code repository. The Jenkins server then finds and pulls the changes as soon as the commit is made. It then gets ready for a fresh build. The developer is immediately informed to take the necessary action if the build fails any of the tests in between. Jenkins is now prepared to launch the build into a User Acceptance Testing (UAT)-capable environment before its integration into the production pipeline.

Selenium is the tool used to automate the UAT tests conducted for continuous delivery. If the test passes, the code is added to the master branch to produce a golden build. After that, it is immediately put into use in production. It is simple to determine which commit in Jenkins led to the build failure. Nonetheless, the build pipeline will advance to the following phase if every unit test passes. Jenkins reduces the amount of time needed to finish the other tasks by executing parallel builds across multiple machines. This is why Jenkins is one of the best cost-effective build solutions for businesses.

Features of Jenkins

Jenkins has some features that makes it a popularly used CI/CD tool. Listed here are some of them:

Plugins

A great deal of customization is possible because of the thousands of plugins that are available. The plugins can be integrated with development and testing tools and the architecture can be customized to accommodate several uses by the developers.

Set Up Easily

Jenkins offers executable packages that are easy to install on Mac, Windows and Linux computers. It’s simply a Java software that runs on its own and can be configured in ten minutes.

Accommodates the Major Environments

Jenkins is compatible with the majority of setups, including cloud-based architecture. This makes it useful when groups start utilizing various settings. All of the main cloud computing platforms are supported as well, including Google, Amazon, Azure and IBM Cloud.

Open-source

Jenkins is available for free and is open-source and that’s why one of the best continuous integration tools for enterprise businesses.

Benefits of Jenkins

Listed below are some of the benefits of Jenkins. Let’s take a look.

  • Open-Source and User-friendly: Jenkins is user-friendly, simple to install and free of additional installs or components. It is also open source.
  • Cost-effective: It is not expensive.
  • Easily Configurable: Jenkins is easily expandable and modifiable. It creates test reports and rapidly deploys code. Jenkins can be set up to meet the needs for continuous delivery and continuous integration.
  • Platform Independence: Jenkins is compatible with all major operating systems and platforms, including Windows, Linux and OS X.
  • Rich Plugin Ecosystem: Jenkins has a robust ecosystem for plugins. Jenkins is adaptable and enables creating, deploying and automating across multiple platforms. Thanks to its large plugin pool.
  • Easy Support: There is no scarcity of assistance from sizable online communities of agile teams because it is widely utilized and an open-source CI tool.
  • Developer Productivity: Tests are created by developers to identify any problems in their code. This saves developers’ time spent on complex and error-prone integrations. It is one of the best continuous integration tools for enterprise businesses that also helps in empowering DevSecOps integration.
  • Quick identification of errors: Problems are found and fixed very instantly, ensuring that the software is always in a safe state to be distributed.
  • Automated Integration: The majority of the integration process is automated. This results in fewer integration problems. This ultimately helps to save money and time.

Summing it ALL

As organizations embrace DevOps practices and agile methodologies, Jenkins continues to be a linchpin, facilitating a seamless integration of tools and technologies. Its impact goes beyond mere automation; it represents a mindset shift towards efficiency, collaboration and a relentless pursuit of software excellence.

No doubt, Jenkins is one of the best Continuous Integration tools for enterprise businesses. Businesses can utilize it to expedite software development, automate code build procedures and even facilitate learning when utilizing new tools and software. The Jenkins community plans to keep adding new features and enhancements, including safer automation, continuous plugin delivery, enhanced plugin site navigation and much more. It is therefore one of the best CICD tools for MSME and a useful tool for DevOps experts of all expertise levels.