Continuous Delivery Vs Continuous Deployment

Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment are two terms most people encounter in their job. Unfortunately, there's a lot of confusion between the two, and many companies use them as buzzwords to get attention. 

Continuous Delivery vs Continuous Deployment is the debate we've been seeing more and more these days. Both terms are popular in the software development space. However, it's challenging to decide which one to use for the project – or even what their differences are.

In this article, the aim is to get a low-down on their differences so that one can choose the right option for the company.

Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment are different methods of reducing the risk factor during software development. They help to reduce the time to market for software.

Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment help organisations deliver software and applications quickly and confidently. But what exactly is the difference between these two? Let's find out!

What is the difference between Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment?

The main objective of the software development pipeline is to put the concepts into practice. As noble as that may sound, there are undoubtedly more processes involved. For example, once they have access to the feature, external consumers of a software engineer don't care how one supplied it. However, the internal customers (development teams) care about how something is provided because that process directly affects them and the delivery of their features, according to a DevOps engineer who would compare that sentiment.

Before being approved for production, the path from a code update or new code can wind through various settings and confidence-boosting exercises. Since change is the only constant in technology, the entire process begins anew as soon as a new release is made available. Changes will travel from development to production, starting with introducing a new feature.

Continuous Delivery

Continuous Delivery (CD) effectively extends continuous integration because all code updates are automatically released from the build stage to either a testing or production environment.

It means that both the testing and release processes are automated. It also means that one only needs to click once to deploy the modifications whenever they want.

The team can determine which schedule will best serve Continuous Delivery needs. For example, releases don't have to be done daily if the team or product doesn't require them. However, since it's simpler to test and troubleshoot that way, achieving the intended outcomes from CI/CD typically implies that one should start delivering to production in small batches as early as feasible.

Continuous Delivery, as opposed to Continuous Deployment, is primarily concerned with the release strategy and timeline.

Since humans create technology, it is flawed. For every engineering team implementing changes, confidence-boosting measures are essential. Continuous Delivery is the automated process of putting updates into production securely. Continuous Delivery concentrates on the release and release strategy, while Continuous Deployment focuses on the actual deployment. Pushing a button to implement changes would be a challenging objective. Continuous Delivery is the "push of a button" in question.

Continuous Deployment

As the name suggests, Continuous Deployment focuses on deployment - the installation and dissemination of bits. The application binary or package can move throughout the topology during deployment to serve traffic where the application or application infrastructure is required. 

Traditionally, Continuous Deployment relies on automation to deploy across environments or clusters. As a result, the number of endpoints one deploys grows as one moves between environments, from non-production to the staging environment and production. The continuous deployment aims to get the program into the required environment with the least effort(s).

Compared to historical or traditional machine-based platforms, the separation of environments may not be physical with newer platforms. Development and production may only be separated by a namespace (software separation), but sound distributed systems principles still hold regardless of the platform one uses. Even in pre-production settings, the topologies that modifications need to spread to in distributed systems might be substantial.

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Advantages of Both Practices

Although this lists the distinctions between Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployments, here are some justifications for their adoption. Each exercise has a hefty price tag, but its benefits outweigh it.

Continuous Delivery

What is the requirement?

• Automation is required for deployments. Although the trigger is manually operated, it should require no further human involvement once deployment begins.
• The team will probably need to embrace feature flags to ensure that unfinished features do not impact customers in production.

How does one benefit?

• The process of delivering software is no longer complicated. The team no longer needs to spend days getting ready for a release.
• One can release more frequently, shortening the time it takes for customers to provide feedback.
• Decisions involving minor adjustments are subject to less strain, which promotes iterating more quickly.

Continuous Deployment

What is the requirement?

• The testing culture must be top-notch. The releases' quality will depend on how well the test suite performs.
• One will need to keep the documentation process updated as deployments happen.
• When delivering essential modifications, feature flags become necessary to ensure that one can communicate with other departments (support, marketing, PR, etc.).

How does one benefit?

• One can develop faster because there is no need to interrupt production for releases. For each change, deployment pipelines are automatically activated.
• As one rolls out small batches of changes, releases are less dangerous and simpler to rectify in the event of an issue.
• Instead of every month, quarter, or year, customers notice a steady stream of advancements, and quality rises every day.

Continuous Delivery Vs Continuous Deployment

While there are numerous similarities between the two techniques, there are also some key variances that have a significant effect on the industry.

Based on the following three aspects, here is a comparison of the two phases in this instance.

Conclusion

That is why these procedures are regarded as the top DevOps procedures. The fundamentals of Continuous Deployment and Continuous Delivery have all been covered.

Not only did these help to understand the characteristics of the three methods, but they also assisted in investigating the distinction between Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment.

Consider signing up for a DevOps certification training course if one intends to learn DevOps. 

Prepared to Transform to DevOps?

The difficulties businesses face embracing DevOps are quite real, even as software continues to consume the world at an ever-increasing rate. However, one can collectively overcome these difficulties by cooperating, enhancing the resources, methods, and knowledge and educating and developing the staff. And if you’re someone who’s looking to make a stronghold in DevOps space, then you should check out our DevOps Training that helps you  master all the concepts of DevOps with rigorous training and hands-on project.