Steady Integration/Steady Supply (CI/CD) software program – which means options that groups use to construct, check and deploy functions – has come a great distance over the previous decade. Whereas organizations as soon as cobbled collectively CI/CD pipelines utilizing disparate open supply instruments, they now have a plethora of end-to-end, vendor-supported enterprise CI/CD platforms that they will use as an alternative. As a result of these options supply every little thing groups have to ship software program, they’re less complicated to deploy and handle.
But, whereas there are clear advantages to adopting an enterprise CI/CD platform, migrating to 1 will be troublesome. It poses plenty of challenges, reminiscent of the chance of CI/CD pipeline downtime and safety and compliance challenges.
That’s why companies migrating to newer CI/CD options ought to strategy the method with an in depth, step-by-step plan. Right here’s a take a look at the challenges to navigate, together with recommendations on the way to make CI/CD migration as clean as potential.
To floor the dialogue, I’ll concentrate on migrating to GitHub Enterprise, a CI/CD platform from GitHub, the software program improvement platform now owned by Microsoft. GitHub Enterprise is the choice that I’m seeing increasingly more companies select in my work serving to firms to modernize their IT and software program supply practices.
Challenges to GitHub Enterprise migration
As a complete CI/CD platform that’s obtainable as a totally hosted answer, GitHub Enterprise is comparatively straightforward to make use of when you’ve migrated to it. The problem, although, is getting your code into the platform, together with making the method modifications vital to start utilizing the answer instead of a legacy CI/CD suite.
Particularly, anticipate to face challenges that embody:
- Utility supply delays: A drawn-out, time-consuming migration course of interprets to downtime for CI/CD operations – which implies that your builders gained’t have the ability to push out utility updates. This will in the end hurt the enterprise as a result of customers aren’t receiving function enhancements whereas your CI/CD pipelines are in transition.
- Efficiency dangers: Failure to decide on the suitable GitHub Enterprise deployment technique, and to configure the answer in an optimum method, may decelerate CI/CD efficiency and scale back developer productiveness on account of points like inadequate infrastructure sources for constructing and testing functions.
- Coaching necessities: Expert software program builders can sometimes be taught to make use of a brand new CI/CD platform simply sufficient, however there may be nonetheless an upskilling requirement. It’s vital to not overlook the necessity to present builders with time to be taught GitHub Enterprise (or whichever answer you might be migrating to).
- Safety and compliance: To mitigate dangers just like the injection of malicious code into your functions, it’s vital to implement entry controls throughout the migration course of that forestall unauthorized customers from accessing the brand new CI/CD platform.
Greatest practices for a clean GitHub Enterprise migration
The excellent news is that with the suitable strategy, migrating to GitHub Enterprise or the same CI/CD platform doesn’t must be risk-prone. The next greatest practices may help to streamline the method.
1. Select the suitable internet hosting possibility
Like many CI/CD platforms, GitHub Enterprise is out there in two fundamental varieties: A completely managed, cloud-based possibility and a model that customers can set up and handle utilizing their very own infrastructure.
On the whole, the totally managed answer tends to be the higher alternative as a result of it considerably reduces setup and upkeep effort on the a part of customers. Nonetheless, the self-hosted possibility could also be higher for organizations that want better management over their CI/CD surroundings. This tends to be very true for companies in verticals like finance and insurance coverage, the place safety and compliance mandates could also be simpler to satisfy when the group runs CI/CD software program by itself infrastructure (and due to this fact has better management over how delicate knowledge is managed and secured).
2. Configured granular entry insurance policies
Like most trendy CI/CD suites, GitHub Enterprise gives entry management options that companies can use to find out who can do what inside CI/CD instruments. For instance, you can provide some builders read-only entry to supply code, whereas permitting others to change it. GitHub Enterprise additionally helps environment-based entry settings, which means you may configure completely different ranges of entry for a similar customers throughout dev/check and manufacturing environments.
As a greatest observe, make the most of these granular entry management choices by assigning completely different entry rights to every crew that makes use of your CI/CD platform. For instance, you might need an admin crew whose privileges prolong to altering the configuration of GitHub Enterprise, whereas one other crew that merely makes use of the platform has a lesser stage of entry.
3. Use OpenID Hook up with combine with cloud environments
GitHub Enterprise presents an id administration possibility that leverages OpenID Join (OIDC) to combine with third-party cloud environments.
Once you make the most of this function, you may mechanically run workflows (like utility builds) on public cloud infrastructure with out having to retailer cloud entry credentials as long-lived GitHub secrets and techniques, which presents a considerable safety threat. As well as, this strategy mechanically creates a log of GitHub workflows and motion executions, which you should use for audit and monitoring functions.
4. Leverage single sign-on
One other strategy to streamline the migration into GitHub Enterprise is to combine the platform with whichever single sign-on (SSO) supplier (like Microsoft Entra or Lively Listing) your small business already makes use of. Ideally, you’ll additionally allow multi-factor authentication (MFA) by your SSO answer so as to add one other layer of safety.
This strategy eliminates the necessity to handle GitHub Enterprise entry credentials individually out of your present accounts. It additionally reduces the burden positioned in your IT crew throughout the migration as a result of as an alternative of getting to “reinvent the wheel,” they will merely use a sign-on answer that already exists.
5. Doc frequent duties
To ease the educational curve for builders as they migrate to GitHub Enterprise, doc frequent duties – reminiscent of the way to migrate code from native repositories or one other CI/CD platform into GitHub Enterprise.
That is one other tactic that eliminates the necessity in your crew to reinvent the wheel repeatedly; as an alternative of forcing every engineer to determine the way to migrate on their very own, everybody can observe a prescribed plan.
6. Publish workflow patterns
Going a step additional, contemplate as properly publishing detailed steps on the way to use key options in GitHub Enterprise which might be prone to be vital for all your groups. For instance, you may element the way to create pull requests or construct Docker pictures within the platform, or the way to execute Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) deployments.
Right here once more, this technique reduces the educational curve and helps get your crew up and working on the brand new platform as rapidly as potential.
7. Automate frequent workflows utilizing GitHub Actions
Going even additional, you may create totally automated workflows for frequent duties utilizing GitHub Actions, a function that allows you to set off automated operations throughout varied components of your CI/CD pipeline. For example, you may mechanically set off an utility construct after code has been checked in, or mechanically start testing after the construct is full.
Extremely complicated workflows that will range between initiatives or groups will not be nice candidates for this kind of automation, however core routines will be totally automated, making it even simpler in your crew to start utilizing the brand new platform.