Jenkins on AWS - AWS Whitepaper

Although there are many ways to deploy the Jenkins open-source automation server on Amazon Web Services (AWS), this whitepaper focuses on two specific approaches. First, the traditional deployment on top of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). Second, the containerized deployment that leverages Amazon EC2 Container Service (Amazon ECS). These approaches enable customers to take advantage of the continuous integration/ continuous delivery (CI/CD) capabilities of Jenkins. Using an extensive plugin system, Jenkins offers options for integrating with many AWS services and can morph to fit most use cases (e.g., traditional development pipelines, mobile development, security requirements, etc.). Introduction Why CI/CD? To understand the continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) model that Jenkins uses, let’s start with understanding its underlying drivers. Since the early 2000s, the advent of fast-paced, iterative methodologies such as agile has shifted the thinking about software development. In this new paradigm, product teams push their work to customers as quickly as possible so that they can collect feedback and improve upon the previous iteration of their products. Concepts such as minimum viable product (MVP), release candidate, velocity, etc. are all derived from these new approaches. In contrast, product teams using older paradigms like waterfall development might not hear back from customers for months and, quite often, not until the product is commercialized. The following figure illustrates the high-level phases of product development: Figure: High-level product development phases The order and length of these phases varies depending on which development models is used (e.g., waterfall, v-model, scrum, etc.). Continuous Integration Continuous integration (CI) is a software development practice in which developers regularly merge their code changes into a central repository, after which automated builds and tests are run. Continuous integration most often refers to the build or integration stage of the software release process and entails both an automation component (e.g., a CI or build service) and a cultural component (e.g., learning to integrate frequently). The key goals of continuous integration are to find and address bugs quicker, improve software quality, and reduce the time it takes to validate and release new software updates.