If you read DevOps blogs today, it can be easy to assume that Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) are synonymous terms. People often use them that way. But that’s a mistake.
As an example of conflation of the terms CI and CD, take this page, which purports to be a “history of CI/CD tools.” The author does provide a truly excellent history of CI platforms.
But CI tools are the only subject that the page discusses. It’s not a history of CI and CD. It’s just a history of CI platforms. To work the history of CD into the picture would require discussion of how software testing and delivery practices have changed over time, not just an overview of the history of CI software over the past several years.
I don’t mean to knock the page. It’s a great read, and the mistake the author makes in treating CI and CD as synonymous is hardly rare. He or she is just repeating a common confusion. You see the same lack of distinction between CI and CD on Docker’s discussion of CI/CD, for instance.
The Difference between CI and CD
It’s unclear how this conflation of the two terms originated. But it’s easy enough to clear up.
Simply put, CI is the process of integrating code into a mainline code base. In almost all scenarios today, CI is done using platforms designed specifically for the purpose. Implementing CI is, therefore, as simple as using the right tools.
CD is more complicated. CD is about the processes that have to happen after code is integrated for app changes to be delivered to users. Those processes involving testing, staging and deploying code. There is no single type of tool that does all these things. These processes take different forms, depending on the culture of the team and the type of app it is creating.
In actuality, then, CI and CD share little in common. Besides starting with the same word (“continuous”) and being different stages in modern software delivery pipelines, they don’t have much to do with one another.
Why the Difference Matters
Why is it important to steer clear of this confusion? The main reason is because, by conflating CI with CD, organizations can end up doing only the former but thinking they have implemented the latter.
Setting up a CI server such as Jenkins or Bamboo to integrate code changes continuously does not mean you are doing CD. It just means you are using a CI server.
To get to CD, you also have to organize your software testing, staging and deployment processes in a way that automates them as much as possible and makes them continuous. Doing so requires more than simply turning on a certain type of tool.
How you actually do CD is fodder for a separate, much longer article (or you could just read the book about it). But recognizing that CI is not CD, and avoiding confusing formulations including CI/CD, is a start.
— Chris Tozzi
