The Jenkins User Conference and CD Summit US East, will be held in Alexandria, Virginia in a couple weeks. Gene Kim is one of the keynote presenters and the event includes an impressive list of sponsors, presenters, and attendees highlighting the momentum of DevOps. I spoke with CloudBees CEO Sacha Labourey—who will also be attending the event in Virginia—about the Jenkins User Conference, the growing Jenkins community, and CloudBees’ role in it all.
Labourey expressed satisfaction with the growth and strength of the open source community involved in developing and maintaining Jenkins. It is the success of the community that both demands and allows for the Jenkins User Conference to be organized at locations around the world throughout the year.
Continuous Delivery
Jenkins is a platform for continuous delivery or continuous integration. The concept may initially have been targeted at developers but Labourey believes that the focus on continuous delivery is now higher up in the corporate food-chain. It’s now IT operations people and even the CIO and other executive leaders who are addressing the question, “How can we improve the delivery of software within the organization?”
There is no single solution—no cookie cutter, one-size-fits-all way to do continuous delivery, though, according to Labourey. Every case is different.
That’s why an event like the Jenkins User Conference is so valuable. Those considering Jenkins or exploring continuous delivery can learn more. Those already using it can share their own lessons learned and best practices. The community can collaborate and compare notes. By meeting and sharing companies and individuals can understand how other organizations are accomplishing things and take away the tips and advice that make sense and try it out for themselves. The cooperative nature of the Jenkins community is the fuel that drives it.
Separation of church and state
I asked Labourey to explain the relationship between Jenkins and CloudBees. CloudBees business focuses on delivering Jenkins continuous integration / continuous delivery for customers, so CloudBees obviously has strong incentive to ensure the success of Jenkins. He told me that CloudBees is a significant supporter of and contributor to the Jenkins open source project. CloudBees does not own or control Jenkins, though, and believes strongly in maintaining what Labourey called the “separation of church and state.”
CloudBees has developers and engineers actively involved with Jenkins—contributing code and providing support. However, the Jenkins community organizes itself and manages the open source project without any involvement from CloudBees. The Jenkins community wants to remain independent and manage its own destiny according to Labourey.
As noted above, though, CloudBees’ business relies on Jenkins. The stronger Jenkins is, and the better its features and capabilities, the better it is for CloudBees. That is why CloudBees has taken on the role of helping to organize and fund the Jenkins User Conferences. It’s a win-win because whatever helps the Jenkins community also helps CloudBees.
Labourey promised that attendees of the Jenkins User Conference and CD Summit will not be disappointed. The sessions are filled with valuable content, and there will be discussion of recently added features and capabilities as well as the unveiling of some new ones. If you’re organization is using continuous delivery / continuous integration—or even considering it—you should check out the Jenkins User Conference.