CI/CD Pipeline : A Comprehensive Overview

3 min readJul 15, 2024

This blog post contains documentation for Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipeline architecture.

Pipeline Overview

Our CI/CD pipeline automates the process from code development to deployment, ensuring code quality and efficient delivery. Here’s a high-level overview of the steps:

1. Development
2. Version Control
3. Continuous Integration
4. Code Quality Checks
5. Artifact Management
6. Containerization
7. Deployment
8. Monitoring

Architecture

Pipeline Development Phases

1. Network Environment and Server Configuration

1.1 Setting Up VPC

First, we need to create a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) to keep our pipeline components secure and isolated from public networks. This involves:

Creating subnets to separate resources
Configuring security groups and network ACLs to control traffic
Setting up route tables to manage internal and external traffic flow

1.2 Configure Kubernetes Cluster

Next, we set up a Kubernetes cluster to manage our containerized applications. This provides a scalable and resilient infrastructure. Key tasks include:

Provisioning compute resources for Kubernetes nodes
Installing Kubernetes and its components
Configuring networking for pod communication
Deploying essential add-ons like the Kubernetes Dashboard and Ingress Controllers

1.3 Virtual Machines Configuration

We need several virtual machines for different tools:

SonarQube: For continuous code quality analysis
Nexus: To manage our build artifacts
Jenkins: To orchestrate the CI/CD pipeline
Monitoring Tools: Like Prometheus and Grafana for system and application monitoring

2. Version Control System (VCS)

2.1 Setting Up Git Repository

A Git repository is essential for hosting our source code and managing versions. Here’s what we do:

Create a new repository on platforms like GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket
Set up access controls to restrict visibility and ensure security
Implement a branching strategy to manage code changes and releases
Configure webhooks to trigger CI/CD processes automatically

3. CI/CD Implementation

3.1 Continuous Integration Setup

For Continuous Integration (CI), we automate code integration and testing. This involves:

Setting up Jenkins pipelines to automate build and test processes
Configuring Maven to compile code, run unit tests, and build artifacts
Integrating SonarQube for code quality checks
Implementing vulnerability scans to check for security issues

3.2 Continuous Deployment Configuration

For Continuous Deployment (CD), we automate the deployment process. Key steps include:

Configuring Nexus Repository to store and manage build artifacts
Using Docker to build and tag container images
Scanning Docker images for vulnerabilities before pushing them to the registry
Deploying applications to Kubernetes using manifests and Helm
Automating the Docker image push process to the container registry

4. Monitoring

4.1 System Level Monitoring

Monitoring the system ensures everything runs smoothly. We do this by:

Setting up Prometheus to collect metrics from infrastructure and applications
Integrating Grafana with Prometheus to visualize metrics and create dashboards

4.2 Website Level Monitoring

Monitoring the website ensures optimal performance and user experience. This involves:

Using tools like New Relic or Datadog for application performance monitoring
Implementing user experience tracking with tools like Google Analytics
Capturing and reporting errors and exceptions with tools like Sentry

4.3 Alerting and Notification

Setting up alerting and notifications helps us respond to critical events promptly:

Configuring email notifications for significant events like build failures
Integrating with incident management systems like PagerDuty or Opsgenie

Pipeline Flow

Here’s how the pipeline flows from code to deployment:

A developer writes code and tests it locally.
The code is pushed to the Git repository.
Jenkins detects the changes and triggers the CI pipeline.
Maven compiles the code and runs unit tests.
SonarQube performs code quality checks.
Vulnerability scans check for security issues.
Maven builds and packages the application.
The artifact is pushed to the Nexus repository.
Docker builds and tags the image.
Docker image is scanned for vulnerabilities.
The image is pushed to the Docker registry.
Kubernetes deploys the application.
Prometheus and Grafana monitor the system and application.