One of the major reasons technology companies adopt DevOps involves striving for the Holy Grail of continuous delivery. This greatly improves software development efficiency, helping these firms better compete in the modern economy. A recent study, however, notes that larger enterprises actually leverage continuous integration when compared to CD.
Let’s take a closer look at the details of the study to see if any actionable insights exist to help your own development efforts. Is CI truly more impactful than continuous delivery? Perhaps adopting a mixture of the two makes more sense for software engineering shops?
A recent study of nearly 6,000 developers by the Cloud computing provider, Digital Ocean, noted that 58 percent of the respondents currently use continuous integration. On the other hand, a fewer number – 45 percent – leverage continuous delivery. News about the Digital Ocean report appeared in late March at SD Times.
Of the surveyed companies not currently using either CD or CI, 43 percent said they planned on implementing one or the other. 26 percent felt that adopting either approach didn’t make sense for their organization. Still, it appears a vast number of businesses feel CD and/or CI is part of their current or future software development strategy.
The reasons why some of those companies remain uninterested in CD and CI vary. Some felt both practices were either too complex or too time-consuming to implement. Others simply felt it unnecessary considering their own company development workflow.
Companies adopting either approach noted a variety of benefits. Some respondents noted a more efficient code review and deployment process. The improved collaboration and smaller personal workloads typical of DevOps were highlighted by others. Of course, the ability to meet customer needs more quickly is another important perk.
Two-thirds of the survey respondents from companies with over 1,000 employees currently use continuous integration. Developers from medium-sized firms noted use of CD and CI in a similar percentage. Digital Ocean commented on the details behind these survey findings.
“While only 45% of developers in organizations with five employees or less are using continuous integration, and only 35% are using continuous delivery (CD), developers report the likelihood of using these technologies increases with the size of the organization. This is somewhat intuitive as many of the benefits of these methods provide ways for groups of developers to work together. In large organizations with over 1,000 employees, 68% of developers report using continuous integration and 52% are using continuous delivery,” said the company.
In short, the collaborative benefits of DevOps and CI simply create additional efficiencies at larger companies. Still, even the smallest businesses still show an adoption rate of around 50 percent for both CI and CD. Putting in the effort to successfully implement either approach makes a lot of sense for any software development firm – no matter their size.
When taking into account the growing adoption rate of continuous integration and continuous delivery, any software engineering shop needs to consider their competition is likely using one or the other.
Keep coming back to the Betica Blog for additional news and insights from the software development world. As always, thanks for reading!
Posted on May 11, 2018 May 25, 2018 Categories Uncategorized Tags dev, DevOps, Software Development