The mission to bring agility in the overall software development process, has set an easy path for continuous integration (CI) to evolve. The CI process emerged as a strategic contributor in delivering business value. CI addressed the most major of code Integration challenges, where the code developed by the individual programmers is tested thoroughly and brought under one roof that is free from all errors. This ability of the CI process had a huge impact on the overall software development process life cycle and evolved as an effective software practice that enables faster and bug-free delivery of the product.

Benefits of Continuous Integration

There are many benefits CI brings to the overall software development process and below we highlight for you the key areas.

1. Developers time is saved by not having to:

Run builds every time QA requests for it
Prepare release notes
Run profiling individually
Run extra checks to identify which commit caused the build to break, and can focus on that only

2. QA time is saved by not having to

Request and wait for builds - latest stable one is already available / mailed to them whenever ready
Run basic regression tests, because Unit and UI tests have already passed
Spend time figuring out what changes are there in a build - release notes are readily available
Request for previous builds for comparison testing, as they are available publicly to project members

3. Managers' time is saved by having

The latest build status visible
Automated reports regarding stability and quality of the product
An easy way to pull out latest builds any time to share with stakeholders

4. Stake Holders' time is saved by not having to

Investigate about project status - all ongoing progress is visible transparently on the CI dashboard
Wait for latest builds - it is mailed directly to them with release notes

Additional Benefits of Continuous Integration

Apart from the benefits mentioned above, some of the additional benefits Continuous Integration process adds to the overall software development process are:

Integration issues come to light as they get added in code, and are fixed immediately
Build status is transparent, and promotes quality in coding and unit testing
The latest stable build is always available, no waiting. Archived builds are also available
Release Notes are readily available for each build, directly from commit messages
Saves time and cost for the developer and QA hours
Agile & Lean enabler - “fail fast”
Enforce clear commit messages, as they’ll be used in the Release Notes
Enforce coding standards through Static Code Analyzers, Unit Test Coverage reports, etc
Mandatory quality assurance through automated Unit Tests and UI Tests
Encourages small and frequent commits
Encourages testing of small features frequently

Are you interested in having benefits of CI (transparency and efficiency)? V-Soft Consulting is a CI enthusiast and has the right mix of experience and the talent to create the mobile apps. If you would like to learn more about our abilities and offerings, you can learn more about our mobile app practice or set up a free consultation with one of our experts to discuss your needs today.

About the Author

Mobile app enterprise development lead Aswin Kumar Aswin Kumar is the Practice Head for Mobile Solutions at V-Soft Consulting. Aswin leads the design and development that collaborates with leading companies to build mobile capabilities for existing and newly innovative platforms. Aswin and his team understand the requirement for back-end integration of cloud or premise based systems with a mobile application that delivers industry leading results for the enterprise. Aswin also leads the emerging technology initiatives like AR, AI, and ML.