1. Introduction. Page - 2

Transcription

1 Whitepaper Continuous Integration in Salesforce Development By: Diptiman Prusty

2 1. Introduction In current SFDC software development scenario, it pays to be quick to market and be able to focus on the business requirements rather than the development process details. DevOps culture for software development has gained rapid momentum in SFDC development industry in the last few years. It involves adopting agile software development methodologies like Continuous Deployment, Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD). This enables them to resolve issues quicker, get instant feedback on new products and features, improve the quality of software and ultimately save cost and gain market share. As we shall see below, Salesforce platform is very well suited to use the Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery methodology to enable organizations to be agile. Page - 2

3 2. Agile Software Development Business enterprises today face several challenges starting from highly competitive environment, rapidly changing business scenarios and the need to scale up. To overcome the shortcomings of lengthy software development cycle, enterprises today have embraced the AGILE methodology for software development. Product Backlog Planning Daily Scrum Backlog Burndown Chart To Do Review & Retro Task Board In Progress Done Working Software 3. CI and CD In Salesforce Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) are development practice that requires developers to commit code into a common source every time they have working code. Each commit known as a check-in gets verified by an automated build process. This allows the problems to be identified early in the development process. By integrating regularly, the team can detect errors quickly, and take necessary remedial action. In fact in recent years it has come to encompass the whole cycle from code check-in till the production deployment. The following are some of the key principles behind Continuous Integration (and Deployment): Automation of build and deployment activities Automated Testing ( recommended) A single source code repository Product Owner Scrum Master Team Member Build validation in an integration environment Figure - 1: Agile Diagram Since the AGILE process involves short sprints of smooth running development process, it is very important that the team is enabled to work effectively and efficiently without breaking each other s code. This becomes is even more when development teams are geographically distributed across the globe. This is where practices like Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) have been able to help development teams achieve greater efficiency, enabling them to provide rapid software changes while maintaining system stability and security. Testing in a replica of production system Transparency and visibility of the development process Continuous Integration Server Fail or Succeed 5 Fail or Succeed 6 Notify Success or Failure Check in Changes 1 2 Test Build Fetch Changes Manager Developer 1 Developer 2 4 Test Build 3 Source Control Server Figure 2: Continuous Integration and Deployment process Page - 3

4 The key software and tools in this entire process is the CI Server, the source code repository and the automation testing tool. If we apply the same principles and tools to Salesforce development, it would mean a deployment to either a Sandbox or a production ORG. We can push both configurations as well as customization changes to different ORGs using CI. 4.1 Challenges The following were the main challenges that were faced by development team: Release cycles were too long due to manual deployments across different ORGs Deployments were error prone when doing the changes manually Development DE Fail Notifications Testing Source Control CI Tool Sandbox Since multiple developers were working on the code, there was a risk of code overwrite Code versioning was an issue if team wanted to revert back to earlier version 4.2 Solution The JKT team proposed and implemented a Continuous Integration and Deployment solution for them that helped them achieve greater coordination among teams, as well as AGILE and faster way to push changes to the production system. Figure 3 - Continuous Integration process for Salesforce development 4. CI Success Story A Manufacturing Client In North America The client is a leading global manufacturer and distributor of high quality shower doors, tub doors, shower enclosures and acrylic shower bases. The company is very well known for off-the-shelf and custom shower door solutions with sleek modern style and impressive value. JK Technosoft have been partnering with them since JKT s Salesforce team was working with them on the Salesforce application development. Releases were planned every 2 months. 4.3 Tools The following were the tools that were used for achieving this goal: BitBucket repository A GIT based code repository tool that can be accessed over internet Atlassian JIRA and Confluence JIRA is an AGILE project tracking tool while Confluence is a team sharing tool BitBucket Pipelines( Atlassian Bamboo earlier) A cloud and Docker based continuous build and deployment tool for BitBucket repository Force.com migration tool ANT based build and migration tool for Salesforce development Eclipse Open source IDE used for development Page - 4

5 The team first setup a Salesforce code repository with multiple branches on BitBucket and then used that code to setup the build and deployment scripts. It was decided to use the Force.com migration tool which is a Java/Ant based build tool used in Salesforce deployments. The build and deployment scripts were written to ensure code can be pulled from or deployed to any environment using configurable parameters. For the integration deployments a new Sandbox was created to which all development code gets deployed once it is checked in. Once the testing was completed on integration Sandbox, code was merged into the UAT/ master branch in BitBucket. The development team also configured Atlassian JIRA to track the requirements/ issues and Atlassian Confluence to track the required documents and files; these were linked together as well as with BitBucket code check-ins. steps. The pipelines are configured using a single configuration file named (bitbucket-pipelines.yml). This file contains the steps to be executed when any code is checked into the repository. It is possible to have separate execution steps for separate branches. It also supports setting up manual pipelines that can be triggered when needed. Once the build and deployment are completed/failed an notification goes to the specified members. Dev1 Dev2 Dev3 Push Commit Fetch Changes BitBucket Update Tickets Update Tickets Jira 4.4 WHY Bit-Bucket Pipelines When deciding on the CI tool that we are going to use there were several options like Jenkins, Hudson etc. Build Pass/Fail Notification Automated Build BitBucket Pipeline Automated Deployment Deployment But the team decided to use BitBucket pipelines due to several reasons: It is tightly coupled with BitBucket since both are from same vendor. Figure 3: CI using Bit Bucket and Pipeline Sandbox Production It is completely cloud and browser based and hence doesn t require any dedicated server The configuration and setup is simple 4.5 Execution Once the tool was decided, the team setup the BitBucket pipelines which would trigger the build and subsequent deployment scripts automatically when any code is checked into repository. Internally the BitBucket pipelines tool uses Docker containers to execute the build and deployment 5. The Benefits Following were the achieved benefits of using Continuous Integration process and tools: Simple and quick integrations with increased visibility enabling greater communication Issues are noticed early and fixed before they could become major problems Spend less time debugging and more time adding features Build a solid foundation of good quality code Stop waiting to find out if your code s going to work Page - 5

6 Deliver quality software more rapidly Within a brief time, the business team started seeing the benefits of the process. The team could move fully into Agile based development with shorter sprints and hence push business functionality more frequently to users. The future plan is to have automated testing done after every integration build as well as having a refined multi branch development rollouts. Page - 6

7 A HIGH IQ Company Excelling in Innovation and Quality, Consistently About JKT JKT - a HIGH IQ Company, is a global software services and solutions company enabling clients to deliver sustainable success by providing value-driven services & solutions. JKT s strategic technology-backed solutions are designed to equip your business with the competitive edge you require. We specialize in delivering customized solutions that use sustaining and next-generation disruptive technologies to ensure your business stays ahead of the competition. United States United Kingdom Bangladesh New York Berkshire Dhaka Noida Bangalore Proserve Consulting Inc. 608, Fifth Avenue, Suite 401, New York, NY USA Tel: Fax: JK Technosoft (UK) Ltd. Atrium Court, 100 The Ring, Bracknell, Berkshire, RG12 1BW, United Kingdom Tel : +44 (0) Block-C Road 11 Banani Model Town Dhaka-1213 India New Delhi A-2, Shopping Complex, Masjid Moth, G.K. II, New Delhi Tel: Fax: F-2 & F-3, Sector-3 Noida , INDIA Tel: , , , Fax: GGR Tower 1st Floor Sy # 18/2b, Ambalipura Road, Ambalipura Village Sarjapur Road, Bangalore Tel: Kolkata Asyst Park 1st Floor, GN 37/1 Sector 5, Salt Lake Kolkata Pune 804, East court, Phoenix Market City, Viman Nagar, Pune , Maharashtra, India Copyright 2017, All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any other form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, including photocopying, reprinting or recording, for any purpose, without the written permission of JKT. Page - 7