What are the Key Differences Between CI/CD and DevOps? (And Why They're Not Interchangeable)

Quick Run-Through: CI/CD and DevOps are the best options to streamline business processes, improve ROI (return on investment), and optimize operations. Both can go hand-in-hand! However, they both are different in terms of their core concept, and they often confuse organizations due to their overlapping features. So, this guide will help you learn CI/CD and DevOps, highlighting their differences. Happy reading!

Welcome to the world of apps! But the truth is that developing modern applications is not everyone's cup of tea because multiple teams and individuals are involved in the entire software development and delivery process. The group includes the best software developers, salespeople, customer support, product owners, quality analysts, and IT operations. There are times when software development can get challenging. Even a teeny-tiny modification in code can give birth to different unexpected loopholes and bugs that may not be impossible to correct at that time. So, there must be a process by which the development takes place by following different automated approaches as it is being built.

Is there any process available? Well, YES!

Here comes Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery in action. They ensure that software testing takes place automatically before the release. It provides the highest quality and follows all the latest standards when made available for end users. Not everybody knows it, but these outcomes result from DevOps. Yes, you read it right!

And due to the rising demand for CI/CD and automation, organizations are opting for DevOps at a rapid pace. Okay, here are some facts to support this statement. According to a GlobeNewswire report, the DevOps market size can be around USD 25.5 billion by 2028 (see counts in billions). Therefore, CI/CD approach helps to empower businesses with agile time to market and deployments. On the other hand, the DevOps ecosystem helps overcome different collaboration challenges and stuck teams.

Speed Up Your Development Game with the Best DevOps CI/CD Pipeline Design

Consult us ASAP

However, when it comes to the execution part, organizations sometimes get confused between CI/CD and DevOps. They often take DevOps CI/CD as the same. Umm, so aren't DevOps CI/CD the same? Sorry to burst the bubble, but CI/CD and DevOps are not exact. So, is CI/CD a part of DevOps? YES! CI/CD DevOps is the best option to streamline business processes, improve ROI, and optimize operations. However, they both are different in terms of their core concept, and they often confuse organizations due to their overlapping features.

Okay, okay, feeling overwhelmed already? Don't stress! The sole purpose of this blog is to solve your every teeny-tiny doubts regarding CI/CD DevOps.

In this blog, you'll learn CI/CD vs DevOps and individually understand some crucial aspects of DevOps CI/CD. Here, we'll also go through the difference between continuous integration (CI)/ continuous delivery (CD) and the DevOps approach (the heart and soul of our blog). This will help answer the most crucial question – which one to choose from, CI/CD vs DevOps?

So, wear your Sherlock hats and investigate CI/CD DevOps with me.

What is CI/CD?

CI/CD (Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery, or less often Continuous Deployment) is the set of principles and practices that help development teams provide reliable, accurate modifications to the code. The CI/CD DevOps Model ensures constant monitoring and use of different automation tools throughout the software development lifecycle. Always remember that CI/CD is among the practices the team adopts when working per the DevOps outlook.

So, answering the most crucial question – is CI/CD a part of DevOps? Well, CI/CD is one of the best DevOps tactics that use the right automation tools. By putting complete programming code into a single repository, teams can continuously run automated tests, thus quickening the latest updates release process. Let's now learn and understand CI/CD individually.

• Continuous Integration (CI)- Continuous Integration in DevOps is the drill to allow the integration of new software code into the central section of the shared app/software code as much as possible. It needs a version control system that enables constant modifications to the master trunk while keeping an eye on the changes made to the code base. Therefore, by automating the codebase's development and testing process modifications, software developers can minimize the time for update delivery, enhance software solutions, and fix bugs.

• Continuous Delivery (CD) - Continuous Delivery tests any new modifications made based on the review or feedback. This can be done by either deploying or reintroducing the recent changes. It involves a staging area where improvements made are manually assessed and reviewed. Moreover, Continuous Delivery enables User Acceptance Testing (UAT) before the deployment. Thus, the software is ready for release after all the necessary tests. It differs slightly from the Continuous Deployment practice, where the testing is done automatically and integral to the production and testing phase. Therefore, this practice enables multiple progressive deployments without requiring an extensive release time.

Let's now understand the benefits of implementing DevOps CI/CD practices.

Benefits of CI/CD

Opting for DevOps CI/CD services provides many advantages to any organization. Following are some of the best ones:

1. Better Collaboration and Communication - By continuously integrating code modifications, developers can easily detect and rectify loopholes and bugs at the earlier stages of development. It further helps to enhance team collaboration and communication.

2. Rapid Software Releases - By automating the software development, testing, and delivery process, organizations can quickly release new features, functionalities, and bug fixes to the end users faster and with minimal risk.

3. Cost Reduction - By recognizing and rectifying bugs early in the software development process, organizations can significantly minimize the expense of fixing bugs and loopholes in production.

4. Enhanced Quality and Reliability - Developers can simplify the process of automated testing and deploying code modifications by using different CI/CD tooling kits. It helps in increasing the quality and reliability of the software solutions.

Built Top-Notch, Scalable Software Solutions with Best DevOps CI CD Services

Enjoy Best of CI/CD

Understanding any concept with the help of examples makes it better to grasp. And here, I will do the same; we'll discuss some of the best DevOps CI/CD examples to help you differentiate between DevOps vs CI/CD.

Examples of CI/CD Pipeline

The best example - Creating CI/CD pipeline - will help you understand multiple concepts. So, building a CI/CD pipeline includes different steps, such as creating a version control system, undergoing automated testing, continuous integration, and continuous deployment.

Therefore, the following is a sweet and short example of how to create a CI/CD pipeline using popular tools like AWS, Jenkins, and GitLab:

• Set up Version Control System - You can build a repository on GitHub to cache the codebase.

• Set up Automated Testing - Next, you must develop test scripts using a framework like JUnit. You can configure them for automatic execution when you push code modifications to the GitHub repository.

• Implement Continuous Integration - Use the Jenkins tool to automatically create and test the code every time you push modifications to the GitHub repository. You can now configure the Jenkins CI/CD pipeline to listen for different changes on GitHub and activate a build and test operation automatically.

• Implement Continuous Deployment - Here, you can AWS CodeDeploy to automatically deploy the code modifications to a testing staging environment. Then it moves to the production environment after passing all the tests. You can also configure this with Jenkins as a post-build stage.

• Monitor and Optimize - You can use a tool like AWS CloudWatch to monitor and optimize the efficiency of the CI/CD pipeline and address any issues for rectification.

So, this was all about DevOps CI/CD. I'm sure you must now be familiar with distinct aspects of CI/CD. Let's now move forward and learn about important aspects of DevOps. This will help you clear your doubts regarding DevOps vs CI/CD.

Why wait, then?

Come on!

What is DevOps Exactly?

DevOps is the integration of 'development' and 'operations.' It was minted by Patrick Debois in 2009. So, DevOps is a set of practices, tools, and ideologies that helps to deliver software solutions, products, services, and applications more quickly and efficiently. DevOps popularity started to leap in the late 2000s, as IT and software development teams stressed some limitations with the conventional methodologies where the development and operations teams functioned singly. Therefore, integration of development and operations promotes automation, better collaboration, and cross-functional team communication.

With DevOps services' help, teams no longer work single-handedly and can focus on different operations. Automation minimizes all manual and tedious activities, thus providing the team liberty to work throughout the product/software lifecycle- from creation to deployment. As a result, the entire development lifecycle is now the whole team's responsibility. Following are the two essential practices are the outcome of the DevOps outlook:

• Progressive Updates - Small and consistent updates to the software, adhering to customer needs.

• Microservices Architecture - This eradicates the overhead coordination, and development teams can be more efficient and agile when modifying individual services.

Moreover, there was a time when development teams also faced several DevOps problems, but due to the dedication of the IT team and DevOps community, these problems were not hard nuts to crack.

Let's now move ahead and go through some of the best benefits of DevOps. Understanding both concepts' benefits will help you make an easy difference between CI/CD and DevOps.

Benefits of DevOps

Here are a few benefits your team can experience when diving into DevOps culture:

• Faster Time-to-Market - DevOps practices and different tools like Azure DevOps allow development teams to release software more rapidly by automating the development and deployment operations, minimizing the overall time to release new features, updates, and bug fixes.

• Greater Scalability and Flexibility - DevOps practices like cloud computing and containerization allow companies to respond instantly to ever-changing business demands and scale their software accordingly.

• Continuous Improvement - DevOps teams use feedback and metrics systems to constantly monitor and enhance the performance of their software solution and its processes.

• ⁠Increased Security - DevOps teams are accountable for the complete software development life cycle, including guaranteeing the software's security. They must implement security testing and different incident response plans using tools to protect against security loopholes and threats. And to accomplish it, organizations often opt for DevSecOps services, which is an approach that integrates security into the DevOps process.

It's time for some best DevOps examples. And why? It will help you understand CI/CD and DevOps more efficiently.

Collaborate with Modern Azure DevOps Services and Upscale your Cloud Solutions

Tell Me More

Examples of DevOps

So, let's just take the example of a single company that has successfully adopted DevOps culture and tactics. Heard about Netflix? Lord, who has doesn't! People love watching Netflix, and I am a fan myself! So, talking about Netflix, there was a time when it began with a DVD rental service and cultivated itself into a streaming giant by opting for DevOps principles and practices.

Magnificent, isn't it?

They also adapted microservices architecture and utilized different tools to automate and simplify their development and deployment operations. They also use the fusion of various proprietary and open-source tools to accomplish this. Some of the best tools and technologies they use include:

• Amazon Web Services (AWS) for cloud infrastructure, AWS and DevOps go very well together
• Chaos Monkey for testing the resiliency
• Spinnaker for multi-cloud deployment management
• Zuul for API (Application Programming Interfaces) Gateway
• Jenkins as a Service for continuous integration and delivery

Therefore, Netflix's success in implementing the DevOps outlook allows them to release new features, functionalities, and updates more rapidly, with better quality and reliability. This has led to enhanced customer satisfaction and retention rates.

So, that's all about individual aspects of CI/CD and DevOps.

The main question is – what is the difference between CI/CD and DevOps? Now comes the heart and soul of our blog, i.e., CI/CD vs DevOps. The following section discusses the difference between CI/CD and DevOps.

CI/CD vs DevOps: The Key Differences

Although many organizations wonder about the difference between CI/CD and DevOps, which often leads to a debate - DevOps vs CI/CD, let me throw a truth bomb, it is not right to directly compare CI/CD and DevOps. There isn't any preference to choose between either of them. Yes, stating the facts!

From everything you've read above, you might now understand the similarities and differences between CI/CD and DevOps. So, in fact, they cannot be used interchangeably; developers simply use them in the same situations. So, we can say that DevOps is an umbrella term for CI/CD practices.

• As mentioned earlier, DevOps is not a primary service or product. It's an ideology.
• While CI/CD is a theoretical framework for automation, it is achieved by different software tools and code that configures the behavior of CI/CD tooling kits. Hence, following a DevOps philosophy helps seamlessly operate your CI/CD pipeline.
• Teams following DevOps culture can experience benefits from integrating both CI and CD into their operations. In fact, a DevOps outlook already rooted within a company can be advantageous in ensuring that the CI/CD practice is conducted successfully.
• The ultimate objective of DevOps is to integrate the roles and responsibilities of development and operations to accomplish a specific business ambition. It is all about aligning the business operation across different departments of an organization.
• CI/CD practices help make frequent deliveries to acquire faster consumer feedback. And both practices benefit totally from automation. I hope this has clarified why CI/CD and DevOps can't be used interchangeably. They go hand in hand.

So, there is no significant difference between CI/CD and DevOps, except for the various levels each term functions at.

• DevOps is a modern agile development methodology and philosophy that simplifies software creation, testing, and publishing using different agile principles.

• On the other hand, CI/CD is a DevOps tactic that implements the correct automated testing tools to carry out agile development.

Hopefully, you now understand my point that CI/CD and DevOps are not synonymous. CI/CD is a tool (or a process) extensively used within teams following DevOps culture. And all these practices have the same objective: to develop efficient software solutions in less time.

Expand your Tech Team and Scale Business Potential with Expert DevOps Engineers

Hire DevOps Experts

There is no apparent difference between CI/CD and DevOps because these practices mostly overlap all the time. So, any developer, QA expert, or Ops specialist familiar with one approach will be accustomed to the others.

But don't worry. I have some quick and effortless ways to help you make a difference between CI/CD and DevOps. Let's have a look at them.

1. CI/CD concentrates on software-based life cycles, focusing on automation tools. On the other hand, DevOps is involved with culture, focusing on roles and responsibilities that consider responsiveness.
2. ⁠CI/CD helps integrate code modifications into a single repository and run automated tests. Whereas DevOps offers a set of best practices to develop the best-quality software.
3. CI/CD concentrates on automating the complete pipeline, from code testing to combining them, examining the entire codebase, and making it all set for deployment. On the other hand, DevOps concentrates on teamwork and using correct automation tools.
4. CI/CD helps software development teams in delivering codes that modify constantly. When opting for DevOps implementation services, companies experience efficient software development and their production teams in a way that enables constant rapid deployment.

So, this was all about CI/CD vs DevOps, but again they cannot be compared as they go together (it's like a parent-child relation). Simply put, you work in a DevOps culture if you use CI/CD practices. However, if you're working in a DevOps culture, it isn't always necessary to use DevOps CI/CD practices (this is why I called DevOps an umbrella term).

ConclusionSo, the focus of this article was to understand the difference between CI/CD and DevOps to make e quick decision between CI/CD vs DevOps. But I'm sure now you'd know why comparing them makes no sense. Hence, we learned about the similarities and differences between CI/CD vs DevOps. So, CI/CD concentrates on automating the software development and deployment process. On the other hand, DevOps is more of a culture that focuses on following partnership, communication, and integration between development and operations teams.Both practices' ultimate objective is to enhance the agility and quality of software releases, but they need different tools and methods. DevOps CI/CD uses automated testing techniques and continuous integration using tools like Jenkins, CircleCI, and Travis CI. DevOps utilizes infrastructure as code, automation of infrastructure provisioning, and containerization, using tools like Chef, Puppet, and Ansible. Hence, they both share the goal of achieving rapid, reliable software releases. Moreover, developers can enforce CI/CD and DevOps to enhance software development and deployment.Wondering how to implement CI/CD and DevOps together? Experts at Radixweb can help.Radixweb is a reputable software development company that helps organizations to build quality applications while implementing DevOps CI/CD practices. Our DevOps CI/CD services will add multiple values to your business chain, from security and risk mitigation, higher resiliency, and incremental development to early problem detection, workload management, lightweight architecture, and resource planning. Being a pioneer of CI/CD in DevOps for more than two decades, our experts can offer an inclusive proposition on continuous integration and delivery to make your business more agile and responsive.Contact us today to learn more about our CI/CD and DevOps services.