Continuous Delivery Part I: Value proposition, the deployment pipeline, automated tests, CI

The first 1h30 will introduce the value proposition of continuous delivery, and present the deployment pipeline, the key pattern at the heart of continuous delivery.

The second 1h30 will discuss creating and maintaining automated tests, and continuous integration and patterns for developing on mainline such as feature toggles and dark launching.

Getting software released to users is often a painful, risky, and time-consuming process. This tutorial sets out the principles and technical practices that enable rapid, incremental delivery of high quality, valuable new functionality to users. Through automation of the build, deployment, and testing process, and improved collaboration between developers, testers and operations, delivery teams can get changes released in a matter of hours–sometimes even minutes–no matter what the size of a project or the complexity of its code base.

In this tutorial we take the unique approach of moving from release back through testing to development practices, analyzing at each stage how to improve collaboration and increase feedback so as to make the delivery process as fast and efficient as possible. There will be interactive exercises where the audience practices using these techniques for themselves. At the heart of the tutorial is a pattern called the deployment pipeline, which involves the creation of a living system that models your organization's value stream for delivering software. We spend the first half of the tutorial introducing this pattern, and discussing how to incrementally automate the build, test and deployment process, culminating in continuous deployment.

About Jez Humble

Jez Humble is a Principal Consultant with ThoughtWorks, and author of Continuous Delivery, published in Martin Fowler's Signature Series (Addison Wesley, 2010). He got into IT in 2000, just in time for the dot-com bust. Since then he has worked as a developer, system administrator, trainer, consultant, manager, and speaker. He has worked with a variety of platforms and technologies, consulting for non-profits, telecoms, financial services, and online retail companies.

Since 2004 he has worked for ThoughtWorks and ThoughtWorks Studios in Beijing, Bangalore, London, and San Francisco. His focus is on helping organisations deliver valuable, high-quality software frequently and reliably through implementing effective engineering practices in the field of Agile delivery. He also serves as Product Manager for Go, ThoughtWorks Studios agile release management platform. He holds a BA in Physics.

Software Passion: Helping organizations release useful, high quality software fast through better collaboration and automation. Writing small, useful libraries. Being a loudmouth.

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