Integration or widely known as Continuous Integration (CI) is a development practice in DevOps. In this scenario, developers merge their code into a shared or central repository on a regular basis where it can be verified with automated builds & tests. Though automated testing not exactly falls under the umbrella of Integration, it holds its significant part.

Need for Integration

Previously, developers on the same team might work for an extended period of time in isolation. One could only merge their changes to the master’s program once the work is completed. In such a scenario, risks of bugs remain quite high and fixing of it can result in a long time consumption making the delivery of updates late to the customer

Benefits of Integration

The key benefit of Integration is to detect the bugs as soon as possible with ease of testing. Since each change introduced in coding is typically small, it speeds up the process of pinpointing the error introduced for a specific change. However, Integration does not fix the bugs on its own but it facilitates ease of performing a quick action to find the bug and remove it.

In recent times, Integration has become a significant part of development guided by a set of key principles to keep the application deployable at any point. This allows to maintain the high-quality standards with a quick & automatically checked change providing the required speed of work to the team.

Integration brings great benefits to the business with –

• Reduced Risk
• Faster feedback on business decisions
• Reduced time and efforts for different code changes integration
• Faster Iterations of the feedback
• Earlier detection and prevention of Bugs
• Better Communication
• Prevention of Divergence in different branches
• Continuous Delivery workflow
• It eventually saves time on the debugging

Except for the above-mentioned benefits, there are a bunch of small but significant benefits of implementing the Integration in DevOps.

How to choose the Integration tools

In the revolutionary era of software, there are a plethora of options to deal with a single problem. One can easily get a list of tools for the purpose of any source such as TravisCI, Codeship, SemaphoreCI, TeamCity or many more. There are endless discussions and articles out there with valuable information on the topic.

But the Million Dollar Question is –

“How to choose the right one for yourself?”

The pick is quite simple & laborious at the same time depending upon:

1. What are your requirements?
2. What kind of tech-stack do you have?
3. And how do you handle your daily workflow?

It usually begins with such simple questions first and answering further questions arising from the initial answers. Jotting down all the necessary answers would lead to the best fit for you to – Integrate your DevOps.