Deployment

Continuous Integration ends with a tested artifact. That sounds great, but a green build does not mean the software actually works in a realistic environment. Unit tests run in isolation. Integration tests run against mocks. Until you put the software somewhere that looks like production and exercise it under real conditions, you have not really proven anything. Continuous Delivery is the step that closes that gap.

In traditional software development, software is merged and tested by all developers in one big single integration step that usually takes weeks or even months. Since this only happens every few months, this step is very time-consuming.

Companies today are confronted with the challenge of enhancing efficiency while lowering costs. Changes to products often take much too long to reach end customers on the market. A consistent DevOps approach can aid this process.