Industry use cases of Jenkins

What is Jenkins?

Jenkins is a free and open source automation server. It helps automate the parts of software development related to building, testing, and deploying, facilitating continuous integration and continuous delivery. It is a server-based system that runs in servlet containers such as Apache Tomcat.

It supports version control tools, including AccuRev, CVS, Subversion, Git, Mercurial, Perforce, ClearCase and RTC, and can execute Apache Ant, Apache Maven and sbt based projects as well as arbitrary shell scripts and Windows batch commands.

It is a server-based application and requires a web server like Apache Tomcat. The reason Jenkins software became so popular is that of its monitoring of repeated tasks which arise during the development of a project. For example, if your team is developing a project, Jenkins will continuously test your project builds and show you the errors in early stages of your development.

Why Jenkins?

Jenkins is one of the top DevOps tools because it is free, open-source and modular, and can integrate with pretty much every other DevOps tool out there. There are over a thousand plugins that you can use to extend Jenkins’ capabilities and make it more user-specific. All of these plugins and extensions are developed in Java. This means that Jenkins can also be installed on any operating system that runs on Java.

Jenkins Master-Slave Architecture

As you can see in the diagram provided above, on the left is the Remote source code repository. The Jenkins server accesses the master environment on the left side and the master environment can push down to multiple other Jenkins Slave environments to distribute the workload.

That lets you run multiple builds, tests, and product environment across the entire architecture. Jenkins Slaves can be running different build versions of the code for different operating systems and the server Master controls how each of the builds operates.

Supported on a master-slave architecture, Jenkins comprises many slaves working for a master. This architecture — the Jenkins Distributed Build — can run identical test cases in different environments. Results are collected and combined on the master node for monitoring.

What is Jenkins used for?

Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery are the most important part of the DevOps world and Jenkins is the most famous continuous integration and continuous delivery tool. With CI/CD, industries can accelerate their development process. Let’s understand what is Continuous Integration(CI) and Continuous Delivery(CD) first.

Continuous Integration(CI)

In development practice, while developing any software developers need to program and test their code. There are many developers working on the same project over an SCM tool. They need an environment where they can test it quickly. As fast as they test, they can detect the error and solve that quickly. Using continuous integration tools all things become automate and as the code is pushed the testing begins.

Jenkins achieves Continuous Integration with the help of plugins. The plugin provides the ability to integrate with various DevOps stages.

Continuous Delivery(CD)

In DevOps, when you make changes to your product, such as modifying configuration or adding new features quickly and safely by keeping the code in a deployable state all the time, we call it Continuous Delivery. Continuous Delivery makes deployments routine affairs. The deployments could be of an embedded system or an extensively distributed system. In this process, the changes in your code get automatically prepared, tested, and built. You do so by removing the hardening, testing, and integration phases that are usually present in ‘dev complete.’

Features of Jenkins :

• Easy Installation : Jenkins is a platform-agnostic, self-contained Java-based program, ready to run with packages for Windows, Mac OS, and Unix-like operating systems.
• Easy Configuration : Jenkins is easily set up and configured using its web interface, featuring error checks and a built-in help function.
• Available Plugins : There are hundreds of plugins available in the Update Center, integrating with every tool in the CI and CD toolchain.
• Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery : As an extensible automation server, Jenkins can be used as a simple CI server or turned into the continuous delivery hub for any project.
• Extensible : Jenkins can be extended by means of its plugin architecture, providing nearly endless possibilities for what it can do.
• Easy Distribution : Jenkins can easily distribute work across multiple machines for faster builds, tests, and deployments across multiple platforms.
• Free Open Source : Jenkins is an open-source resource backed by heavy community support.

Advantages of Using Jenkins :

Jenkins is a powerful tool truly built and friendly for developers. Here are some of the most significant advantages of using Jenkins:

Free to Use : Jenkins is fully open-source and free to use. Since its development in 2011, it is the most preferred CI/CD tool used by developers in both early-stage startups and big organizations.

Rich Plugin Ecosystem : There are over a thousand different plugins that can be used to enhance the functionality of a Jenkins environment and suit the specific needs of an organization.

Easy Integration : Jenkins can be easily integrated with a number of popular cloud platforms such as Google Cloud, Digital Ocean, Amazon EC2 and more.

Adoption: Jenkins is widespread, with more than 147,000 active installations and over 1 million users around the world.

Case Study: Topdanmark

Automating the build processes with a highly-configurable Jenkins platform

About Topdanmark :

Topdanmark, a Danish insurance company offering a customer service platform that allows clients to easily and quickly manage their insurance, investments and pensions. These tools are developed internally, using artificial intelligence (AI) to create smart data models, sophisticated speech recognition technologies and a highly responsive chatbot to deliver excellent customer experiences — all propelled by a reliable, robust infrastructure.

Summary:

Topdanmark, a leading Danish insurer chooses Jenkins as the “de facto” product to build their CI/CD platform.

Challenge:

Balancing the needs of DevOps modernization and cloud migration while maintaining legacy systems.

Solution:

A highly-configurable CI/CD platform that allows for automation and ease of development.

Results:

• 100% automatic creation of Jenkins instances
• The ability to release and deploy an artifact whenever, wherever
• Software developers focused on developing software rather than operations
• Smaller monoliths and containerization

Case Study : Tymit

Fintech Innovation With A Jenkins Backbone

About Tymit :

The idea behind Tymit began when two brothers, Martin and Nicolas Magnone, thought there should be a better long term way to manage finances than relying on credit cards or loans. The pair felt that credit cards often have unclear pricing, lots of fees and a lack of features to help keep balances under control. The Mangones were convinced that they could leverage the latest payment technology to offer much better customer experiences: cheaper, flexible, transparent and more readily available wherever and whenever it was needed.

Challenge:

Create a solidly reliable CI/CD platform that provides the technology team with the agility and the flexibility needed to innovate while ensuring the security and scalability their fintech service requires.

Solution:

Tymit, a revolutionary credit card processing company, leveraged Jenkins to build a compliant, transparent and secure modern DevOps platform to drive product innovation, handle instant financial transactions and support thousands of users in real-time.

Results:

• faster delivery of mobile, microservices and operational services
• reduced software testing and release cycles by 50%
• ability to support thousands of users for real-time transactions
• created a secure, controlled and compliant fintech environment.

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