A Game-Changer for Enterprise Performance and Scalability
In the realm of build orchestrators, Jenkins has long been the go-to choice for many. Its flexibility and ability to handle a wide range of tasks make it a powerful tool for developers and admins alike. But as with any tool, there are limits to what it can do, especially for larger enterprises operating at scale. As users continually push these limits, the result is often poor performance and challenges in software delivery.
The good news? We've got a solution: CloudBees Continuous Integration (CloudBees CI), with its new high availability/horizontal scalability feature. Built on the power of Jenkins, CloudBees CI is designed to enhance performance and scalability, addressing the common challenges faced by Jenkins users in the enterprise.
Common Challenges Faced by Jenkins Users Operating at Scale
To understand the value of CloudBees CI, let's first look at the issues that Jenkins users often encounter when using Jenkins at scale.
Longer Build Times
In the world of continuous integration, containers have become the norm. While they provide flexibility and isolation, the need to download dependencies and other files for each new build can significantly increase build times, thereby slowing down development cycles. This often results in delayed software delivery and increased costs due to longer-running ephemeral agents.Long Lead Time (LD) due to pipeline troubleshooting
Troubleshooting in complex pipelines is a time-consuming and tedious process. As the complexity of pipelines increases, so does the time spent debugging. This is time taken away from releasing software, resulting in further delays.Overloaded Controllers
Jenkins is flexible and very strong at handling complex pipelines. However, a common occurrence in large enterprises is overloaded Jenkins controllers. As teams discover the capabilities of Jenkins, more and more jobs get run on it. Eventually, these controllers host so many workloads that they can no longer handle tasks efficiently. The result? Slow startup, slow UI, longer-running builds, and even outages that halt the build process.Downtime
Downtime, whether due to nonfunctional reasons or regular maintenance, can bring the software delivery lifecycle to a halt. No code is built, CI/CD pipelines stop, and delivery times are delayed.
Introducing CloudBees CI: The boost in Jenkins performance enterprises need
CloudBees CI is designed to tackle these challenges head-on. By introducing features such as workspace caching, pipeline explorer, build storm prevention, and high availability mode, we aim to reduce build times, speed up troubleshooting, enhance controller efficiency, and maximize uptime.
Faster Builds with Workspace Caching
Workspace caching is a smarter way to use containers. By reusing cached artifacts from previous builds, rather than re-downloading them fresh for each run, we can significantly speed up build times, providing faster feedback to developers and speeding up the overall software delivery process.
Learn more about CloudBees Workspace Caching:
Baseline your repo without Build Storms
This new build strategy prevents build storms (controller gridlock at startup) by establishing a repository baseline without causing any builds. This build strategy lets you take stock on creation and then trigger builds as normal without firing off all pipelines at once and creating a massive load on the controller.
Learn more about the CloudBees Build Strategies plugin:
Debugging at Scale with the CloudBees Pipeline Explorer
The CloudBees Pipeline Explorer is an innovative new tool for developers and admins tasked with maintaining pipelines. Instead of sifting through tens of thousands of lines of code to find problems, CloudBees Pipeline Explorer points users to the errors for quicker resolution, leading to less disruption and fewer escalations.
Learn more about CloudBees Pipeline Explorer:
High Performance at Scale with High Availability and Horizontal Scalability
CloudBees CI's high availability mode reduces or eliminates downtime for continuous pipeline operation, even in the face of unexpected failures. This mode also brings horizontal scalability, transforming overloaded monolithic controllers into reliable, stable controllers by enabling workload sharing among replicas.
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Conclusion
In today's fast-paced world of software delivery, performance and scalability are key. With the introduction of these new features in CloudBees CI, we're giving Jenkins the boost it needs to meet the heavy performance needs of enterprises. So, whether you're a developer, Jenkins admin, or CloudBees CI user, it's time to power up your performance with CloudBees CI.