The Critical Role of Planning and Preparation in DevOps: How to Plan a CI/CD Project.

Planning It’s the first step in the CI/CD pipeline, and it’s crucial in order to succeed in your future project.

In most cases, planning is what determines whether a project will be easy or difficult, how long it will take, and how much it will cost.

Photo by Alvaro Reyes on Unsplash

I’m not talking about CI/CD projects only, but about anything you do in DevOps: new software installation, adding new features, version updates, etc.

I always remember a lesson that I learned when I was just starting my DevOps journey.

I needed to create some side projects on premise, a CI/CD pipeline for four GitHub repositories. I didn’t spend much time planning and started to install everything right away. It took me three weeks to set everything up. I had some compatibility issues, security issues, and resources issues.

Honestly speaking, 90% of the issues I faced were described in the documentation and release notes; however, because I didn’t prepare properly, I didn’t read them.

Three weeks later, there was an electrical accident at my house.

When the electricity returned, I found out that my computer had broken down and my project had disappeared with it (who needs backup?).

Everything, except the code on GitHub.

I didn’t have time to be anxious over it; I had to finish this project. So I had no choice and started from the beginning.

This time, it took me four days to set everything up.

Four days versus three weeks for the first time.

Why?

Because I knew exactly how to do that, I knew the limitations and compatibility of every software part in my setup.
I knew the amount of resources I would need, and I knew what kind of security issues I might face and how to solve them.

Remember when I told you that 90% of the issues I faced during the installation were described in the documentation and release notes?

This only means that if I had prepared properly, I would have known in advance what awaited me and how to solve it.

So if I had spent two to three days on the planning step, I probably would have finished this project in a few extra days rather than three weeks.

That’s the lesson I learned about the importance of planning.

Here are my 8 phases of CI/CD planning:

First, do research. 90% of what you plan to do, someone has already done before you and written about it. Spend a few hours on it.
Best practice is not just a slogan.

1. Requirements Gathering: This initial phase involves understanding the project requirements, goals, and constraints.
2. Tool Selection and Integration: Deciding on the right set of tools for version control, continuous integration, testing, deployment, and monitoring is crucial. This phase also includes integrating these tools to ensure they work seamlessly together. Check the hardware compatibility of each tool and how many resources you need.
   Do not overcomplicate here. The setup should be as simple as possible.
3. Designing the Pipeline Architecture: Here, you outline the workflow of the CI/CD pipeline. This includes defining the steps for code integration, testing, deployment, and feedback loops.
   Draw the desired pipeline and write a Confluence page about it in detail. I use draw.io for drawing.
4. Setting Up Development and Testing Environments: Establishing consistent development and testing environments is key. This ensures that code is developed and tested in a controlled, replicable setting.
5. Automation Strategies: In this phase, you plan out which processes in the pipeline can be automated, such as code commits, testing, or deployments. This reduces manual errors and improves efficiency.
   Automate everything you can.
6. Security and Compliance Planning: Integrating security practices and ensuring compliance with regulatory standards are planned in this stage. It includes setting up security scans, code analysis, and compliance checks within the pipeline.
7. Disaster Recovery and Rollback Planning: Preparing for potential failures is crucial. This includes having strategies for quick recovery, data backups, and rollback mechanisms in case of faulty deployments.
8. Monitoring and Feedback Integration: Finally, planning how to monitor the pipeline and integrate feedback mechanisms is important. Continuous monitoring helps in identifying issues early, and feedback loops allow for continuous improvement of the pipeline.

I hope this article was useful to you and will help you avoid future mistakes.

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