Things I used to do when I had a development environment, Part 1.
Deploy CloudFormation to development and check if it created what I expected.
Background
I have recently switched to a deploy to production from source control workflow for our startup Sensive. No development environment for the first time in my development career.
While it was scary to start I am seeing increasing benefits as I become more comfortable with this style of working.
What I do now.
Write tests around my infrastructure to confirm it will create what I expect.
How do I do it?
When you program in CDK you can write tests around your infrastructure to specify what you want created and run them as part of your CI pipeline.
This confirms that the stack will be commissioned as you expect and gives you increased confidence with the deploy to production pattern. It’s a real game-changer for me.
Benefits
- Faster development cycle.
- Increased understanding of what I am building — less trial and error.
- Increased understanding of the AWS ecosystem.
- Increased confidence in deploying to production.
Takeaway
- Think about the feedback loops you are creating by introducing manual checkpoints.
- Even if you can’t do directly deploy to production in your work environment have a project where you do to increase your comfort with the approach.
- Compare and contrast both techniques, document and as you gain confidence perhaps you will see opportunities to introduce this to your workplace and accelerate the time to getting features into your customers hands.
About me
An AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional with a passion for accelerating organisations through Cloud and DevOps best practices.
If you want to work together contact me over on brianfoody.com, on LinkedIn or Twitter for a chat.
