Continuous integration and deployment using CodePipeline

Posted on by Panther

Continuous Integration and Deployment using AWS CodePipeline

Continuous integration and deployment have become an integral part of modern software development. They allow for faster feedback, higher quality software, and quicker time to market. In this tutorial, we will be exploring AWS CodePipeline, a fully managed continuous integration and deployment service that automates the release process for your applications.

Prerequisites

Before we start, make sure you have the following prerequisites:

  • An AWS account
  • Basic knowledge of AWS services
  • Basic knowledge of Git

Overview

AWS CodePipeline is a fully managed continuous integration and delivery service that helps you automate your release pipelines for fast and reliable application and infrastructure updates. CodePipeline builds, tests, and deploys your code every time there is a code change, based on the release process models you define.

Here is an overview of the AWS CodePipeline process:

AWS CodePipeline Overview

Setting Up CodePipeline

To set up AWS CodePipeline, follow these steps:

  1. Open the CodePipeline console in your AWS account.
  2. Choose Create pipeline.
  3. Enter a pipeline name.
  4. Choose your source provider (GitHub, AWS CodeCommit, or Amazon S3).
  5. Choose your repository and branch if applicable.
  6. Select the appropriate provider and project if applicable.
  7. Choose the build provider (AWS CodeBuild or Jenkins).
  8. Configure the build settings if using AWS CodeBuild.
  9. Choose the deployment provider (AWS Elastic Beanstalk, AWS Lambda, AWS ECS, or AWS CloudFormation).
  10. Configure the deployment settings if applicable.
  11. Choose Create pipeline.

Creating a Sample Application

For this tutorial, we will set up a simple Node.js application as an example. You can use any application you want, but make sure to modify the CodeBuild configuration file and buildspec accordingly.

  1. Create a new directory for your application.
  2. In the new directory, create a package.json file and add the following code:
{
  "name": "my-node-app",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "A simple Node.js app",
  "main": "index.js",
  "dependencies": {
    "express": "^4.17.1"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "aws-sdk": "^2.862.0",
    "chai": "^4.2.0",
    "mocha": "^7.2.0",
    "sinon": "^9.0.2"
  }
}
  1. Create an index.js file and add the following code:
const express = require('express')
const app = express()

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.send('Hello World!')
})

app.listen(3000, () => {
  console.log('Example app listening on port 3000!')
})
  1. Create a test directory and create a test.js file. Add the following code:
const assert = require('chai').assert
const sinon = require('sinon')
const AWS = require('aws-sdk')

describe('Sample test', () => {
  it('should return true', () => {
    assert.equal(true, true)
  })
})
  1. Initialize a new Git repository in the directory.

Setting Up CodeBuild

Now that we have created a sample application and set up CodePipeline, we can configure CodeBuild to build and test the application.

  1. Open the CodeBuild console in your AWS account.
  2. Choose Create build project.
  3. Enter a project name.
  4. Choose Node.js for the environment image.
  5. Choose aws/codebuild/standard:4.0 for the Compute type.
  6. Configure the build settings:
  • Source provider: AWS CodePipeline
  • Environment variables: Add NODE_ENV=production as an environment variable.
  • Buildspec: Use the following code:
version: 0.2

phases:
  install:
    runtime-versions:
      nodejs: 12
    commands:
      - npm install
  build:
    commands:
      - npm run test
      - npm run build

artifacts:
  files:
    - '**/*'
  name: my-node-app

This configuration file installs the required dependencies, runs the tests, builds the application, and generates an artifact to be deployed.

  1. Choose Create build project.

Setting Up CodePipeline

Now that we have set up the application and CodeBuild, we can set up the pipeline to automate the process of building, testing, and deploying the application.

  1. Open the CodePipeline console in your AWS account.
  2. Choose Create pipeline.
  3. Enter a pipeline name.
  4. Choose GitHub for the source provider.
  5. Choose your repository and branch.
  6. Choose AWS CodeBuild for the build provider.
  7. Choose the CodeBuild project you created earlier.
  8. Choose AWS Elastic Beanstalk for the deployment provider.
  9. Configure the deployment settings:
  • Application name: Enter the name of the Elastic Beanstalk application.
  • Environment name: Enter the name of the Elastic Beanstalk environment.
  • Deployment options:
    • Deployment type: Choose in-place deployment.
    • Batch size: Choose 1.
    • Wait time: Choose 0.
  1. Choose Create pipeline.

Deploying the Application

Now that we have set up the pipeline, we can deploy the application.

  1. Commit and push the code changes to GitHub.
  2. Open the CodePipeline console in your AWS account.
  3. You should see your pipeline in the console with a status of InProgress.
  4. Wait for the pipeline to complete.
  5. Open the Elastic Beanstalk console in your AWS account.
  6. You should see the new version of the application in the environment.
  7. Test the application to make sure it is working as expected.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have explored AWS CodePipeline, a fully managed continuous integration and deployment service that automates the release process for your applications. We have created a sample Node.js application and set up CodeBuild and CodePipeline to automatically build, test, and deploy the application to Elastic Beanstalk. By automating the release process, we can ensure faster feedback, higher quality software, and quicker time to market.

Related Post