Is Spinnaker the Right Tool for You?
Introduction:
Our experts at OpsMx are always in a relentless pursuit to bring to you valuable information through trans-media channels that can help you make better decisions when it comes to deciding on tools for delivering the software quickly, frequently, and securely. There are many CD tools in the market, but in this blog, we will detail why Spinnaker is the best tool among the lot for achieving the transformation in your software delivery. On-demand video – Continuous Delivery: How to find the right tool?
Background of Spinnaker:
Spinnaker is a free, open-source, and scalable CD solution for multi-cloud deployments. Currently, it is a CD Foundation Project and heavily contributed by Google, Netflix, Microsoft, AWS, OpsMx, etc. Spinnaker is a battle-tested tool to achieve modernize software delivery and is used extensively by Fortune 500 companies like Cisco, Standard Chattered, Salesforce, SAP, etc. Read more on What is Spinnaker.
Context:
For organizations dealing with the software release, they must be very well acquainted with the bottlenecks that crop up when delivering the software to the clients through the traditional methodologies. The process may seem very onerous, tiresome, stressful, and even time-consuming for both parties.
Software Delivery Process
Going by the above diagram, it is self-explanatory that software delivery is not without its challenges. There might be operational hiccups at every point of advancement from one stage to another stage. Right from the code commit stage to the deployment in the production stage, the path is laden with challenges.
For e.g., the manual way of deploying software can prove to be a back burner for organizations that want to tremendously improve their efficiency when it comes to their quality and velocity of delivery. Or, the problems of software delivery can be exacerbated when you want to deploy into multiple targets, in multiple regions. Using scripts will not be enough.
You want a mechanism that can facilitate the versatile deployment of software, because the client’s needs may vary, so should be your pace of innovation.
Another challenge is detecting errors late. You see error detection at the end of the software cycle can prove to be very costly. Sometimes, it might be too late, and you may have to face the music from the clients. In the age of automation that we live in today, it is still astonishing that most companies are still stuck with manual testing and verification, which by no means can guarantee the optimal quality of software delivery.
Some of the key business drivers that are fueling the need for frequent and faster application delivery in every organization are:
- Increasing competition
- Customers Demand innovation
- Valuing time
- Delivery to multiple targets
- Limiting the need for tribal knowledge
It is noteworthy that the high ceremony releases may need not be the norm. Streamlining the entire process is not just a fantasy anymore but a definite possibility with CD products like Spinnaker.
With Spinnaker, you can achieve continuous delivery, which means, it is possible to eliminate dependencies, minimize deployment errors, accelerate the speed of software delivery, increase collaboration between the teams, eliminate silos and yes, automate the entire software delivery process.
Let us have a pictorial look at important features that Spinnaker offers:
Spinnaker Features
Multicloud deployment: One of the foremost and outstanding features of Spinnaker is that it comes with a multi-cloud deployment feature. Just at the push of a button, you can deploy the software in any target environment; be it AWS, GCP, Azure, Kubernetes, or Oracle Cloud. Great, isn’t it?
Automated Pipelines: With Spinnaker, it is completely possible to automate the CI/ CD pipeline that is flexible and reliable. You will also see that the automated delivery pipeline is highly predictable, which means as you increase the frequency, it gives you the same good result based on your inputs.
Pipeline as a Code: Whether it be Infrastructure as a Code, Account as a Code, or any other scripts or instructions, it is entirely possible to encode it and do configurations of the workflows of the pipeline. Using Spinnaker you would realize how much of the effort can be saved when all it takes is a few lines of code to define your workflow or delivery pipeline.
Deployment strategies: Spinnaker comes with in-built deployment strategies that can act as a compass for implementing the software without any risk. Whether you want to release the software to a small set of users through canary testing or if you want to run red/black or blue/green testing experiments to validate the software you have built, Spinnaker makes it possible.
Automated Canary analysis: You see that the automated results of the canary analysis that Spinnaker aids in generating will help the developers, testers, and managers to know as to whether their efforts have been directed in the ideal path or not.
Flexibility and extensibility: The Spinnaker is hugely scalable regardless of the size of the organization. Being a versatile automation continuous delivery tool, it comes with features whereby you can have plug-ins and can extend its functionalities based on your requirements.
Now let us show you how the Spinnaker works. Please refer to the below diagram.
How Spinnaker Does Continuous Delivery
You can see in the above diagram that the Spinnaker plays a pivotal role in your CI/CD using its pipeline. Once a code is committed, Spinnaker coordinates with CI tools such as Jenkins for build, coordiantes with testing and security tools like Selenium and SonarQube, and ultimately deploying the software in a multi-cloud environment as per the requirement of the clients.
Below mentioned items highlight the capabilities of Spinnaker which perhaps will fit all the criteria you would be considering while evaluating a CD tool.
List of Spinnaker Capabilities
For more, we have an on-demand webinar that demonstrates all the capabilities of Spinnaker presented by Robert Boule, Head of Solutions Engineering at OpsMx.
You might like a few blogs below which will provide a comparative analysis between Spinnaker and other tools and will aid you in your evaluation in a better way
Our experts at OpsMx are always willing to help you if you want to have deep-dive discussions on continuous delivery with us. All you have to do is just fill in the form with your details and one of our experts will get back to you at the earliest.
If you want to know more about OpsMx Enterprise for Spinnaker or request a demonstration, please book a meeting with us.
OpsMx is a leading provider of Continuous Delivery solutions that help enterprises safely deliver software at scale and without any human intervention. We help engineering teams take the risk and manual effort out of releasing innovations at the speed of modern business. For additional information, contact us
