Best practices for CI/CD migration: The GitHub Enterprise example

Steady Integration/Steady Supply (CI/CD) software program – which means options that groups use to construct, take a look at and deploy purposes – has come a good distance over the previous decade. Whereas organizations as soon as cobbled collectively CI/CD pipelines utilizing disparate open supply instruments, they now have a plethora of end-to-end, vendor-supported enterprise CI/CD platforms that they’ll use as an alternative. As a result of these options provide every part groups must ship software program, they’re easier to deploy and handle.

But, whereas there are clear advantages to adopting an enterprise CI/CD platform, migrating to at least one may be troublesome. It poses plenty of challenges, corresponding to the danger of CI/CD pipeline downtime and safety and compliance challenges.

That’s why companies migrating to newer CI/CD options ought to method the method with an in depth, step-by-step plan. Right here’s a have a look at the challenges to navigate, together with recommendations on easy methods to make CI/CD migration as easy as attainable.

To floor the dialogue, I’ll deal with migrating to GitHub Enterprise, a CI/CD platform from GitHub, the software program growth platform now owned by Microsoft. GitHub Enterprise is the choice that I’m seeing increasingly more companies select in my work serving to firms to modernize their IT and software program supply practices.

Challenges to GitHub Enterprise migration

As a complete CI/CD platform that’s accessible as a completely hosted answer, GitHub Enterprise is comparatively straightforward to make use of when you’ve migrated to it. The problem, although, is getting your code into the platform, together with making the method adjustments crucial to start utilizing the answer instead of a legacy CI/CD suite.

Specifically, anticipate to face challenges that embody:

• Software supply delays: A drawn-out, time-consuming migration course of interprets to downtime for CI/CD operations – which implies that your builders gained’t have the ability to push out utility updates. This could finally hurt the enterprise as a result of customers aren’t receiving function enhancements whereas your CI/CD pipelines are in transition.
• Efficiency dangers: Failure to decide on the appropriate GitHub Enterprise deployment technique, and to configure the answer in an optimum manner, may decelerate CI/CD efficiency and cut back developer productiveness on account of points like inadequate infrastructure assets for constructing and testing purposes.
• Coaching necessities: Expert software program builders can sometimes be taught to make use of a brand new CI/CD platform simply sufficient, however there’s nonetheless an upskilling requirement. It’s vital to not overlook the necessity to present builders with time to be taught GitHub Enterprise (or whichever answer you’re migrating to).
• Safety and compliance: To mitigate dangers just like the injection of malicious code into your purposes, it’s essential to implement entry controls throughout the migration course of that forestall unauthorized customers from accessing the brand new CI/CD platform.

Greatest practices for a easy GitHub Enterprise migration

The excellent news is that with the appropriate method, migrating to GitHub Enterprise or the same CI/CD platform doesn’t must be risk-prone. The next finest practices might help to streamline the method.

1. Select the appropriate internet hosting choice

Like many CI/CD platforms, GitHub Enterprise is on the market in two fundamental kinds: A totally managed, cloud-based choice and a model that customers can set up and handle utilizing their very own infrastructure.

Usually, the totally managed answer tends to be the higher alternative as a result of it considerably reduces setup and upkeep effort on the a part of customers. Nonetheless, the self-hosted choice could also be higher for organizations that want higher management over their CI/CD atmosphere. This tends to be very true for companies in verticals like finance and insurance coverage, the place safety and compliance mandates could also be simpler to fulfill when the group runs CI/CD software program by itself infrastructure (and subsequently has higher management over how delicate knowledge is managed and secured).

2. Configured granular entry insurance policies

Like most trendy CI/CD suites, GitHub Enterprise gives entry management options that companies can use to find out who can do what inside CI/CD instruments. For instance, you may give some builders read-only entry to supply code, whereas permitting others to switch it. GitHub Enterprise additionally helps environment-based entry settings, which means you may configure totally different ranges of entry for a similar customers throughout dev/take a look at and manufacturing environments.

As a finest follow, make the most of these granular entry management choices by assigning totally different entry rights to every crew that makes use of your CI/CD platform. For instance, you may need an admin crew whose privileges prolong to altering the configuration of GitHub Enterprise, whereas one other crew that merely makes use of the platform has a lesser degree of entry.

3. Use OpenID Hook up with combine with cloud environments

GitHub Enterprise provides an identification administration choice that leverages OpenID Join (OIDC) to combine with third-party cloud environments.

Whenever you make the most of this function, you may robotically run workflows (like utility builds) on public cloud infrastructure with out having to retailer cloud entry credentials as long-lived GitHub secrets and techniques, which presents a considerable safety threat. As well as, this method robotically creates a log of GitHub workflows and motion executions, which you need to use for audit and monitoring functions. 

4. Leverage single sign-on

One other approach to streamline the migration into GitHub Enterprise is to combine the platform with whichever single sign-on (SSO) supplier (like Microsoft Entra or Energetic Listing) your small business already makes use of. Ideally, you’ll additionally allow multi-factor authentication (MFA) by way of your SSO answer so as to add one other layer of safety.

This method eliminates the necessity to handle GitHub Enterprise entry credentials individually out of your current accounts. It additionally reduces the burden positioned in your IT crew throughout the migration as a result of as an alternative of getting to “reinvent the wheel,” they’ll merely use a sign-on answer that already exists.

5. Doc frequent duties

To ease the educational curve for builders as they migrate to GitHub Enterprise, doc frequent duties – corresponding to easy methods to migrate code from native repositories or one other CI/CD platform into GitHub Enterprise.

That is one other tactic that eliminates the necessity to your crew to reinvent the wheel repeatedly; as an alternative of forcing every engineer to determine easy methods to migrate on their very own, everybody can observe a prescribed plan.

6. Publish workflow patterns

Going a step additional, think about as effectively publishing detailed steps on easy methods to use key options in GitHub Enterprise which might be prone to be vital for your whole groups. For instance, you may element easy methods to create pull requests or construct Docker photographs within the platform, or easy methods to execute Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) deployments.

Right here once more, this technique reduces the educational curve and helps get your crew up and operating on the brand new platform as shortly as attainable.

7. Automate frequent workflows utilizing GitHub Actions

Going even additional, you may create totally automated workflows for frequent duties utilizing GitHub Actions, a function that permits you to set off automated operations throughout numerous elements of your CI/CD pipeline. As an illustration, you may robotically set off an utility construct after code has been checked in, or robotically start testing after the construct is full.

Extremely advanced workflows which will differ between tasks or groups are usually not nice candidates for such a automation, however core routines may be totally automated, making it even simpler to your crew to start utilizing the brand new platform.