Problem Statement Meeting with Dasher Team

Overview

Dasher Technology specializes in connecting data, applications, and devices across on-premise environments. To modernize their R&D efforts, the DevOps team led by Alice is migrating workloads to the cloud using Docker and Kubernetes. The initial focus is a Node.js application, with plans to extend these practices to Java and Python projects.

The image outlines a DevOps requirement for the Task Dash Team, featuring Dasher Technologies, a person named Alice, and Docker for containerization.

Current Workflow and Roadmap

Alice’s team currently lacks standardized version control and automated pipelines. Manual coding, testing, and deployments introduce delays and instability. To streamline delivery, they have identified these core objectives:

Version control and collaborative branching
Automated unit testing with code coverage
Container image building and registry publishing
Kubernetes-based deployments
Integration and end-to-end testing

The image outlines the DevOps requirements for a task dash team, including version control, code integration, collaboration, manual testing, and manual deployment, with an illustration of a person labeled "Alice."

Key Pipeline Steps

Adopt GitHub for source control and PR reviews
Execute unit tests and generate coverage reports
Build Docker containers and push to a registry
Deploy to Kubernetes clusters
Run automated integration tests

The image outlines the DevOps requirements for a team, highlighting tasks such as code integration, collaboration, manual testing, and deployment, alongside automated processes like unit testing, code coverage, building, pushing, deploying, and automated IT.

Evaluating CI/CD Platforms

A variety of CI/CD services exist. Below is a comparison of popular tools:

Tool	Type	Pros	Cons
Jenkins	Self-hosted	Highly extensible, large community	Requires VM provisioning and upkeep
Travis CI	Hosted	Simple YAML config	Limited concurrency on free tier
CircleCI	Hosted	Containerized workflows	Usage limits on open source projects
Bamboo	Self-hosted	Deep Atlassian integration	Commercial license
Spinnaker	Self-hosted/cloud	Multi-cloud deployment support	Steeper learning curve

The image lists DevOps tools with their logos: Jenkins, Travis CI, Circle CI, Atlassian Bamboo, and Spinnaker.

Why Jenkins Becomes Complex

Choosing Jenkins adds operational overhead:

VM or dedicated server setup with proper CPU, memory, and storage
Java JDK installation, firewall rules, and plugin management
Multiple Node.js versions for cross-environment testing
Docker Engine and Kubernetes CLI (kubectl, Helm)
Third-party CLIs for security scanning and reporting

Warning

Manual configuration scales poorly as you add Java, Python, and cloud-specific CLIs (AWS, Azure).

The image lists traditional CI/CD tools and their challenges, featuring logos for Java, Maven, Python, Azure, AWS CLI, Trivy, and Kubesec.

Incorporating DevSecOps

For a robust DevSecOps practice, tools like Trivy and KubeSec must be integrated. Onboarding these introduces even more setup tasks:

Static analysis and vulnerability scanning
Policy enforcement in Kubernetes manifests
Reporting and alerting mechanisms

Alice needed a solution that eliminates infrastructure management yet delivers full CI/CD and security capabilities.

Adopting GitHub Actions

GitHub Actions offers built-in workflows and hosted runners, reducing setup time and complexity:

No VM provisioning—use GitHub-hosted or self-hosted runners
Pre-installed tools for Node.js, Docker, Kubernetes, and common CLIs
Native integration with GitHub repositories and pull request workflows
Marketplace actions for testing, security scans, and deployments

Note

See GitHub Actions documentation for a full list of supported runners and actions.

The image is a slide titled "Traditional CI/CD Tools – Challenges" featuring an icon representing GitHub Actions.

Next Steps

In the following sections, we will build GitHub Actions workflows for our Node.js application, covering:

Source code checkout and branch strategies
Automated testing with Jest and coverage publishing
Docker build, tagging, and registry push
Kubernetes deployment with Helm charts
Integration tests and security scans

Stay tuned for a hands-on implementation guide using GitHub Actions.

References

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