In the realm of cloud-native development, Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) stand out as crucial practices for achieving speed and efficiency in software delivery. As we progress with our Amazon EKS microservices architecture, the need for automating the build, test, and deployment processes becomes apparent. This article, the sixth in our series, focuses on integrating CI/CD tools such as Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or GitLab CI into our workflow to streamline the deployment of our microservices on Kubernetes.

Why CI/CD for Kubernetes?

CI/CD pipelines automate the steps required to push code changes from source control to production. For Kubernetes, this means automatically building Docker images, running tests, and deploying containers to a cluster, all triggered by code commits. This automation not only accelerates deployment cycles but also minimizes the risk of human error, ensuring that applications are always in a deployable state.

Integrating CI/CD with EKS

Choosing a CI/CD Tool

  • Jenkins: A self-hosted automation server that offers a wealth of plugins to support building and testing virtually any project. Jenkins’ Kubernetes plugin simplifies deploying to EKS.
  • GitHub Actions: A CI/CD feature integrated into GitHub, allowing you to automate your workflow directly from your repository.
  • GitLab CI: Integrated into GitLab, it provides a well-documented CI/CD pipeline configuration and extensive Kubernetes integration.

For this guide, we’ll focus on GitHub Actions due to its seamless integration with GitHub repositories.

Step 1: Setting Up GitHub Actions for a Microservice

  1. Create a Workflow: In your microservice’s GitHub repository, create a .github/workflows/deployment.yaml file. This file will define your CI/CD pipeline.

  2. Define the Workflow: Populate deployment.yaml with the steps required for CI/CD. A basic pipeline might include steps for checking out the code, building a Docker image, pushing it to a registry, and deploying to Kubernetes.

name: Deploy to EKS

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2
    - name: Build Docker image
      run: docker build . --tag my-registry/my-app:$
    - name: Push to Docker Registry
      run: |
        echo "$" | docker login my-registry.com --username $ --password-stdin
        docker push my-registry/my-app:$
    - name: Deploy to Kubernetes
      uses: azure/k8s-deploy@v1
      with:
        manifests: |
          k8s/deployment.yaml
          k8s/service.yaml
        images: |
          my-registry/my-app:$
        kubeconfig: $
  1. Configure Secrets: In your repository’s settings, add secrets for DOCKER_USERNAME, DOCKER_PASSWORD, and KUBECONFIG. These will securely store your Docker credentials and Kubernetes configuration.

Step 2: Automating Deployments

With the workflow defined, any push to the main branch will trigger the CI/CD pipeline, automating the build, push, and deployment processes.

Conclusion

By integrating CI/CD pipelines with our EKS cluster, we’ve streamlined the deployment process for our microservices, ensuring rapid, reliable software delivery. This automation not only accelerates development cycles but also enhances the overall quality and reliability of our applications.

Gotchas and Tips

  • Security Best Practices: Always use secrets for sensitive information and review access permissions regularly.
  • Pipeline Optimization: Optimize your CI/CD pipelines to reduce build times and resource consumption.
  • Monitoring and Alerts: Implement monitoring for your CI/CD processes to quickly identify and address failures or bottlenecks.

Embracing CI/CD practices and tools empowers teams to deliver high-quality software at a faster pace, aligning with the agile and dynamic nature of cloud-native development. As we continue to explore and implement advanced practices and tools in our cloud-native journey, the automation and efficiencies introduced by CI/CD are foundational to our success.