Abstract
Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Development (CD) are common techniques in software development. Continuous Integration is the practice of bringing together code from multiple developers into a single repository, while Continuous Development is the process by which new releases are automatically created and tested. CI/CD pipelines are available in popular automation tools such as GitLab, and act to enhance and accelerate the software development process. Continuous Deployment, in which automation is employed to push new software releases into the production environment, follows naturally from CI/CD, but is not as well established due to business and legal requirements. Such requirements do not exist in the Worldwide LHC Compute Gird (WLCG), making the use of continuous deployment to simplify the management of grid resources an attractive proposition. We have developed work presented previously on containerised worker node environments by introducing continuous deployment techniques and tooling, and show how these, in conjunction with CI/CD, can reduce the management burden at a WLCG Tier-2 resource. In particular, benefits include reduced downtime as a result of code changes and middleware updates.
Highlights
As budgets within the Worldwide LHC Compute Grid (WLCG) become more constrained due to a flat-cash funding environment sites are being forced to operate with reduced or limited manpower
As automated attacks on computational resources increase, System Administrators frequently have to upgrade and patch systems quickly sacrificing availability for safety. An alternative to this approach is to leverage the industry standard use of containers and couple this with the use of modern Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Development (CD) techniques commonly found in the software development lifecycle
Continuous Integration is the practice of bringing together code from multiple developers into a single repository, while Continuous Development is the process by which new releases are automatically created and tested
Summary
As budgets within the Worldwide LHC Compute Grid (WLCG) become more constrained due to a flat-cash funding environment sites are being forced to operate with reduced or limited manpower. As automated attacks on computational resources increase, System Administrators frequently have to upgrade and patch systems quickly sacrificing availability for safety An alternative to this approach is to leverage the industry standard use of containers and couple this with the use of modern Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Development (CD) techniques commonly found in the software development lifecycle. Continuous Deployment, in which automation is employed to push new software releases into the production environment, follows naturally from CI/CD, but is not as well established in industry due to business requirements where features are released on a fixed, controlled schedule to customers, or legal requirements where software releases may need to be verified or audited (potentially by a third party) for security compliance before release Such requirements do not exist in the WLCG, making the use of continuous deployment to simplify the management of grid resources an attractive proposition. We have developed work presented previously [1] on containerised worker node environments by introducing continuous deployment techniques and tooling, and show how these, in conjunction with CI/CD, can reduce the management burden at a WLCG Tier-2 resource
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