Agile Software Development with Electric Cloud

Solving Agile Development and Continuous Integration Challenges

The best indicator of software development success is working code. This is an idea that extends beyond specific Agile software development methods — more and more teams, from ISVs to enterprise IT teams, are recognizing the benefits of integrating early and often. But tool and process improvements in the build and release cycle are absolutely critical to realizing that goal.

To a build manager or team lead, the words 'multiple integrations per day' and 'Continuous Integration' mean a radical change from once-nightly (or even less frequent) build and test cycles. Adopting Continuous Integration or other agile build and test techniques require fast, highly automated builds and tests and integration between source control and the build system.

Further, Continuous Integration can actually slow development and hurt quality in an enterprise environment by introducing frequently broken builds. So providing developers with the ability to build and test on production-class machines (not just their local system) before checking in code, so-called preflight builds and tests, is essential.

Agile Development  Challenge				Impact				Electric Cloud Solution
Builds require manual intervention				Integrating often will overwhelm a manual build process				Automate build and release processes Integrate with existing SCM tools to enable Continuous Integration
Slow build cycle (whether long individual builds or a large number of build targets)				Long builds limit the number of iterations possible in a day Builds longer than ~30 minutes rule out Continuous Integration				Run jobs or individual steps in parallel across multiple servers to speed builds as much as 20x
Developers introducing errors during integration or production builds				If developers can't do preflight builds and tests on all targets/platforms prior to check-in, Continuous Integration can turn into Continuously Broken Builds				Provide shared, secure access to production-class build and release resources from anywhere Use ElectricCommander to run push-button preflight builds and tests, even without leaving the IDE

There are ways to develop some build automation capabilities on your own, but most homegrown approaches are inherently brittle and require ongoing maintenance.

Read about how BioWare, a studio of Electronic Arts, used ElectricCommander and ElectricAccelerator to implement preflight builds and tests in support of Continuous Integration. Or view a demonstration of ElectricCommander and Perforce executing a seamless Continuous Integration process.