On AWS, DevOps tools are designed to accelerate innovation by enabling developers to change, test, and push code in an automated fashion. This allows businesses to rapidly develop and deploy services and applications much faster than in a traditional software development environment.
AWS defines DevOps as, “the combination of cultural philosophies, practices, and tools that increases an organization’s ability to deliver applications and services at high velocity.” Especially for SaaS software companies, DevOps is one of the primary drivers for moving to the cloud in the first place. Accelerating product development can give software companies a competitive edge with faster time-to-market for products and features.
AWS DevOps Tools
While DevOps is not unique to AWS, AWS has multiple tools and best practices to make DevOps easier and more effective, especially when it comes to automation of application development and delivery. The core best practice is an approach to DevOps of “continuous integration and continuous delivery” (CI/CD). A CI/CD approach allows you to continually update applications and services to introduce new features, fix bugs, and respond to customer needs.
Software as a Service (SaaS) products have forever changed how businesses buy and use applications–internal and external. Gone are the days of shrink-wrapped DVDs. SaaS products are constantly available online with automatic updates and new releases. AWS DevOps code tools enable companies to create a CI/CD environment that gives developers complete control of their products allowing them to deploy new code to give end users the latest and greatest features.
CodeCommit: AWS CodeCommit is a source control system that allows companies to create their own Git code repositories, automating the management and security of source code without the need to create their own source code systems. CodeCommit is compatible with third-party Git tools.
CodeBuild: AWS CodeBuild eliminates the need to build your own servers to compile, test and deliver applications. CodeBuild can be used to run tests and to produce software packages that are ready to be deployed. It scales continuously and can even process multiple applications at the same time. You can use templated environments or customize environments to use your our code building tools.
CodeDeploy: AWS CodeDeploy can be used to automate code deployment to AWS instances–to one instance or to thousands of instances, and even to on-site servers. This vastly simplifies application updates throughout your AWS or hybrid infrastructure, eliminating the need for painstaking manual deployment.
CodePipeline: AWS CodePipeline can be used to build, test, and deploy code automatically, anytime there is a code change, based on criteria you define. It serves as a CI/CD service for fast and reliable application and infrastructure updates. You can deliver new features or versions faster and more reliably, and even create and test a complete solution using built-in or custom plugins for services like GitHub.
CodeStar: AWS’s newest code tool, CodeStar bundles the AWS code tools together into one easy to address workflow. CodeStar makes it easy to create new projects using templates that include selected programming languages that will provision the AWS services needed for the application. It also implements the appropriate IAM access policies to ensure a secure application environment. This allows you to automate the configuration of a continuous delivery pipeline for projects using AWS CodeCommit, AWS CodeBuild, AWS CodePipeline, and AWS CodeDeploy.
Cloud9: the newest developer tool announced at AWS re:Invent 2017, Cloud9 is an integrated development environment (IDE) that allows you to write, run and debug your code with just a browser. Cloud9 comes pre-packaged with essential tools for popular programming languages including JavaScript, Python, PHP, and more, so you don’t need to install files or configure your development machine to start new projects. Since your Cloud9 IDE is cloud-based, you can work on your projects from your office, home, or anywhere using an internet-connected machine. With Cloud9, you can quickly share your development environment with your team, allowing you to pair program and track each others’ inputs in real-time. Cloud9 integrates with CodeStar, allowing you to quickly setup an end-to-end continuous delivery toolchain for your application and start releasing code faster on AWS.
AWS DevOps tools make it possible to dramatically improve the speed, quality and usability of applications and services for internal and external users. Adopting a CI/CD approach and environment for application development, and using the AWS code tools makes it possible for businesses to rapidly and automatically innovate, change, test, and push code to build elastic and highly scalable applications.
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