Case: Jenkins configuration automation
The client was using Jenkins for continous integration and delivery. The setup had grown organically with manual modifications for some years and fear of breakage hindered changing the configuration. We stepped in and converted all the Jenkins configurations to infrastructure code, in order to allow controlled changes to Jenkins without having to fear breaking it.
Main technologies
Jenkins
Puppet
Puppet
Benefits
Rapid configuration changes
Increased stability
Better visibility into changes
Increased stability
Better visibility into changes
1 Starting point
The client had a Jenkins environment that was in active use. However, it frequently broke due to Jenkins upgrades or unmanaged changes to Jenkins configuration. People responsible for Jenkins administration were afraid of making any changes to the system to avoid breaking it. This reduced the usefulness of Jenkins in general, as it could not be quickly adapted to new developer needs.
2 Project
We identified lack of change management and general unreliability of Jenkins as the root cause for the issues the client was having. We could not really affect the general unreliability, so we focused on defining all Jenkins configurations as code - a formidable task at the time. Once Jenkins configuration was defined as code we helped the client implement a proper peer review for all Jenkins changes.
3 End result
The resulting Jenkins setup was much less prone to breakages than the earlier one. Configuration changes were exposed to peer review and even when a bug managed to slip in, it could be rolled back easily. Moreover, new Jenkins instances could be spun up much easier than before.
"Puppeteers helped us resolve our Red Hat Enterprise Linux issue. I'm looking forward to upgrading and improving our clients' production environments and our development setups with their help."
Aarre Pohjola
A&A Consulting Oy, Finland
