Continuous Integration (CI), Delivery, and Deployment tackle two problems that we traditionally leave until the end of our software life cycle: integration of code and strategies for deployment.

We've learned that doing something in large chunks, is very risky, especially in a complex software environment. Waiting until the end of your software development process to work out how to combine different parts of the system and deploy them leaves a critical feedback loop open for too long.

Work done during the integration and deployment phase will often include changes to how our software is built. Leaving it until the last moment to receive this feedback will either be costly or will mean it's ignored.

Modern software teams know that the work isn't done until it's delivered to our customer, which for most means it's deployed and operational in our production environment.

They will often look to automate the tools they use to integrate and deploy; after all, it is something they are going to be doing very regularly, so it makes sense to invest time in it. Our Development Team will take on more care and responsibility in the management of our production environments because they know this will allow them to deliver smoothly and quickly. 

It's at this point that the lines begin to blur between what was traditionally seen as development and operations. As we move further towards cloud computing, our infrastructure will become increasingly automated, hence the term infrastructure as code. This is the rise of the DevOps culture, as we begin to see the cross-pollination of skillsets with a mix of development and operations happening across our teams.

In this section, we'll explain what CI, Delivery, and Deployment are and we'll look at the benefits they bring.