Quality has been always the mantra of software development but, most of the time, it has traditionally translated into many recursive semi-automatic processes that manage to bring the software to the right level of quality (typically towards the end of the project).
In the last 5 years, a step change in software development has flipped the approach to Software Quality on its head through use of Continuous Integration principles. By investing into a set of automation tools & frameworks a “Build Pipeline” is established that becomes one of the most important assets for Software Delivery.
From a process perspective, managing the quality in software development can be seen as a feedback-loop system, where the quality is automatically validated and the feedbacks represents the fixes input back into the system. It is, on a larger scale, a repeatable, reliable and incrementally improving process that brings benefits during the entire product lifecycle.
The evolution of the feedback-loop view is now called a Build Pipeline: it represents the break-down of software delivery process into steps and the verification of the quality at the end of each step.
The pipeline implements the automation of a wide set of quality gates that, at any time during the development process provide feedback to the team. The pipeline represents the core element of modern software strategies (i.e. Continuous Delivery) whose key elements are frequency, automation and cost effectiveness.
We are adopting the Continuous Build Pipeline approach for our complex SAP Hybris Implementations to bring about a new approach to quality and in addition an important asset for our customers to manage SAP Hybris platform implementation thereafter.
In Portaltech Reply we have established our own SAP Hybris Build Pipeline (hBP) that uses best-of-breed software and combines them in a unique and powerful solution that can be tuned and customised based on project’s needs.
Our Pipeline implements all the following features:
The concept of “Failing Fast” allows for each step of the build to fail as early as possible if the defined quality criteria has not been met, thus enabling the Software Development team to take immediate action to address the issue there and then.
Portaltech Reply has already seen significant benefits of such an approach for its major client engagements such as: