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Can we use Jenkins for that?

engineering.simondata.com

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Re: Can we use Jenkins for that?

#22
At my previous employer I used Jenkins with build matrices quite heavily. Lately I've been using TeamCity and we're paying for the enterprise variant. TeamCity has its share of flaws but FWIW it seems to handle more complex workflow tasks better.

In particular I like the flexibility around snapshot versus artifact dependencies, the APIs are decent (and you can do a lot of troublingly clever things if you invoke the API from within a build), and the metarunner concept seems strictly more powerful than the Jenkins equivalents, albeit with a somewhat steeper learning curve.

Re: Can we use Jenkins for that?

#23
post #7

Does anyone consider Jenkins as a replacement to CRON?

We use it to run a bunch of periodic report-building tasks. Compute internal metrics, archive support tickets, that sort of things. Compared to plain cron, we get proper tracking and history of the runs that failed, and a web UI to access the results (generated reports, for us).

I wouldn't use it for production-sensitive crons, but for administrative stuff, it works fine.

Re: Can we use Jenkins for that?

#24
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with all this. Unfortunately I haven't found anything less bad :(

At work we use Jenkins Job Builder http://docs.openstack.org/infra/jenkins-job-builder/#content... to maintain jobs using JSON or YAML files. As a result we rarely have to deal with the Jenkins web UI and that's alright :)

Jenkins Job Builder is, IME, the only way to keep complex Jenkins configs sane. Did you know that Jenkins is constantly rewriting its own XML config? We've had Jenkins itself corrupt its own config (with some combination of active plugins).

Keeping your configs in YAML in source control is such a win. Not a fan of Jenkins, BTW.

Re: Can we use Jenkins for that?

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with all this. Unfortunately I haven't found anything less bad :(

Jenkins + the Job DSL Plugin [0] has been amazing. We don't do any configuration in the web interface, instead everything lives in a groovy file on BitBucket. Every time we push a change Jenkins grabs it and auto runs the groovy file, regenerating all of our jobs. We have it set up so that a job is created for every branch in our repo, so much easier to work with. All a developer has to do to get his branch building…

We do similar thing but with workflow plugins.

Re: Can we use Jenkins for that?

#26
This article feels like it's from years ago. Using Jenkins today is an anachronism - poor UI, poor configuration, poor scalability, poor distribution. My current employer has poured so much well intentioned effort into Jenkins' black hole. Never again.

Re: Can we use Jenkins for that?

#27
post #26

This article feels like it's from years ago. Using Jenkins today is an anachronism - poor UI, poor configuration, poor scalability, poor distribution. My current employer has poured so much well intentioned effort into Jenkins' black hole. Never again.

What are you going to use instead?

Re: Can we use Jenkins for that?

#28
post #26

This article feels like it's from years ago. Using Jenkins today is an anachronism - poor UI, poor configuration, poor scalability, poor distribution. My current employer has poured so much well intentioned effort into Jenkins' black hole. Never again.

What are you going to use instead?

Migrating to Travis and a SWF-based solution, all driven by versioned configuration and code.

Re: Can we use Jenkins for that?

#29
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At work we use Jenkins Job Builder http://docs.openstack.org/infra/jenkins-job-builder/#content... to maintain jobs using JSON or YAML files. As a result we rarely have to deal with the Jenkins web UI and that's alright :)

Jenkins Job Builder is, IME, the only way to keep complex Jenkins configs sane. Did you know that Jenkins is constantly rewriting its own XML config? We've had Jenkins itself corrupt its own config (with some combination of active plugins). Keeping your configs in YAML in source control is such a win. Not a fan of Jenkins, BTW.

Every time I install Jenkins, I install the thinBackup plugin. Losing your configuration is way too common, but it's easy to restore.

Re: Can we use Jenkins for that?

#30
post #4

Eh, I'm sure there are many things Jenkins is OK at, but it's not that great of build server. The Multi-Configuration Project abstraction (IE build matrices) is clunky and the plugin ecosystem doesn't respect it well (eg. the Gerrit plugin is extremely popular but very brittle here). So you wind up with O(n) projects anyway and still needing to copy and paste configuration among them. Also Jenkins configuration itsel…

I agree with all this. Unfortunately I haven't found anything less bad :(

Using Job DSL + Jenkins Job Builder here, trying to move as much stuff off Jenkins as possible.
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