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Jenkins X: a CI/CD solution for cloud applications on Kubernetes

jenkins.io

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Re: Jenkins X: a CI/CD solution for cloud applications on Kubernetes

#41

Post by dominotw »

jstrachan wrote: post #24
fredsted wrote: post #15

So we already have a very custom Jenkins setup that builds containers, runs tests and creates test environments out of our pull requests in a k8s namespace. This seems to come with so many things that we already have. We have a few issues with it, like Jenkins suddenly deciding to build & test all branches/PRs in all repos, killing the server. • What is Jenkins X exactly, and how does it relate to Jenkins? Is it just…

The things you gain from switching to Jenkins X: * automated CI/CD for your kubernetes based applications using Helm Charts & GitOps to manage promotions (manual or automated) * a single command to create a kubernetes cluster, install Jenkins X and all the associated software all configured for you OOTB (including Jenkins, Nexus, Monocular etc): http://jenkins-x.io/getting-started/create-cluster/ - ditto for upgradin…

Not sure if you answered this already but I still have GP's question unanswered in my head

> What is Jenkins X exactly, and how does it relate to Jenkins? Is it just a CLI utility that generates git repos, k8s clusters and Jenkinsfiles for us? Is it a fork of Jenkins?

This seems like the best resource on what exactly this is https://github.com/jenkinsci/jep/tree/master/jep/400

So looks like its just a CLI tool that generates bunch of stuff for kubernetes and jenkins. Is that right?

Re: Jenkins X: a CI/CD solution for cloud applications on Kubernetes

#42

Post by C4stor »

Interesting annoucement, I'd like it better if there was a clear comparison between the current possibilities offered by Jenkins 2.0 and this version of Jenkins.

I'm not huge fan of the demo video, since it doesn't really handle what I can only imagine is a very common use case : I already have a Jenkins 2.0 instance with Jenkinsfiles, how easy would it be to migrate to Jenkins X ? Is it isofunctional with added capabilities ? How much will I lose ?

Bootstrapping a java spring app from scratch is fun, but I suspect most people have an already existing codebase with already existing CI/CD tools.

Re: Jenkins X: a CI/CD solution for cloud applications on Kubernetes

#43

Post by jstrachan »

adam-_- wrote: post #31

Presumedly this is only of interest for those running Kubernetes?

Btw I’m the author of the above blog post & committer on Jenkins X.

So our focus is currently anyone looking to automate CI/CD on kubernetes, the cloud or any modern platform like OpenShift, Mesos or CloudFoundry which all come with kubernetes support baked in.

You can use just the CI part and do CI & releasing of non-cloud native apps if you want - we use Jenkins X to release jars, plugins & docker images using it - but doing so does miss out all the benefits of automated Continuous Delivery & GitOps promotion across environments

Re: Jenkins X: a CI/CD solution for cloud applications on Kubernetes

#44

Post by sammm »

kosta_self wrote: post #22

Does anyone have Jenkins in production and found it to be reliable and pleasant to use? I had to do lots of Jenkins integrations some time ago, and even though I tried to minimize the number of plugins and make things as simple as possible, things would randomly break from time to time or exhibit weird behaviour etc. I had the impression that Jenkins is deeply conceptually confused about some of its concepts, e.g. ho…

I actually think Jenkins is way too flexible for most use cases. We moved to GitLab CI which isn't perfect, but it provides safety rails/structure/opinions that pretty much provides an answer for everything you want to do, apart from maybe obscure corner cases that might not make sense for a CI/CD tool anyways.

Also you get the close integration of your CI tool and your git repos, which is very nice from a visibility point of view.

Having said that, GitLab is trying to own all parts of the build and deployment process, which from previous HN discussions, is of great annoyance to a lot of people who want to cherry pick what they use GitLab for.

Re: Jenkins X: a CI/CD solution for cloud applications on Kubernetes

#45

Post by jstrachan »

Rotareti wrote: post #40
jstrachan wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The things you gain from switching to Jenkins X: * automated CI/CD for your kubernetes based applications using Helm Charts & GitOps to manage promotions (manual or automated) * a single command to create a kubernetes cluster, install Jenkins X and all the associated software all configured for you OOTB (including Jenkins, Nexus, Monocular etc): http://jenkins-x.io/getting-started/create-cluster/ - ditto for upgradin…

Does this work on DigitalOcean as well?

It should do - in theory - it needs testing though ;).

I notice that kops recently added support for Digital Ocean https://github.com/kubernetes/kops/blob/master/docs/tutorial...

So we should be able to add a command `jx create cluster do` for using kops on DO - the current `jx create cluster aws` uses kops under the covers to spin up the kubernetes cluster.

I’ve raised this issue to track it: https://github.com/jenkins-x/jx/issues/705

Re: Jenkins X: a CI/CD solution for cloud applications on Kubernetes

#46

Post by jstrachan »

kosta_self wrote: post #22

Does anyone have Jenkins in production and found it to be reliable and pleasant to use? I had to do lots of Jenkins integrations some time ago, and even though I tried to minimize the number of plugins and make things as simple as possible, things would randomly break from time to time or exhibit weird behaviour etc. I had the impression that Jenkins is deeply conceptually confused about some of its concepts, e.g. ho…

Thanks for your feedback. We are trying to make things simpler with Jenkins X by using best of breed tools (git providers, issue trackers, cloud services, service meshes, security & code quality tools etc) with best of breed OSS tools like kubernetes, helm & skaffold to automate CI/CD on the cloud & kubernetes.

One of the big changes to traditional Jenkins is we don’t expect folks to have to configure Jenkins, add/remove/edit plugins or even write Dockerfiles or Jenkinsfiles.

If you really wanna do that Jenkins X won’t stop you - but we are trying to help automate and simplify CI/CD through standard tools, standard file formats (Dockerfile, Jenkinsfile, skaffold, helm etc).

Is the cloud, kubernetes, docker, helm & istio complex? Sure - but our goal is to simplify, automate & avoid folks having to look at all that detail.

It’s still early days and a challenge. Eg even Lambda & the AWS API Gateways is complex. But we hope to keep improving to make things easier to use & to help folks go faster by providing automated CI/CD as a service on any kubernetes cluster / cloud

Re: Jenkins X: a CI/CD solution for cloud applications on Kubernetes

#47

Post by cfontes »

moritzplassnig wrote: post #38
cfontes wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you I did not know about that. Last time I checked with the sales guy it was not going to happen. I hope they improve their ways, it's a nice tool and I invested a lot of my time into it, but right now GoCD is my default option from now on.

If you have more feedback, I'm happy to connect with one of the PMs or somebody from the Jenkins OSS team. I'm the founder/CEO of Codeship and we got acquired by CloudBees earlier this year. And I want to make sure that Jenkins + all CloudBees products get better :)

I did not know about it, I actually own and use a couple t-shirts from you guys, Codeship is very nice! Congratulations to all of you!

Last year I was in contact with the Jenkins team and had a couple of meetings to discuss the things mentioned above and some more.

The developers where very nice and interested, I know they were doing their best but the problem was my problems where not top priority, and I saw some problems solved over the months but I completely lost my will to help when blue ocean started and Stage view was abandoned, the super dick move of restarting stages as well.

It was not a small deployment mind you, the system was a critical one (payments) with multiple sites and all the works, not a small license as well, I left that company but before leaving we were already migrating away.

We had a complete pipeline dependent on it, we were an early adopter of the whole JenkinsFile (A developer myself I pushed hard for it) and stage view even without being awesome was already part of our way of working. We wanted more features that I was already discussing and bugs fixed, out of the blue they change to a completely different thing that was pretty but didn't solve any of my old problems, and that will have it's own problems and was/is not even close to complete.

I just feel I wasted my time, I don't plan to make that mistake again.

But I hope Jenkins X can improve on the past mistakes and become a contender again.

Re: Jenkins X: a CI/CD solution for cloud applications on Kubernetes

#48

Post by moritzplassnig »

cfontes wrote: post #47
moritzplassnig wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have more feedback, I'm happy to connect with one of the PMs or somebody from the Jenkins OSS team. I'm the founder/CEO of Codeship and we got acquired by CloudBees earlier this year. And I want to make sure that Jenkins + all CloudBees products get better :)

I did not know about it, I actually own and use a couple t-shirts from you guys, Codeship is very nice! Congratulations to all of you! Last year I was in contact with the Jenkins team and had a couple of meetings to discuss the things mentioned above and some more. The developers where very nice and interested, I know they were doing their best but the problem was my problems where not top priority, and I saw some pr…

Thank you :)

Sorry to hear about those issues. I shared your feedback with a couple of people, and we will work hard on being more mindful when making such changes going forward.

Re: Jenkins X: a CI/CD solution for cloud applications on Kubernetes

#49

Post by jstrachan »

C4stor wrote: post #42

Interesting annoucement, I'd like it better if there was a clear comparison between the current possibilities offered by Jenkins 2.0 and this version of Jenkins. I'm not huge fan of the demo video, since it doesn't really handle what I can only imagine is a very common use case : I already have a Jenkins 2.0 instance with Jenkinsfiles, how easy would it be to migrate to Jenkins X ? Is it isofunctional with added capa…

That’s a great point. This blog tries to compare Jenkins X versus Jenkins 2.0: https://dzone.com/articles/jenkins-x-the-good-bad-and-ugly

It’s mostly about automation of install, configuration, environments, pipelines & promotion with GitOps and more feedback.

Just out of interest what kind of demo would you like to see?

Re: Jenkins X: a CI/CD solution for cloud applications on Kubernetes

#50

Post by sytse »

zippie wrote: post #21

I find this solution compared to the gitlab Auto Devops, frankly, underwhelming. We recently deployed AD in our self hosted gitlab instance and combined the SAST container checks with our production policies, it’s been rock solid. Add to this the fact we are able to manage all the production policies via the pipeline API’s and AD templates, the whole Jenkinsfiles deal seems far less scalable and difficult. I have no…

Thanks for using GitLab. If people want to see some raw footage of me using Auto DevOps with Spring after linking it to a Kubernetes cluster please see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D5TwMo-IIw We're considering renaming Auto DevOps to GitOps. What do people think?
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