Creating a Comprehensive CI/CD Solution with Tanzu Build Service, VMware Application Catalog, and Tanzu Mission Control-Continuous Delivery
Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery/Deployment(CI/CD) is a software development practice that has become essential for modern software development teams. It helps to automate the process of building, testing, and deploying software, which in turn helps to ensure that new code changes are integrated and deployed to production quickly and safely. In this blog post, we will discuss how VMware’s Tanzu Build service, VMware Application Catalog and Flux CD can be used to create a comprehensive CI/CD solution for your team.
Tanzu Build service is a powerful tool for building, packaging, and distributing containerized applications. It uses cloud-native build packs to automate the process of building and packaging applications, making it easy to create and manage container images. With the Tanzu Build service, developers can easily set up a build pipeline for their applications and configure it to run automatically every time changes are pushed to a source code repository. This ensures that every change is built, tested and packaged as a container image, ready for deployment.
One of the key benefits of Tanzu Build service is that it allows developers to build and package applications in a secure and efficient way. It provides a variety of security features to ensure that only the highest quality images are deployed to production. For example, Tanzu Build service can scan images for vulnerabilities and malware, and can also be configured to sign images with a digital signature. This helps to ensure that only images that have passed security checks are deployed to production.
Once the custom container images are ready which are built through TBS, developers can easily discover and deploy pre-built, containerized applications using VMware Application Catalog, usually utilized for well-known, generally available apps. The catalog provides a curated collection of applications that have been tested and verified for security and compatibility. Developers can use the catalog to quickly find and deploy the applications they need, without having to build them from scratch. This not only saves time, but also helps to ensure that applications are deployed in a consistent and secure way.
The final piece of the puzzle is Flux CD, a GitOps-based tool that automates the process of deploying and managing containerized applications on Kubernetes clusters. GitOps is an approach that uses git as a single source of truth for declarative infrastructure and applications. Flux CD watches for changes in the GitOps Repository, and automatically synchronizes them with the cluster, ensuring that the desired state of the cluster is always met. This declarative approach to managing the cluster makes it easy to roll out new features and updates without the need for manual intervention.
In summary, Tanzu Build service, VMware Application Catalog, and Flux CD provide a comprehensive CI/CD solution that streamlines the workflow for both developers and operations personnel. By utilizing these tools, teams can build, package, and distribute containerized applications, discover and deploy pre-built, containerized applications, and automate the process of deploying and managing containerized applications on Kubernetes clusters respectively. With this solution in place, teams can focus on delivering value to their customers, rather than worrying about the intricacies of the software development process. This approach also helps to ensure that applications are deployed in a consistent and secure way, which is especially important in today’s fast-paced and highly competitive software development landscape.
Work-Flow
Platform/Components utilized for this exercise:
- vSphere SDDC
- 3 — TKGm Clusters
- Harbor Container Registry
- Azure Container Registry
- VMware Application Catalog
- Tanzu Build Service
- Tanzu Mission Control
- 2 — Git Repositories (Code and GitOps)
- GitHub Actions — CI
- Jenkins — CD
- Octant as k8 UI (Optional)
CI/CD Workflow using TBS, VAC and TMC-CD:
The process of building and deploying a software application using CI/CD involves several steps. These include:
- Developers check in their code to the Dev Branch, which triggers a Github Actions workflow to execute automated tests to ensure the code quality and functionality.
- If the tests are successful, the Dev Branch is automatically merged with the Release Branch, ensuring that only high-quality code is deployed.
- The Release Branch is continuously monitored by Tanzu Build Service. On-Push - TBS clones the repository and uses cloud-native build packs to build the application and container image, and pushes it to Harbor, providing a secure and efficient way to manage the images.
- Once the new image is available in Harbor, it sends a webhook notification to Jenkins, which triggers a pipeline using a token, allowing for automated deployment.
- Jenkins clones the GitOps Repository and updates the Kubernetes manifest to include the new image tag, then commits the changes to the Git repository, providing a declarative approach to manage the cluster.
- The GitOps Repository is continuously monitored by Flux CD, which automatically synchronizes the changes to the cluster, ensuring that the desired state of the cluster is always met.
This process enables developers to quickly and easily test and deploy new code changes, while also ensuring that the application is running smoothly in the production environment.
