Continuous delivery
Continuous delivery (CD) is a software engineering approach in which teams produce software in short cycles, ensuring that the software can be reliably released at any time and, when releasing the software, without doing so manually. It aims at building, testing, and releasing software with greater speed and frequency. The approach helps reduce the cost, time, and risk of delivering changes by allowing for more incremental updates to applications in production. A straightforward and repeatable deployment process is important for continuous delivery.
CD contrasts with continuous deployment, a similar approach in which software is also produced in short cycles but through automated deployments rather than manual ones.
Category
- Continuous integration (CI)
- Continuous build (CB)
- Continuous delivery (CD)
- Continuous deployment (CD)
Relationship to continuous deployment
Continuous delivery is the ability to deliver software that can be deployed at any time through manual releases; this is in contrast to continuous deployment which uses automated deployments. According to Martin Fowler, continuous deployment requires continuous delivery. Academic literature differentiates between the two approaches according to deployment method; manual vs. automated.