Overview of DevOps Build

IBM® DevOps Build (Build) is a continuous integration and build-management system.

Build is a distributed, multi-platform, enterprise-scale build management tool. Build uses a template-driven system to configure and run builds. Projects are created from project templates and are configured by assigning other templates to them, such as process and workflow templates. The templates can define standard build processes, source control rules, and testing and reporting processes.

With the flexible role- and team-based security system, you can create an environment that conforms to your organization. For example, you might maintain a design team that creates templates for other teams. Development teams can create projects quickly by configuring the preset templates. Values for template properties can be supplied at design time or at run time.

Every time that you build a project, build artifacts are added to an embedded artifact and dependency management system, CodeStation. CodeStation helps manage complex projects that can depend on numerous sub projects and libraries. Because CodeStation is part of Build, third-party management systems are not necessary. Builds are repeatable, standardized, and traceable.

Distributed agents do the actual work of build processing. An agent is a lightweight process that runs on a host computer and communicates with the server. By handling the build activities, agents distribute the load of concurrently running builds and provide enterprise-level scalability.

The management tools in Build provide project status at any point in the build cycle, and simplify capturing project data. Enterprise-level metrics are available for these areas:

• Compliance
• Governance
• Data aggregation and reporting
• Auditing and logging
• Version and change control