Continuous deployment

{{Short description|A software engineering approach}}

Continuous deployment (CD) is a software engineering approach in which software functionalities are delivered frequently and through automated deployments.{{cite journal |title=Continuous Integration, Delivery and Deployment: A Systematic Review on Approaches, Tools, Challenges and Practices |first1=Mojtaba |last1=Shahin |first2=Muhammad |last2=Ali Babara |first3=Liming |last3=Zhu |journal=IEEE Access |volume=5 |doi=10.1109/ACCESS.2017.2685629 |year=2017 |pages=3909–3943 |arxiv=1703.07019 |bibcode=2017arXiv170307019S |s2cid=11638909 }}{{cite book |first1=Helena |last1=Holmstrom Olsson |first2=Hiva |last2=Alahyari |first3=Jan |last3=Bosch |title=2012 38th Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications |chapter=Climbing the "Stairway to Heaven" -- A Mulitiple-Case Study Exploring Barriers in the Transition from Agile Development towards Continuous Deployment of Software |pages=392–399 |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-7695-4790-9 |doi=10.1109/SEAA.2012.54 | publisher=IEEE Computer Society |s2cid=15199568 }}{{cite journal |title=On the journey to continuous deployment: Technical and social challenges along the way |first1=Gerry Gerard |last1=Claps |first2=Richard |last2=Berntsson Svenssonb |first3=Aybüke |last3=Aurum |journal=Information and Software Technology |volume=57 |pages=21–31 |year=2014|doi=10.1016/j.infsof.2014.07.009 }}

Continuous deployment contrasts with continuous delivery (also abbreviated CD), a similar approach in which software functionalities are also frequently delivered and deemed to be potentially capable of being deployed, but are actually not deployed.{{cite book |doi=10.1109/ESEM.2017.18 |chapter=Beyond Continuous Delivery: An Empirical Investigation of Continuous Deployment Challenges |title=2017 ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM) |pages=111–120 |year=2017 |last1=Shahin |first1=Mojtaba |last2=Babar |first2=Muhammad Ali |last3=Zahedi |first3=Mansooreh |last4=Zhu |first4=Liming |isbn=978-1-5090-4039-1 |s2cid=3479812 |url=https://pure.itu.dk/portal/da/publications/0c0a34a9-1711-4305-917e-9718338df017 }} As such, continuous deployment can be viewed as a more complete form of automation than continuous delivery.{{cite web |url=https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/continuous-deployment |title=Continuous Deployment: An Essential Guide |author= |date=2019-10-02 |publisher=IBM |access-date=2022-11-28 |quote=Continuous deployment is the natural outcome of continuous delivery done well. Eventually, the manual approval delivers little or no value and is merely slowly things down. At that point, it is done away with and continuous delivery becomes continuous deployment.}}