Codeship has been powered by containers from the very beginning. In this talk we will discuss our initial implementation using LXC, how we use it and the limitations that we have encountered. Using the lessons we learned from our first gen implementation, we’ll look at the evolution of our next generation Docker service. We’ll dive into how this implementation works and discover some of the benefits and challenges of using Docker for CI.

1. A Tale of Two
Containers
How Docker made CI Great Again

2. About us
Kyle Rames
@krames
github.com/krames
Brendan Fosberry
@brendanfosberry
github.com/bfosberry
2

4. Agenda
● History of Codeship Platform
● Checkbot (LXC)
● Jet (Docker)
● Future of CI/CD

5. History of Codeship
Platform

6. Checkbot

7. Checkbot
39K Builds Per Day
7.8M Builds Per Year

8. Jet

9. Jet
1.5K Builds Per Day
115K Builds total

10. Checkbot
Powered by LXC

11. Benefits of LXC
• Impose resource limits
• Containers are isolated
• Separation of build environment and Codeship
infrastructure
• Customer code is secure
• Consistent build environment and experience
• Automatable

12. How we use LXC
• Universal build image
• Pre-installed languages, services, libraries

13. Screenshot of test commands and setup

15. Checkbot (LXC)

16. How we use LXC
• Build server scaling group
• Assign user to build server

17. Issues for Developers
• Shared system requirements for every user.
• Maintaining parity with development & production

18. Issues for Codeship
• Many parallel services leave a large footprint
• Lack of tooling around LXC

19. It works!

20. Jet
Powered by Docker

21. Benefits of Docker
• Standardization
• Strong tooling and automation support
• Parity between dev, test, and prod
• BYO Container and OS
• Empowered Users

22. How we use docker
• Provision Docker resources
• Repo-controlled build - zero config
• Layer on Codeship features
• Docker-centric support and integrations

23. How users run builds
• Describe services
• Write custom images where needed
• Committed to SCM

24. How users run builds

25. How users run builds
• Define pipeline
• References service
• Tests, compilation, deployments, notifications
• Control parallelism
• Control flow
• Committed to SCM

26. How users run builds

27. How users run buids

28. How users run builds
Parity through Docker

29. Maintain Parity
● Credential & Dockercfg support
● Share Image build cache
● Tooling
● Development environments

30. Issues for Developers
• High Barrier to entry
• Requires Docker understanding
• Requires careful configuration
• More isolation <-> Less visibility

31. Issues for Codeship
• Heavily tied to Docker
• Upstream changes break our features
• Docker bugs are our bugs

32. Demo

33. The future of CI/CD
Powered by Codeship

34. Containers
● Isolation
● Portability
● Resource control

35. Docker
● Phase 1: Docker
● Phase 2: ???
● Phase 3: Profit

36. Docker
● Control
○ Automation
○ Configurability
● Parity
● Lowest common denominator

37. CI/CD
● Configuration
● Execution
● Notification

38. CI/CD
● Native
● Personal
● Instantly available
● Intelligent

39. Q&A