Who is Jenkins?

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©2015CloudBees,Inc.AllRightsReserved
@jenkins_spb
Who is Jenkins? 
Current state, common usage issues and  
where we’re going next
Andrew Bayer
CloudBees, Inc.
San Francisco Jenkins Area Meetup
January 2016
@jenkinsci
January 20, 2016

sd
@jenkinsci
> Whoami – Andrew Bayer
• Background: Builds, tools, you name it. For years. A few places.
!
• Jenkins OSS contributor
– Ex-member of governance board, core contributor
– Plugin dev and maintainer
– Jenkins infrastructure work too
!
• Now at CloudBees
– Community, evangelism, development…
@abayerTwitter:
GitHub: https://github.com/abayer

sd
@jenkins_spb
Outline
3
• Introduction. What is Jenkins?
• Common Jenkins usage issues
• Why does *that* happen? How to overcome
those issues?
• Jenkins trends (community changes, Jenkins
2.0)

sd
@jenkinsci
Disclaimer
!
• This presentation is not training material
!
• The talk represents the speaker’s personal opinion
!
• This opinion may differ from the official position of
CloudBees or Jenkins community
!
• I may or may not have any clue what I’m talking
about.
4

sd
@jenkinsci
Jenkins 101
5
• 2005 – Hudson (Sun)
• 2008 – It becomes popular, Duke's Choice Award
• 2011 – Conflict with Oracle, renaming to
Jenkins
• You may have heard about that… =)
!
• License: MIT (core)
• https://github.com/jenkinsci/

sd
@jenkinsci
Jenkins is popular
6
http://stats.jenkins-ci.org/jenkins-stats/
• 100k+
installations
• ~300 active
committers (6
months)
• ~3 new plugins
every week
• ~30 plugin
releases every
week

sd
@jenkinsci
Who is Jenkins?
7
Jenkins –
Continuous Integration
System
Automation
Framework

sd
@jenkinsci
Why “automation”?
8
Continuous Integration
Continuous
Integration
Continuous
Delivery
DevOps
Accounting
automation
Home
Automation
CRON + WebUI

sd
@jenkinsci
Why “framework”?
9
System
Flexible and Extensible
Minimal OOTB functionality
Solves basic use-cases only
Requires customization
Jenkins on its own is…

sd
@jenkinsci
10
Система
Infra-
structure
Docs
Infra-
structure
Plugins Configs
Infra-
structure
Backend
Templates
Demos
Jenkins-based
Automation System

sd
@jenkinsci
How does Jenkins grow? After setup
11

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@jenkinsci
How does Jenkins grow? Small instance
12
Dozens of jobs
Several nodes
Small number of plugins
Several users

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@jenkinsci
How does Jenkins grow? It becomes popular
13
Hundreds of jobs
Dozens of nodes
Many plugins
Dozens of users
Complex configurations

sd
@jenkinsci
14By NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University) (HubbleSite: gallery, release.) [Public domain], via
Wikimedia Commons. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/00/Crab_Nebula.jpg/512px-
Crab_Nebula.jpg”
There’s Jenkins!
Exploding!
At some point…
Other services
have been
affected as well…

sd
@jenkinsci
Why does Jenkins blow up?
•Jenkins is scalable, but…
•Default Jenkins setups are not scalable
•Scalability requires proper system design
15

sd
@jenkinsci
Rule for admins #0.  
Design automation systems as  
internal products
16But there are issues in Jenkins as well…

sd
@jenkinsci
User experience issues
17
Where are the docs?
How to find a plugin?
Is this plugin alive?
How to configure THIS?
Why do they ignore my issues?
Where is the maintainer?
Why is the UI so complicated?
Why does the UI look like 2005?

sd
@jenkinsci
Jenkins Learning Curve
18
Basic scripts,
CRON with UI
Automation
flows based
on plugins
Advanced features,
Custom Plugins

sd
@jenkinsci
Jenkins weaknesses. Limited scalability
19
Node 1
Node 2
Node N
. . .
• Master handles the most of the build logic
• Jobs on nodes ALWAYS put load on the master
• Input/Output on master is also a bottleneck
Multi-
tenancy
??? Gearman Plugin (OSS)
CloudBees Jenkins Platform

sd
@jenkinsci
Jenkins weaknesses. Growth Problems
20
Jenkins used to grow faster than its Dev community

sd
@jenkinsci
Jenkins weaknesses. Compatibility costs
21
• More than 5 years of backward compatibility
• Hudson 2 plugins still work on Jenkins!
!
• BUT:
• Architecture design issues, complex APIs
• Outdated libs
• Outdated UI
• Plugin integration issues

sd
@jenkinsci
The problems can be partially solved!
22

sd
@jenkinsci
Rule for admins #1.  
Do not overload Masters!
23

sd
@jenkinsci
Rule #1. Do not overload Masters!
• Use labels to specify target nodes
!
!
!
!
!
• or Job Restrictions Plugin to secure the master
24

sd
@jenkinsci
Rule for admins #2. 
Test Jenkins changes before going live!
25

sd
@jenkinsci
Test servers
•Must-have for large-scale instances
•Target: best possible coverage
26
New feature/
plugin
Bugfix
Test server Production
Showstoppers only
Production
mirror?

sd
@jenkinsci
Rule for admins #3. 
Use LTS versions on production
27

sd
@jenkinsci
Jenkins LTS releases
• LTS are much more stable
• Bugs backporting, 3 monthly patch releases
28

sd
@jenkinsci
LTS Specifics
•LTS releases still require testing
– Potential regressions across major versions
– SECURITY fixes cause “regressions”
!
•3 months is not enough, what to do?
– Custom-fork of Jenkins core [and plugins]
– Enterprise-solutions based on Jenkins
– Help community to increase coverage and to extend
the support
29

sd
@jenkinsci
Rule for admins #4
30
Everything dies.

sd
@jenkinsci
Your Jenkins instance will die
•Major risk: System and Infra failures
•Updates may corrupt the system as well
⇒ALWAYS perform backups
– Periodic Backup Plugin, Backup Plugin, …
!
•Config History Plugin – configs backup
•Naginator Plugin – failover of jobs
31

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@jenkinsci
Job Config History Plugin – configuration backup
32
•Jenkins System Configs
•Jobs
•Nodes

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@jenkinsci
Monitoring
•Monitoring Plugin (Java Melody)
•Reporting to external systems
–Nagios, Zenoss, Zabbix, …
•Centralized log collection & processing
33
Don’t forget about the
infrastructure and backend
- they frequently fail
!

sd
@jenkinsci
Summary
• Jenkins has real weaknesses, it’s true. But…
• Jenkins is effective if you know how to solve them
!
• Useful materials:
– http://jenkins-ci.org - Blogs, Wiki, Bugtracker
– Materials from Jenkins User Conferences:
o https://www.cloudbees.com/company/events/juc
– Google Search
– Need help?
o IRC: #jenkinsci
o https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/jenkinsci-users
34

sd
@jenkinsci
Automation Systems Evolvement Trends
•SW area shifts focus from CI:
– Continuous Delivery
– DevOps
!
•Many integrations => communities and OSS
!
•Centralization of automation systems
– High requirements and strict SLAs
– Commercial solutions
35

sd
@jenkinsci
Community reorganization
!
•New teams focusing on hot
areas
!
•Community manager
!
•More contributors (mostly
plugin developers)
!
•Jenkins Board re-elections
36
Board
Core Team
Security
LTS
Community
INFRA
Website

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@jenkinsci
“Adopt a plugin!”
37
http://bit.ly/adoptplugin

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@jenkinsci
Automation as Code
38
Job DSL
DotCI*
Pipeline
Jenkinsfile + Multi-branch
*not available in the main Update Center

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@jenkinsci
39

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@jenkinsci
Plans under discussion (not a final roadmap)
40
Jenkins 1.x
“Jenkins 3.x”
Jenkins 2.x
Middle of 2016
End of 2016 (?)
• Website
• Focus on UX and project infra
• Minimal compatibility changes
• Major architectural
changes
• At least 1 LTS line in 2016

sd
@jenkinsci
Jenkins 2.0. Website
!
•New domain name! http://jenkins.io (in the works!)
!
•Static web-site with sources on GitHub
⇒Improves contributions
!
•Content rework
– MORE structured info
– Going beyond Continuous Integration
41
http://bit.ly/jenkins20

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@jenkinsci
Jenkins 2.0. What’s in the core?
•UX:
– “Plugin gallery”
– Web UI improvements (configs, etc.)
!
•Update of WebUI libraries
•API deprecation and deletion engine
42
http://bit.ly/jenkins20

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@jenkinsci
Update Manager 2.0
43

sd
@jenkinsci
«Jenkins 3.0»
•Aim– architecture changes
!
•Features list– TBD
– Database storage for configs and build data
(Andrew Bayer)
– Remoting 3.0 (Oleg Nenashev)
– …
– <feel free to propose changes>
44

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@jenkinsci
How to contribute?
45
http://bit.ly/jenkinscidev1. GOTO Jenkins mailing list:
2. Search for Jenkins 2.0 tracks:

sd
@jenkins_spb
46

sd
@jenkinsci
Useful links
• Jenkins project
– Website: http://jenkins-ci.org
– GitHub: http://github.com/jenkinsci/
!
• CloudBees
– Website: https://www.cloudbees.com
– CloudBees Jenkins Platform
o https://www.cloudbees.com/products/cloudbees-jenkins-platform
47

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