When it comes to deploying and hosting Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) tools, there are two approaches you can take: Running your tools on-premises or hosting them in the cloud.
Neither technique is universally better or worse. The right approach for you depends on your priorities, as well as which types of software you are building with your CI/CD tools. How do you choose on-premise vs cloud CI/CD? Keep reading for guidance on how to select a CI/CD hosting model tailored to your needs.
What is on-premises CI/CD?
An on-premises CI/CD solution is one that you host on machines that run in your own data center. For example, you could install platforms like Jenkins and Ansible on on-premises servers, then use those solutions to manage the development, testing, staging and deployment of your applications.
An on-premises CI/CD installation offers the following key benefits:
- Maximum control: Because the CI/CD software runs on your own hardware, you have full control over how it is configured.
- High security: On-premises CI/CD pipelines may be more secure, especially if you use firewall rules to isolate them from direct contact with the Internet.
- Potentially lower costs: Hosting CI/CD software on-premises may lead to a lower total cost because you don’t have to pay a cloud service provider to operate the software.
Traditionally, before businesses began moving workloads to the cloud, most CI/CD software ran on-premises.
What is cloud-based CI/CD?
In a cloud-based CI/CD platform, your CI/CD software runs on cloud infrastructure instead of on-premises.
Cloud-based CI/CD installations can be broken down into two sub-categories:
- Fully managed cloud CI/CD suites: These solutions provide you with a pre-installed, ready-to-use CI/CD pipeline. You don’t need to configure or manage any software or infrastructure. Examples of this type of CI/CD platform include GitLab SaaS and Azure Pipelines.
- Self-managed cloud CI/CD installations: Alternatively, you can install CI/CD software yourself on cloud server instances, such as those provided by the AWS EC2 service or Azure Virtual Machines. This approach eliminates the need for you to manage the host infrastructure, but you still have to install, configure and manage the CI/CD software.
Regardless of which type of cloud CI/CD solution you choose, you enjoy benefits including:
- Faster setup: The setup process is faster and less complex because you don’t need to worry about preparing host servers. You also don’t need to set up the software if you choose a fully managed CI/CD suite.
- Greater reliability: Cloud-based servers tend to experience less downtime than on-premises infrastructure, so a cloud-based CI/CD platform is, in general, more reliable than one you host on-premises.
- Greater scalability: If you scale your CI/CD pipeline up – as you may if, for example, you decide to build additional applications – you can easily do that in the cloud by deploying additional infrastructure. Scaling up is more difficult on-premises because it requires acquiring and configuring additional physical infrastructure.
- Easy deployment to the cloud: If your CI/CD suite runs in the cloud, and your applications are hosted in the same cloud, deploying new application releases typically takes less time than it would to deploy from an on-premises suite to the cloud. The main reason why is that you don’t need to upload your application to the cloud before deploying it.
How to choose: on-prem vs cloud CI/CD
In many cases, you can use the same CI/CD tools whether you host them on-premises or in the cloud. Most open-source CI/CD platforms, like Jenkins, Bamboo, and CircleCI, can run on cloud servers or on-prem. Some proprietary CI/CD suites, such as GitLab, also support both types of deployment models.
So, if the same software is available in either case, does it really matter which approach you choose? The answer is a definitive “yes.” Selecting the right CI/CD hosting model is critical for several reasons.
Cost
As we’ve noted, the overall cost you’ll pay to license and host CI/CD software often depends on whether it runs on-prem or in the cloud. On-prem deployments are typically less costly because you don’t have to pay for cloud infrastructure. That said, the cost – measured in terms of staff time or outsourced help – required to manage on-prem CI/CD may exceed what you’ll pay for cloud-based CI/CD, so be sure to assess your total costs, not just the direct hosting costs.
Flexibility
In general, on-prem CI/CD suites are more flexible because they don’t bind you to a specific cloud platform. That said, cloud-based CI/CD software that can run on different clouds offers a fair amount of flexibility, too, because it allows you to switch cloud providers without having to rebuild your CI/CD tooling from scratch.
Speed and performance
On the whole, cloud-based CI/CD suites tend to lead to better speed and performance. Cloud-based software is easier to scale, and if you are also hosting your applications in the cloud, you can deploy directly from the cloud, as noted above.
That said, on-prem CI/CD may result in better performance if your apps are also hosted on-prem, in which case moving them from a cloud-based CI/CD platform to your on-prem production servers would slow down deployment.
Security
On-prem CI/CD software enjoys the security benefit of not being exposed by default to the wilds of the Internet. However, it’s possible to secure cloud-based CI/CD software, if you know which tools to use. You can take advantage of resources like Virtual Private Clouds to minimize the exposure of your cloud-based CI/CD tools to the Internet. And you should certainly use your cloud provider’s Identity and Access Management (IAM) tools to enforce access controls over your cloud CI/CD resources.
The bottom line
To sum up, on-prem CI/CD offers more control and lower costs. It’s also more secure in some respects. On the other hand, cloud-based CI/CD software is more scalable and lends itself to higher performance, in terms of the speed of CI/CD operations like deployment.
Ultimately, however, what matters most is knowing how best to design and configure your CI/CD platform, not where it’s hosted. To learn more about CI/CD design and configuration, contact the experts at Nespon today.
