How containerized applications travel from code to repository or production

 With immutable infrastructure, you need to stop thinking in terms of traditional terms like servers, per se, even though they’re still technically relevant. Rather, you want to start thinking in terms of build pipelines and what comes out the other side: build artifacts. The latter is what you’re automatically deploying, retiring, and/or replacing with immutable infrastructure.

CI/CD has become a critical practice and set of tools in this regard; the build phase is essentially the foundation of a robust CI/CD pipeline. The pipeline concept, in general, is a useful way of thinking about infrastructure automation: Once it’s in place, your code and everything it will require to run properly should move through each phase of the pipeline – from build to test to security to deployment – in a highly automated manner, with people actively in the loop only at steps you’ve specified or when something is not up to standards (which you’ve also specified). 

Essentially, a CI/CD pipeline is how containerized applications travel from code to repository or production with as little human effort as computer engineer salary. (Don’t kid yourself, though: Talented people are still required to make this work.)