Automated deployment pipeline

The adoption of Continuous Delivery means many teams are creating an automated deployment pipeline that carries their code all the way to production. Pipelines allow the visualization of otherwise complex chains of build and deployment activities. Further, they provide the ability to reliably trace build artifacts as they progress through each stage on their path to production. Several vendors are now building CI servers that support the pipeline as a first-class feature and not just a visual element. We recommend teams look closely at these products to avoid wasting time trying to shoehorn a pipeline into a tool without adequate support.