front matter
When David Farley and I wrote Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation (Addison-Wesley, 2010), we knew, from years of applying the principles described in the book, that it represented a modern, holistic approach to software delivery that brought substantial benefits to teams and organizations who used it. Multiple research programs (including the one I have been involved in, led by Dr. Nicole Forsgren and described in chapters 8 and 10 of this book) have shown that it leads to higher quality and stability, as well as faster delivery.
Although continuous integration and continuous delivery (often shortened to CI/CD) are now thought of as standard practice, they are still surprisingly hard to implement and get right. There are still too many teams (and customers!) that deal with infrequent, risky releases that happen over evenings or weekends, planned and unplanned downtime, rollbacks, and problems with performance, availability, and security. These are all avoidable problems, but solving them requires ongoing investment in teams, tooling, and organizational culture.