3 Defining Jenkins architecture

This chapter covers

Understanding how Jenkins distributed builds work
Understanding the roles of Jenkins master and worker nodes
Architecting Jenkins in the cloud for scale
Configuring multiple Jenkins masters
Preparing an AWS environment and CLI configuration

In a distributed microservices architecture, you may have multiple services to build, test, and deploy regularly. Hence, having multiple build machines makes sense. While you can always run Jenkins in a standalone mode, running all builds on a central machine may not be the best option and will result in having a single point of failure (a single Jenkins server cannot handle the entire load for larger and heavier projects). Fortunately, Jenkins can also be configured to run distributed builds across a fleet of machines/nodes by setting up a master/worker cluster, as shown in figure 3.1.

Figure 3.1 Distributed master-worker architecture

Jenkins uses a master-worker architecture to manage distributed builds. Each component has a specific role:

3.1 Understanding master-worker architecture

3.2 Managing Jenkins workers

3 Defining Jenkins architecture

This chapter covers

Figure 3.1 Distributed master-worker architecture

3.1 Understanding master-worker architecture

3.2 Managing Jenkins workers

3.2.1 SSH

3.2.2 Command line

3.2.3 JNLP

3.2.4 Windows service

3.3 Architecting Jenkins for scale in AWS

3.3.1 Preparing the AWS environment

3.3.2 Configuring the AWS CLI

3.3.3 Creating and managing the IAM user

Summary