How to Set Up CI/CD on AWS

🔧 Why CI/CD Matters in Modern Software Development

In today’s agile development world, speed, reliability, and automation are essential. Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery/Deployment (CD) are core practices of DevOps that empower teams to ship code faster, safer, and more consistently. CI/CD helps reduce manual errors, enforce test coverage, maintain consistent environments, and get features into the hands of users quickly.

AWS (Amazon Web Services) offers a suite of fully managed tools that make implementing CI/CD in the cloud incredibly effective. Whether you're building a microservice with containers or a traditional web application, AWS provides scalable and integrated options to automate the build, test, and deployment process.

🌐 What is CI/CD?

• CI (Continuous Integration) is the practice of merging developer code changes frequently into a shared repository. Each change triggers an automated build and test process to detect issues early.
• CD (Continuous Delivery/Deployment) takes the validated code and automatically deploys it to staging or production environments. This ensures a consistent and streamlined path from development to release.

🏗️ AWS CI/CD Services Overview

AWS offers a powerful CI/CD toolchain under the umbrella of AWS Developer Tools:

Each of these tools can be used individually or combined into a unified pipeline. They also integrate seamlessly with external tools like GitHub, GitLab, Jenkins, Bitbucket, and third-party notification services.

🧰 Common Use Cases for AWS CI/CD

🔐 Benefits of Using AWS for CI/CD

• Fully managed: No servers or DevOps tools to maintain
• Highly scalable: Handles enterprise-scale pipelines
• Secure by design: IAM roles, encryption, audit logs
• Cost-effective: Pay only for what you use
• Integrated monitoring: CloudWatch metrics and alarms
• Fast setup: Templates and wizards for common pipelines
• Multi-language support: Works with Java, Node.js, Python, Go, and more

💡 Real-World Example: Automating a Web App Deployment

Let’s say you have a Node.js application in a GitHub repo. You want to automatically build it every time a change is pushed to the main branch, run unit tests, and deploy it to an EC2 instance.

This is what the pipeline might look like:

1. CodePipeline monitors GitHub repo for changes
2. Change triggers CodeBuild, which installs dependencies and runs tests
3. On success, CodeDeploy pushes the latest version to an EC2 auto-scaling group
4. Logs are collected in CloudWatch and errors are alerted via SNS

AWS allows you to automate all of this with minimal configuration and tight integration between services.

📦 CI/CD Workflow with AWS Developer Tools

Here’s a typical flow from code to production:

css

CodeCommit / GitHub / GitLab

          ↓

      CodePipeline

          ↓

     ┌───────────────┐

     │   CodeBuild   │ (Build + Test)

     └───────────────┘

          ↓

     ┌───────────────┐

     │  CodeDeploy   │ (Deploy to EC2, Lambda, or ECS)

     └───────────────┘

          ↓

   Monitoring / Logs (CloudWatch / X-Ray)

🔁 This process loops for every commit, allowing faster and safer iterations.

⚙️ Key Concepts to Understand Before You Start

📄 Example: Basic buildspec.yml

yaml

version: 0.2

phases:

  install:

    runtime-versions:

      nodejs: 18

    commands:

      - npm install

  build:

    commands:

      - npm run test

      - npm run build

artifacts:

  files:

    - '**/*'

📄 Example: Minimal appspec.yml for EC2

yaml

rversion: 0.0

os: linux

files:

  - source: /

    destination: /var/www/html

hooks:

  AfterInstall:

    - location: scripts/install.sh

      timeout: 180

      runas: root

🧠 Should You Use CodePipeline or Third-Party Tools?

If you're already using GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins, or Bitbucket Pipelines, you can still integrate with AWS via:

• CodeDeploy agent for EC2
• ECR and ECS for container workflows
• CloudFormation for provisioning

However, CodePipeline is ideal if you want a fully AWS-native CI/CD experience with minimal setup and easy IAM-based security.

✅ Getting Started: Prerequisites

Before setting up a CI/CD pipeline on AWS, ensure:

• You have an active AWS account
• IAM roles are created for CodePipeline, CodeBuild, and CodeDeploy
• Your application code is hosted on GitHub, CodeCommit, or another SCM
• EC2, Lambda, or ECS targets are provisioned (based on use case)
• You’ve created an S3 bucket for storing artifacts (if needed)

⏭️ What’s Next?

In the next chapters, we’ll guide you through:

1. Creating a CodeCommit repo or connecting GitHub
2. Defining build steps with CodeBuild
3. Deploying to EC2, Lambda, or containers with CodeDeploy
4. Automating the entire process with CodePipeline

We’ll cover real-life examples, YAML templates, IAM security, and troubleshooting tips to ensure you can confidently set up and run CI/CD pipelines on AWS.