A good branch-merge strategy facilitates processes among multiple developers and is the basis for any well-functioning DevOps pipeline that uses continuous integration. Let’s explore branching strategies, merging strategies, and how you can put them together in a way that’s right for your team in order to bring quality features to production faster.

DevOps is more than adopting the right set of tools; it's a cultural shift that incorporates testing at each stage of the agile project lifecycle. Continuous testing is key to unlocking this culture change because it weaves testing activities into every part of the software design, development, and deployment processes, which helps everyone involved communicate more, collaborate better, and innovate faster.

It may seem like the desires for end-to-end DevOps and protection of sensitive data are in conflict, but if done correctly, they can be two sides of the same coin. DevOps processes such as version control and delivery automation introduce the very measures needed to properly protect production data. The key to keeping data safe while using it during your DevOps process is to focus on these four areas.

Many teams have existing automated test suites that are not included in a continuous integration program. Maybe the tests take too long to execute, or they are not reliable enough to give accurate results. Here’s how to assess your test suites in terms of value added and time to execute, along with five proven strategies to optimize those suites for CI.