[GitHub] [couchdb] kocolosk commented on a change in pull request #2367: Rework CI setup

[GitBox <gi...@apache.org>]

kocolosk commented on a change in pull request #2367: Rework CI setup
URL: https://github.com/apache/couchdb/pull/2367#discussion_r362650389
 
 

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 File path: build-aux/README.Jenkins
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+# Building with a dedicated Jenkins CI instance
+
+## History
+
+Around April 2019, once Travis CI performance became so abysmal that the
+development team couldn't tolerate it any longer. We decided to move off
+of it entirely and onto our own dedicated Jenkins instance. Performance
+was bad because:
+
+* The Travis CI VMs are severely underpowered, leading to many
+  unexpected test failures
+* The ASF wait queue for Travis was exceedingly long, with jobs
+  sometimes taking 30-45 minutes just to _launch_
+* Our test suites (all 3 of Erlang, JavaScript and Elixir) had
+  sporadic failures, requiring many re-launches of builds before
+  we could move forward
+
+We also had other reasons to want to move to a dedicated server:
+
+* Credentials on the main Jenkins instance could be reused by *anyone*
+  in the ASF
+* Credentials on the Travis CI setup should not contain credentials
+  for things such as building binaries, to ensure the best possible
+  security
+
+Other options we explored:
+
+* ASF BuildBot. This required a lot more work and couldn't guarantee
+  availability of sufficient workers.
+* Circle CI, GitHub CI, etc.: Lack of availability of alternate binary
+  platforms we've been asked to support (arm64v8, ppc64le) or alternate
+  OSes (OSX, FreeBSD, Windows), though there is some support for either
+  or both.
+
+## Cloudbees Core
+
+End of November 2019, ASF and CloudBees reached an agreement to allow
+the Foundation to use CloudBees Core to have a farm of managed Jenkins
+masters. This allows the ASF to give larger projects their own dedicated
+Jenkins master, which can be custom configured for the project. They can
+readily manage this farm of Jenkins masters centrally, including push
+updates to all masters and their plugins. Naturally, this also reduces
+contention, as well as providing increased security for project-level
+credentials.  CouchDB is the first project to use this setup, via
+jenkins-cm1.apache.org. A CNAME for ci.couchdb.org is being established
 
 Review comment:
   s/is being established/has been established/

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