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CIXpress Overview

Welcome to the CIXpress documentation! CIXpress is DevOpsCentral's continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) platform, designed to streamline your development workflows while maintaining data sovereignty and control over your build and deployment processes.

CIXpress provides a powerful, flexible CI/CD solution that integrates seamlessly with DevOpsCentral infrastructure, allowing you to automate building, testing, and deploying applications to VMs, Kubernetes clusters, or any target environment. Whether you're running a small development team or managing enterprise-scale deployments, CIXpress adapts to your needs.

This documentation covers both deployment options: the VM Bundle for quick setup and small teams, and the Helm Chart for scalable, production-grade Kubernetes deployments.

Who This Section Is For

  • Developers automating build and test workflows
  • DevOps engineers implementing CI/CD pipelines
  • Release managers orchestrating deployments
  • Platform engineers managing CI/CD infrastructure
  • Teams adopting DevOps practices and automation

Coming Soon

Comprehensive CIXpress documentation is currently under development. We're working on detailed guides covering all aspects of the platform.

Planned Topics

Getting Started

  • CIXpress Introduction - Platform overview
  • What is CIXpress?
  • Key features and capabilities
  • Architecture overview

  • Integration with DevOpsCentral services

  • Quick Start Guide - Your first pipeline

  • Setting up CIXpress
  • Creating your first pipeline
  • Running builds and tests
  • Deploying to target environments

Deployment Options

  • VM Bundle vs Helm Chart - Choosing the right deployment method
  • VM Bundle: Quick setup for small teams
  • Helm Chart: Scalable Kubernetes deployment
  • Comparison table and decision guide

  • Migration path from Bundle to Helm

  • VM Bundle Installation - Deploy CIXpress as a VM

  • Prerequisites and requirements
  • Installation steps
  • Configuration and customization

  • Backup and maintenance

  • Helm Chart Deployment - Deploy CIXpress on Kubernetes

  • Prerequisites and cluster requirements
  • Helm chart installation
  • Configuration values
  • Scaling and high availability
  • Upgrading and maintenance

Pipeline Configuration

  • Pipeline Basics - Creating and managing pipelines
  • Pipeline syntax and structure
  • Stages and jobs
  • Triggers and scheduling

  • Environment variables and secrets

  • Build Configuration - Building applications

  • Docker image builds
  • Language-specific build configurations
  • Caching strategies

  • Artifact management

  • Testing - Automated testing in pipelines

  • Unit test integration
  • Integration testing
  • Code quality and coverage

  • Test reporting and visualization

  • Deployment Strategies - Deploying applications

  • Deploying to DevOpsCentral VMs
  • Kubernetes deployments
  • Blue-green deployments
  • Canary releases
  • Rollback procedures

Integration

  • Source Control Integration - Connect your repositories
  • Git integration (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket)
  • Webhook configuration
  • Branch and tag-based triggers

  • Pull request workflows

  • Kubernetes Integration - Deploy to Kubernetes

  • Connecting to Rancher clusters
  • kubectl and Helm in pipelines
  • "Hello World" Kubernetes deployment

  • Best practices for K8s deployments

  • OpenStack Integration - Deploy to VMs

  • Using OpenStack CLI in pipelines
  • VM provisioning and configuration

  • Application deployment to VMs

  • Container Registry - Managing Docker images

  • Built-in registry usage
  • External registry integration
  • Image scanning and security
  • Cleanup and retention policies

Advanced Features

  • Runners and Agents - Pipeline execution environment
  • Runner architecture
  • Self-hosted runners
  • Executor types (Docker, Kubernetes, SSH)

  • Resource management

  • Secrets Management - Handling sensitive data

  • Creating and managing secrets
  • Injecting secrets into pipelines
  • Integration with external secret stores

  • Security best practices

  • Pipeline as Code - Version-controlled pipelines

  • Defining pipelines in repository
  • Template and reusable configurations
  • Multi-environment strategies

  • GitOps workflows

  • Monitoring and Logging - Pipeline observability

  • Pipeline execution history
  • Build logs and artifacts
  • Metrics and dashboards
  • Alerting and notifications

Best Practices

  • CI/CD Best Practices - Effective pipeline design
  • Fast feedback loops
  • Parallel execution
  • Testing strategies

  • Security in CI/CD

  • Performance Optimization - Faster builds

  • Caching strategies
  • Parallel jobs
  • Resource allocation
  • Build time optimization

Deployment Comparison

VM Bundle

Best for: Small teams, quick setup, simple workloads

  • ✅ Easy installation (single VM)
  • ✅ Lower resource requirements
  • ✅ Quick to get started
  • ❌ Limited scalability
  • ❌ Manual high availability setup

Helm Chart

Best for: Production environments, scaling teams, enterprise deployments

  • ✅ Highly scalable
  • ✅ Built-in high availability
  • ✅ Kubernetes-native management
  • ✅ Easy upgrades and rollbacks
  • ❌ Requires Kubernetes cluster
  • ❌ More complex initial setup

Integration Ecosystem

CIXpress integrates with:

  • DevOpsCentral Infrastructure: Deploy to OpenStack VMs
  • Kubernetes/Rancher: Deploy containerized applications
  • Git Platforms: GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket
  • Container Registries: Docker Hub, private registries
  • Notification Tools: Slack, email, webhooks
  • Testing Tools: Unit testing frameworks, code coverage tools
  • Security Scanners: Container vulnerability scanning

Example Use Cases

Web Application Deployment

Build → Test → Deploy to VM → Health check → Production

Microservices Pipeline

Build containers → Run tests → Push to registry → Deploy to K8s → Monitor

Infrastructure as Code

Validate → Plan → Apply infrastructure changes → Verify

CI/CD on Sovereign Infrastructure

Your CI/CD pipelines run on DevOpsCentral's locally-owned infrastructure, ensuring your source code, build artifacts, and deployment processes remain under your control.

Start Simple

Begin with a basic build-test-deploy pipeline, then add complexity as your team's CI/CD maturity grows.

Getting Started (When Available)

Once documentation is complete, we recommend this learning path:

  1. Understand: Read the Introduction
  2. Choose: Review Deployment Comparison
  3. Install: Follow VM Bundle or Helm Chart guide
  4. Create: Build your first Pipeline
  5. Deploy: Set up Kubernetes Integration
  6. Optimize: Implement Best Practices

Temporary Resources

While detailed documentation is being prepared:

  • Contact Support: Reach out to DevOpsCentral support for CIXpress setup assistance
  • Request Demo: Schedule a walkthrough of CIXpress capabilities
  • Early Access: Join our early adopter program for guidance and support

Documentation coming soon - automate your development workflows with CIXpress