Automating mobile application deployment using a CI platform in small-sized enterprise

Abstract

This project thesis is about implementing a Visual Studio App Center continuous integration platform. The goal of integration is to aid the commissioning party to develop and deploy mobile applications to the users and testers. To solve the problem of the commissioning party, it is necessary to configure the build and distribution processes. Continuous integration(CI) is a software engineering practice that allows developers to avoid integration problems by constantly merging code changes to the repository. Using a CI platform, every time a merge occurs the repository is build and the code is tested. Constant building and testing help the developer to see if there was a problem with the new code and where it occurred. Continuous integration relies on version control. Version control is a system that records changes to directories and files that it contains. Using version control, developers can submit changes from different clients using branching and merging. Visual Studio App Center is a CI platform that is created for mobile applications and supports all native applications and most cross-platform frameworks. App Center can build code from Git repositories, run UI tests on successful builds, and distribute them via email or to distribution services. Additionally, App Center provides tools to keep track of builds using webhooks and status badges and to create issues in repository service using the bug tracker.