Title

AWS re:Invent 2023 - High availability with CloudBees CI on AWS Graviton3 and Amazon EKS (DOP216)

Summary

• CloudBees CI is the commercial offering of Jenkins, providing enhanced features over the open-source Jenkins project.
• The session highlighted the integration of CloudBees CI with AWS services, particularly Amazon EKS and AWS Graviton3.
• The new features of CloudBees CI include active-active high availability and horizontal scaling, which were released in September.
• These features address the challenges of managing large Jenkins instances and ensure high availability and load distribution.
• AWS Graviton3 offers cost savings and sustainability benefits, with up to 20% cost reduction and 60% less energy consumption compared to AMD-based processors.
• The architecture of CloudBees CI on EKS uses AWS Load Balancer, Amazon EFS for storage, and Hazelcast for state synchronization.
• The session did not include a live demo but invited attendees to discuss technical details and use cases at the CloudBees booth.

Insights

• CloudBees CI's active-active high availability and horizontal scaling are significant advancements for Jenkins users, especially for those managing large-scale environments.
• The integration with AWS Graviton3 and Amazon EKS suggests a strong partnership between CloudBees and AWS, focusing on performance, cost-efficiency, and sustainability.
• The use of Amazon EFS and Hazelcast for state synchronization in CloudBees CI's architecture indicates a move towards more resilient and scalable CI/CD environments.
• The speaker's emphasis on the difficulty of achieving high availability in open-source Jenkins highlights the value proposition of CloudBees CI for enterprise customers.
• The lack of a live demo suggests that while the features are exciting, they may still be complex to showcase in a short session, requiring more in-depth, one-on-one discussions to fully understand their impact and implementation.