Jenkins CI: The Origins of Butlers, Build Masters and Bowties

Get the Report

A password will be e-mailed to you.


“…I had this great idea of a web framework, and I wanted an excuse to actually implement it. This was around the time when everyone had his own framework, so I suppose I couldn’t help myself.”
-Kohsuke Kawaguchi, creator of Jenkins

From Developers to Infrastructure Engineers to Project Managers, Jenkins has been embraced as the de facto Continuous Integration server of choice for IT professionals. Developed by Kohsuke Kawaguchi in 2004, Jenkins (then named Hudson) and Continuous Integration as a concept generally, has become fairly widespread in the software game, although only 49% of developers surveyed in 2012 reported using a CI server of ANY kind.

In “Jenkins CI: The Origins of Butlers, Build Masters and Bowties”, we have something for everyone, from junior developers just learning the ropes to a technical deep-dive into how the ZeroTurnaround team uses Jenkins in house for the advanced users, and even how business leaders and project managers can benefit from becoming friends with Jenkins.

Here is a brief abstract of what you’ll find in the full version of this report:

Part I – How Butlers Came into IT

  • Quick introduction to Jenkins, Hudson and the whole story
  • How things fell apart, and got back together again
  • Comparing Jenkins & Hudson, looking at the numbers today
  • Brief timeline 2004-2013

Part II – Going Deeper into the Cave with Your Butler

  • The best parts of “vanilla” Jenkins: out-of-the-box features
  • ZeroTurnaround’s 15 favorite Jenkins plugins and why they rock
  • Common pitfalls when getting started with Jenkins (hint: have lots of disk space!)

Part III – How Different IT Professionals Utilize Jenkins

  • Jenkins for Developers
  • Jenkins for QA/Testers
  • Jenkins for Infrastructure Engineers (Operations)
  • Jenkins for Project Managers

Part IV – Jenkins in Use at ZeroTurnaround (8 steps to Build Pipelines)

  • Step 1: Setting up Unit Testing & Maven
  • Step 2: Integration Tests
  • Step 3: Configuring Jenkins’ Slave Nodes
  • Step 4: Testing in Several Environments
  • Step 5: Throttling Concurrent Builds
  • Step 6: Creating a Release Package
  • Step 7: Parallel Test Run and Join
  • Step 8: Getting the Build Pipeline View

Part V – Interview with Kohsuke Kawaguchi, creator of Jenkins

  • When and how did you first conceive of a concept like Jenkins? What pain were you solving for yourself and/or others in the Java world?
  • Where do you see the future of Jenkins going?
  • If you had to pick your top 5 favorite plugins of Jenkins, what would they be?
  • What does your workweek look like, in terms of task orientation, and where do you feel like you gain or lose the best hours of your week?
  • What are the top 3-5 tools and technologies that you use to boost your productivity, or make your daily life easier?

Convinced that this report probably won’t suck? Then just log in (or register) above.

(p.s. for more on Continuous Integration as a concept and practice, feel free to check out “Why Devs <3 CI: A Guide to Loving Continuous Integration by Rebel Labs)

Note: There are intentional typos found in this report. Whoever finds the most will get a free 1-year license of JRebel! Write to: labs@zeroturnaround.com