DevOps Lifecycle with SAS Viya Studio Git Plug-in and Bitbucket
A lot of SAS customers are choosing to use Bitbucket as a version control repository from Atlassian. Bitbucket Cloud is a Git based code hosting and collaboration tool, built for teams. Bitbucket's best-in-class Jira and Trello integrations are designed to bring the entire software team together to execute on a project. Bitbucket provides one place for your team to collaborate on code from concept to Cloud, build quality code through automated testing, and deploy code with confidence. (Source: bitbucket.org) Refer to Getting started with Bitbucket link for more details.
SAS Viya Studio includes integration with Git, a system for tracking changes and managing version control among multiple users. SAS Studio plug-in for Git can be used with many different repository hosting services such as GitHub and Bitbucket.
This article provides a high-level overview on configuring the Bitbucket Git repository with SAS Viya Studio plug-in and how to manage the deployment lifecycle with Bitbucket and SAS Viya artifacts. Refer to SAS Documentation for additional details on Git integration in SAS Studio.
DevOps lifecycle with Bitbucket and SAS Viya typically involves below listed three steps:
- Creating Bitbucket Repository and configuration of SSH Keys
- SAS Studio Git plug-in configuration for Bitbucket repository
- CI/CD Deployment lifecycle with Bitbucket and Automation Server
This article discusses the basic configuration of Bitbucket Repository. Refer to Bitbucket documentation for additional details and features.
- Create Bitbucket Git Repository
After you login to Bitbucket, you will have an option to create a workspace in which you can create a project and repository to manage the code and artifacts.
Click on “Create” pull down option and create a new repository with required options. Refer to advanced settings options for additional configurations for the repository.
Repository page provides users the options to create new branches, configure pipelines, manage commits and pull requests including deployments and integration with JIRA for the underlying repository.
2. SAS Studio Git plug-in configuration for Bitbucket repository
SAS Studio plug-in for Git integration supports two methods (SSH and HTTPS) to access and work with Git repositories. This article discusses the details to use SSH option to access the Bitbucket repository.
To configure the SAS Studio Git plug-in for Bitbucket, we need to create an SSH key and register the public key with Bitbucket using “Repository settings” options on Bitbucket repository. Once created, register SSH public key under “Repository settings à Access Keys” on the Bitbucket repository.
Refer to the SAS community article on the steps to create and configure SAS Studio plug-in with SSH keys for more details on configuring Bitbucket Git repository with SAS Studio plug-in.
SAS Studio Git plug-in will require a Git profile with Bitbucket details including the public and private SSH keys which can then be used to clone a Bitbucket repository using options on SAS Studio.
3. CI/CD Deployment lifecycle with Bitbucket and Automation Server
As a development team, you will have one or more branches for development, SIT, UAT and Production to version control the SAS artifacts and deployment via CI/CD release management.
Below diagram shows a high-level process flow of a typical DevOps deployment (CI/CD) process:
SAS Studio plug-in for Git supports the DevOps deployment (CI/CD) process by allowing the development team to manage the code changes with Bitbucket repository and branches to then trigger the deployment pipeline with an automation server such as Jenkins.
To work on a new feature or a bug fix, a developer can create a local branch from Studio plug-in “Create Branch” option to create a branch in Bitbucket from a cloned repository on SAS Studio.
Branch created from SAS Studio Git interface appears on Bitbucket only after a commit and push of a change has been initiated from SAS Studio.
Once the required changes are made on the code or a flow and validated, a developer can follow the commit and push steps using SAS Studio Git plug-in options to eventually merge the changes from the local branch to the development environment branch for testing.
If you have an approval process in place where a release team would only be allowed to merge after the code review process is completed, then as a developer you may create a pull request using Bitbucket to notify the release team for the changes ready for the merge.
Bitbucket allows release team to approve and merge the code changes to the target branch which can then allow to trigger a build pipeline using automation server.
In summary, SAS Studio plug-in provides options to collaborate and integrate with DevOps lifecycle with Bitbucket which can be integrated with automation servers for the CI/CD release cycle. Below diagram provides the summary of steps high-lighted above for working with Bitbucket for managing DevOps lifecycle.
