How we reduced build time from 8 hours to 1 hour ? – Complete Guide

Situation

1. For one of our clients, Build is taking 8 hours and nightly build is failing frequently.
2. Test case execution is consuming more time than the compilation.
3. Low confidence levels for developers on nightly builds and subsequently during integration cycle.

Approach

1. We reviewed the whole set of build scripts being used and test case suite to check how we can refatcor them.
2. Verified the build infrastructure i.e., build server capacity from hardware point of view.
3. Feasibility study done to check how a CI environment help in giving faster feedback on the quality.

Solution

1. Refactoring done for build scripts to make modules compilation parallel (wherever possible).
2. Some test cases are selected (which don’t require external services like database) to run as part of the build.
3. CI environment (using open source cruise control) is established to run builds per commit and execute only above set of test cases as part of the build.
4. Set up low-cost remote agent machine which will run remaining test suite once per day.

Results

1. Build took only 1 hour and gave faster feedback to dev team.
2. CI environment provided good confidence to dev team.
3. Team is able to implement more best practices.
4. Effective use of existing build  infrastructure (hardware) ensured no further cost is required.
5. This helped the client in ensuring smooth release management.

Rajesh Kumar

I’m Rajesh Kumar, a DevOps, SRE, DevSecOps, Cloud, and Platform Engineering expert passionate about sharing practical knowledge, real-world experiences, and industry best practices. I have worked at Cotocus and regularly write about technology, travel, investing, health, product reviews, and digital marketing through my various platforms.

I publish technical articles at DevOps School, travel stories at Holiday Landmark, stock market insights at Stocks Mantra, health and fitness guidance at My Medic Plus, product reviews at TrueReviewNow, and SEO and digital marketing strategies at Wizbrand.