If your development team is looking for a way to save time and money, consider Bazel remote builds. You can develop a stronger project and work faster without sacrificing quality or control. In fact, building remotely has a whole host of benefits that can help you and your team reenergize, regroup and save valuable resources.
What is Bazel remote building?
Bazel remote building is a straightforward theory. Rather than building and testing on your local machine, remote building involves distributing your builds and any necessary test actions across multiple machines.
There are several different ways to run these remote execution services, including manual services and self-hosted services. Hosted services are also available, and you can even use remote execution services through Google. If you’re interested, you can gain full access to Google’s host service’s official documentation by joining the RBE Alpha Customers Group.
There are specific requirements for successful remote execution that will depend on your platform and project. Kubernetes, Bazel and other programs may have different recommendations, including strategies for working with mandatory configuration constraints, and it’s important to know exactly what they are before you begin. Look for a list of requirements for your specific platform online and read it over carefully.
What are the benefits of remote builds?
Switching to remote builds is a commitment, so it’s only natural to want to understand exactly what that change means. By understanding the benefits of remote builds before you dive in, you’ll be more prepared for what’s to come and how you can use the elements of remote builds to your advantage. Below you will find a list of the benefits of remote builds.
Speed
One of the primary advantages of remote builds is the improved speed. as it will reduce the amount of time developers have to spend waiting on builds and tests to finish. Reducing this downtime will mean projects finish that much faster–saving time and money by allowing developers to move on quickly with their projects.
On a more technical level, you can expect to see faster build and test execution thanks to the scaling nodes that will be available to assist with parallel actions. Remote builds give you more leeway to work with so that you can build your project that much faster and more efficiently.
Execution
Few things are more important in DevOps than the ability to successfully execute positive development. Remote execution can be a big help in this arena. Because running programs on schedule on remote machines create a predictable development pattern than ideally would designate certain machines to regularly work on remote builds, this can provide much more consistent execution for a development team.
When your team has a precise execution schedule, there won’t be any need to waste time trying to design a good execution environment. You’ll already have a regular environment created, with all the elements your team needs to succeed. You can save time and money with a predictable, high-functioning execution schedule, which is often much easier to do with remote builds than by trying to do it all yourself on one device.
Reusability
Remote building means your team can reuse build outputs much more efficiently. When your work is all centralized in one location and is being utilized at a predictable, scheduled pace, it’s much easier to replicate your outputs.
Because using build outputs more than once means a more efficient method of structuring your projects and remote work makes reusability that much easier, a remote structure can mean good things for your project.
Cost-effectiveness
All of these reasons boil down to a more cost-effective method of building. Time saved is money saved, and so everything listed here—shorter build times, more predictable execution and the ability to reuse previous templates—doesn’t only mean a faster process for your developers, but actual money saved. Every minute that isn’t spent waiting for a build or a test to finish can be spent doing something creative and productive. Similarly, the time saved that comes from top-notch execution and speedy reusability can be put towards something more worthy of you and your developers’ time.
If you’re interested in saving time and money across the board, however, consider looking for a remote building strategy that works for you. You might be surprised by what a difference it makes to your projects.
