Build automation systems against CI lock-in - A comparative study of Dagger and Mage

Abstract

Vendor lock-in is a well-known phenomenon in the software industry. Strongly relying on vendor-specific implementation may cause financial and technological hardships to manufacturers and can establish monopoly situation of a vendor. With the spread of cloud-based development tools, vendor lock-in is present not only during operation, but also during development. This article provides an overview of risk types introduced to projects by vendor lock-in situation. Key factors of vendor lock-in are also identified, especially with regard to modern cloud-based CI/CD services. Later, a test software architecture is demonstrated how to minimize CI lock-in, followed by a detailed comparison of two build automation systems that can be used in practice for this purpose. The applicability of build automation systems is demonstrated on the implementation and test results.