Using dynamic build agents to automate scaling in Jenkins

Andrew Corrigan's article provides a detailed guide on scaling Jenkins, a popular continuous integration tool, using Kubernetes and Amazon Web Services (AWS). As projects and development teams grow, a single Jenkins instance may struggle to handle increased workloads, but Jenkins' scalability allows it to expand alongside processing needs by utilizing a controller and multiple agents. The article outlines two methods for achieving dynamic scaling: the first involves setting up Jenkins on a Kubernetes cluster using tools like Docker Desktop, minikube, and kubectl to automate resource allocation through containers, while the second method integrates Jenkins with AWS EC2 Fleet using the EC2 Fleet plugin, which is ideal for teams with existing AWS access. Both methods are described step-by-step, illustrating the necessary configurations and testing procedures to ensure Jenkins can efficiently distribute build jobs across instances, thereby enhancing performance and stability.