If you need to deploy a CI pipeline that exists fully in your data center, which build server should you use?

When considering the deployment of a CI pipeline fully within your data center, Jenkins is a highly suitable choice. Jenkins is an open-source automation server that is widely used for continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD). One of its key advantages is its flexibility and the ability to be wholly self-hosted on your hardware, ensuring that resources and data remain within your control.

By deploying Jenkins on-premises, you can customize your CI/CD pipeline to meet specific organizational requirements without relying on external services. This can be particularly important for companies that have strict compliance or security needs, as it mitigates potential risks associated with cloud-based CI services. Jenkins also has a vast ecosystem of plugins that allow it to integrate with numerous tools and technologies, streamlining the CI/CD processes tailored to your existing infrastructure.

In contrast, other options do not offer the same level of on-premises capability. For instance, CircleCI and GitHub are primarily cloud-based services, which means they require an internet connection and rely on external servers, not aligning with the requirement for a fully data center-based solution. VCS (Version Control System) generally refers to systems like Git and is focused on version control rather than CI/CD capabilities, and thus it wouldn't serve as a build server.