IBM Cloud Continuous Delivery
Challenge
IBM Cloud’s Continuous Delivery service needed to move from a proprietary pipeline engine to a Kubernetes-native solution that could support thousands of tenants, each running isolated CI/CD workloads. The existing system was difficult to extend, didn’t leverage Kubernetes scheduling, and required significant engineering effort for each new integration.
Solution
IBM adopted Tekton as the core pipeline engine for its Continuous Delivery service. Tekton’s Kubernetes-native design aligned with IBM’s infrastructure strategy, and its CRD-based model made multi-tenant isolation straightforward using Kubernetes namespaces and RBAC.
Key Components Used
| Component | How IBM Uses It |
|---|---|
| Pipelines | Core execution engine for all customer CI/CD workloads |
| Triggers | Event processing for Git webhooks and external integrations |
| Catalog | Curated library of IBM-supported Tasks for common build patterns |
| Chains | Supply chain security for enterprise compliance requirements |
Architecture Highlights
- Multi-tenant isolation — Each customer’s pipelines run in dedicated namespaces with strict RBAC boundaries
- Managed control plane — IBM operates the Tekton control plane; customers only interact with pipeline definitions
- Catalog of curated Tasks — Pre-built, IBM-supported Tasks for Docker builds, Kubernetes deployments, Vulnerability Advisor scans, and more
- Scalability — Kubernetes-native scaling handles burst workloads without dedicated capacity planning
Results
- Thousands of tenants served from a shared Tekton-based platform
- Reduced engineering effort — New integrations ship as Catalog Tasks instead of engine changes
- Kubernetes-native operations — Standard tooling (kubectl, monitoring, RBAC) works for the CI/CD layer
- Compliance ready — Tekton Chains provides the artifact signing and provenance that enterprise customers require
“Tekton gives us a pipeline engine that scales with Kubernetes and lets our customers define workflows using the same tools they already know.” — IBM Cloud Continuous Delivery Team