Why should my development team have a build server?

Question

We know this is good to have, but I find myself justifying it to my employer. Please pitch in on why a development team needs a build server.

Answer 1

The simplest thing you can do to convince your your employer to have a build server is to tell them that they will be able to release faster and with better quality.

Faster releases come from the immediate feedback about quality of the build. If someone breaks the build, he or she can fix the broken build immediately thus avoiding a delay in the build and release schedule. Without a build server the team will have to spend time trying to find what and when happened and how to fix it.

Better quality is achieved by the build server running bug detection tools automatically every time someone check is changes into a version control system. You don't mention what is the main development language in your organization, but such tools, advanced but commercial and simple but free, exist practically for all languages. Lint, FxCop, FindBugs and PMD come to mind.

You may also check this presentation on benefits of continuous integration for a more extensive discussion.