Month: March 2017

Making Schema Modifications Using Database Change Scripts

In this post, we’ll examine some popular strategies for updating database schemas, including using database change scripts. We’ll also see how one of these strategies can be integrated into a deployment process that uses Octopus. This is the fifth post in a multi-part series about using Octopus Deploy.

Databases are a key part of many applications. Naturally, releasing a new version often requires a schema change. One way we can accomplish this is to use change scripts, so we’re going to look at how this works. We will see how to name and organize change scripts so they are deployed in the proper order. And we’ll also briefly touch on how Octopus supports a change script strategy.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

When our Octopus Deploy pilot started, one of my first Continue reading “Practical Octopus Deploy – Database Change Scripts”

Understanding Octopus Deploy Projects

In our last post, we explored lifecycles in Octopus Deploy. In this post, we’ll examine Octopus Deploy projects and project groups. We’ll see how projects help to define your deployments. We’ll look at how project groups help organize your projects, and also how they play a role in providing security. And we’ll also see how an Octopus project uses a lifecycle to control a project’s deployment model. This is the fourth post in a multi-part series about using Octopus Deploy.

A Book of Recipes

Ultimately, the point of using a tool like Octopus is Continue reading “Practical Octopus Deploy – Projects and Project Groups”

Understanding Octopus Deploy Lifecycles

The previous post in this series discussed environments and roles in Octopus Deploy. In this post, we’ll examine Octopus Deploy lifecycles, lifecycle phases, and how they control deployments. We’ll also see how a lifecycle phase contains and interacts with Octopus environments. This is the third post in a multi-part series about using Octopus Deploy.

Typically, a web application deploys through several stages on its way from development to production. In Octopus, the lifecycle allows Continue reading “Practical Octopus Deploy – Lifecycles”

Understanding Octopus Environments and Roles

When first trying out a new application, it’s tempting to jump right in. Often, you can learn a lot about a new system through usage and discovery. However, Octopus Deploy introduces a new vocabulary that needs to be understood. In particular, two concepts that crop up constantly are environments and roles. This post will provide a magic decoder ring.

Saving the Environment

The Octopus documentation describes an Octopus environment as simply Continue reading “Practical Octopus Deploy – Environments and Roles”

Introducing Practical Octopus Deploy

I started out my career several years ago as a build and install engineer (remember InstallScript? Yeah, me neither.) Today, I create web applications for a large urban county government. Naturally, we need to deploy these applications to various servers. So, like many dev shops, we’ve created our own home-grown deployment processes. Maybe you have too. We’re developers, after all!

While our processes work for us, they had become a bit unwieldy (see Figure 1.) They were also difficult to maintain and needed updating. In addition, we were starting to consider a move towards the cloud. The systems we’ve been using do not address this need at all. As a result, it was time to up our DevOps game.

Getting Better All the Time

Wanting to improve, we started looking at our options. After a brief search we Continue reading “Practical Octopus Deploy – Introduction”