Category: ALM
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The Zen of Deployment Automation Retrospective
Every now and then, I’m asked by one of our Octopus users: “Sometimes we need to change one or two files. Can I just deploy one or two files?” It’s at this point, I place my elbows on my desk and put my head in my hands. And I thought I was bad at letting…
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Setting up continuous deployments with Octopus Deploy and TFS
One reader asked in my Octo.exe deep dive if I had published how to setup continuous deployments. I had mentioned it in the deep dive and while I’d rather do a comprehensive piece to see how many different ways we could set up a continuous deployment, a simple post on how to setup continuous deployments in TFS is…
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Octopus 3 now available!
Monday, July 20th 2015 was a big day for the .NET ecosystem. Microsoft officially released Visual Studio 2015 and Release Management 2015. Coincidentally, Octopus Deploy 3.0 was released as well. While I’m habitually (or obsessively) focused on Octopus Deploy, I use Visual Studio and have a mild interest in what Release Management 2015 has to offer. With the simultaneous…
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The Octo.exe – your utility knife for automation
If you’ve started using Octopus Deploy and want to fully maximize it’s potential via automation but you don’t know where to start, you need to begin investigating the Octo.exe. The Octo.exe is a neat little utility that allows you, through the command-line (and by extension, PowerShell) to interact with your Octopus Server without using the…
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The Zen of Deployment Automation
I work with a lot of users using our Octopus Deploy server on a daily basis. It seems that not all, but many of our users don’t fully grasp the philosophy behind automated deployments so I thought a rant was in order. If you’re using Octopus Deploy or even thinking about implementing it, Octopus is indeed a…
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Chicago ALM Users Group – Agile Metrics
Yesterday night I attended the Chicago ALM Users Group session on Agile Metrics, given by Doc Norton. It was a very interesting topic and a great presentation altogether. Rather than reiterate the subject itself, you can view a video that Doc has available on his blog. A big thank you to Angela Dugan (blog) for organizing the event and to…
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Backing up projects on Octopus Tentacles? Think twice
I’ve noticed many of our Octopus teams use the File System – Backup Directory step template from the library to implement a backup step. Unfortunately, I’ve seen minimal prudence from said teams implementing backups. Many of these teams simply backup their project across most if not all of their environments while having no rollback steps whatsoever. Don’t get me wrong,…
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Including solution level files in your NuGet package
Rarely, if ever, does the OctoPack or for that matter NuGet.exe, miss a file or files that teams are looking to have in the NuGet package. Earlier this week I was helping a team with their NuGet package and they wanted to include files that were inside a folder at the solution level, not within a project folder. Normally, it’s not…
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Encore presentation on Octopus Deploy for Chicago ALM Users Group
I had another Octopus Deploy presentation today in Chicago for the Chicago ALM Users Group. Big thanks to Angela Dugan (@OakParkGirl) for letting me ramble on for Octopus for well over the time alloted. Had some good questions from audience members and interaction as well. I tried changing some things around in the presentation and adding…
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Presentation on Octopus Deploy at Chicago ALM User’s Group (again) on July 23rd
I’ll be presenting Octopus Deploy again, this time in the AON building in downtown Chicago. For more information, check out Angela Dugan’s post here: http://www.tfswhisperer.com/post/2014/06/29/Join-The-Chicago-ALM-User-Group-on-Wednesday-July-23-to-Talk-About-Octopus-Deploy