Category: Continuous Deployment
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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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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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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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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
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Octopus Deploy Series Conclusion
Over the past few months, I’ve tried to show how Octopus Deploy works, how the design choices that the Octopus team made affect you and why these choices are beneficial. In retrospect, deployments should have evolved in parallel to the technology at hand, but history does not support that thesis. Deployments can be unique and…
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Octopus Deployment Basics
For the past few months, I’ve been analyzing Octopus Deploy in terms of it’s components, architectural design and benefits of said design decisions. In this article, we’re going to bring everything together to see the sum of all the parts. Everything starts with NuGet. Octopus works with your applications as NuGet packages and distributes them to…
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Minor change in plans for Octopus Deploy Series
My current Octopus Deploy Series so far has been more focused at a high/conceptual level. They’ve been a lot of fun to write and to piece together how Octopus’s components and mechanisms complement one another for both the developers’ and users’ benefit. I originally intended to do a deeper dive into Octopus Deploy and I think my initial estimates of…