This Cookbook entry describes how to add a single check to the Deployment Checklist in the Release Dashboard. We will take an existing pipeline that has Dev, Test, Acceptance and Production environments. We will show how to add a single condition 'Signed off by Release Manager' that will be put on the Production environment.
When working on a product like Deployit, the development team has many ideas for new features and improvements in the product or the development process. Some of them can be implemented straight away, others are too big or require some investigation. Periodically, we set aside a day to work on the most interesting and promising of these ideas. The end result of this day of creative hacking is working code that demonstrates how a particular idea could be implemented.
Last week was our most recent Tech Rally and here are some of the things we worked on.
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Deployit provides fine-grained security settings based on roles and permissions and allows them to be configured through the CLI and in the GUI.
In this example, we'll be setting up security roles using the GUI. The example environment has two applications, OnlineOrders and SiteSearch that are both deployed to a test server before going to production. There are two different teams developing and deploying the applications. One team can't see the other's team application. Moreover, developers can only deploy to the test environment. Deployers can deploy both to the test environment and to production.
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Our approach to software development has changed in the last few years. IT professionals and software developers are working more closely together than ever before. The DevOps trend also extends to an acknowledgement that automation is a key factor in reducing costs and increasing release speeds.
Striving to be cost effective is a constant for any business but the increased focus on speed of deployment is a product of the growth of the Cloud and Agile development methodology. The bottom line is – the faster new features, fixes and improvements reach the customer, the greater their satisfaction. The same principle applies in an enterprise environment – the faster the latest version of an application reaches users, the more productive they can be.
Both environments require scalability. As your product offerings grow and branch out, the delivery method must be capable of handling the changes. In the enterprise environment a large portfolio of software applications is the norm and any deployment solution must be able to scale.
Automated app deployment can reduce costs, increase speed and scale as needed, but before we take a look at the solution let’s discuss the problem.
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At XebiaLabs, we build Deployit, the most advanced Application Release Automation (ARA) solution on the market. The main reason for customers to use our product is to speed up time to market for new software. The ability to deploy software, without errors and without down time, with the push of a button is a critical component in our customers' agile, continuous delivery and cloud strategies.
As part of those initiatives, many of our customers are also virtualizing their infrastructure. The functionality that makes Deployit ideal for deploying new releases also make it a perfect companion to an on-demand infrastructure strategy. When spikes in demand for applications hit, virtualized infrastructure makes it possible to scale up quickly and automatically. But this infrastructure is not terribly useful without an application running on it. Deployit ensures that the newly provisioned servers run the right version of the desired application (configuring loadbalancers, static HTML, Java or .NET applications and databases) and join in shouldering the increased load.
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As part of testing and demonstrating our advanced deployment automation1 platform Deployit, we at XebiaLabs use a lot of cloud and Devops tooling to be able to handle all the different types of middleware we support and build, CI and Ops tooling with which we integrate2.
I was recently setting up a Vagrant3 environment to demonstrate Deployit's Puppet module, which automatically registers new Puppet-provisioned middleware with your deployment automation platform to enable application-tier deployments to it, and ended up wrestling for quite some time with a tricky VirtualBox problem.
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We are about to launch a new version of Deployit. It is an exciting time for the XebiaLabs team as we continue to fine tune our product with the goal of delivering the most advanced deployment automation features on the market.
Here is a sneak peak at some of our upcoming features:
.Net Plugin
Deployit now seamlessly integrates with .Net in addition to all other middleware platforms in your stack. Follow this link to a full list of platforms supported by Deployit - http://www.xebialabs.com/platform_support .
With Deployit , Enterprises can implement one deployment Best Practice for all deployments company-wide.
Pipeline Dashboard
The Deployit reporting has been further enhanced to include a pipeline of application releases. This report gives real-time insight into an applications progress through the release pipeline. This report provides useful data points regarding the overall health of your deployments and will allow a side by side comparison of application releases across a number of variables.
Enhanced Security
Deployit has leading security already built into the product, e.g. Role-based login. With the latest version of the Deployit product all security, login credentials, etc, can be managed from within the GUI. This makes Deployit's security as usable as Deployit the platform 
and continues the justification that Deployit is an Enterprise product built for Enterprise teams.
More soon!!!
New Whitepaper, by Bob Aiello
Author of Configuration Management Best Practices, Practical Methods that Work in the Real World
Paper Excerpt:
Agile Process Maturity is essential for successful rapid iterative development and deployment automation is a key ingredient. Technology teams are finding that Agile practices help them to deliver working software that meets or exceeds their customer's expectations. The goal for every company is to establish practices that help all of their projects (and teams) succeed and that is exactly where Agile Process Maturity can help . These successes would be impossible without Agile CM's focus on rapid iterative development. Individuals and interactions may be more important than processes and tools, but you won't achieve success without automated build, package and deployment and that is exactly where wisely-chosen tools and process add value. This paper will describe what you need to consider to establish Agile process that are repeatable and able to scale to meet the needs of your organization.
To download the paper - click here
Webinar: March 22nd, 12pm est
Presenter:
Michael Azoff, Principal Analyst at Ovum's Software Solutions Group.
Andrew Phillips, VP of Products at XebiaLabs
Devops has grown from within the operations community to embrace Agile principles and values and to deal with the increasing challenges that operations face. At the same time, Agile developers push the boundaries further with continuous delivery from source code change to production.
In this webinar, Michael Azoff will explore the challenges and opportunities that are changing the nature of application development and delivery, enabling businesses to respond to changing market needs, in minutes.
Andrew Phillips, XebiaLabs, will deliver a deployment automation market analysis and deployment automation product showcase. He will give you a greater understanding of how to integrate deployment automation into your evolving DevOps and Agile Strategies.
To Sign Up - http://www.xebialabs.com/Join_Webinar
Guest Post: Bob Aiello, Author of Configuration Management Best Practices, Practical Methods that Work in the Real World
Ergonomics is the study of making work environments more efficient, usually for the purpose of avoiding injuries and improving productivity. Another important aspect of ergonomics is avoiding mistakes. When looking at the controls in the cockpit of a plane, the untrained observer can easily see that engineers have designed the controls to greatly minimize the possibility of a human error. So it is puzzling to observe that some software engineers create confusing, incomplete and contradictory installation instructions that often lead to costly mistakes and rework. Technology professionals pride themselves on being smart and creative. I can recall many conversations where my colleagues tried to impress each other with their ability to handle complex concepts that others could not possibly follow. I am not like that. I prefer to create processes and software automation that ensures that a junior software engineer could implement the release even at 2 am (half sleepy) after drinking a couple of beers. Building in such user-friendliness requires some creative software ergonomics.
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