I have a project with N git repos, each representing a static website (N varies). For every git repo there exists a build definition that creates an nginx docker image on Azure Container Registry. These N build definitions are linked to N release defenitions that deploy each image to k8s (also on Azure). Overall, CI/CD works fine and after the releases have succedded for the first time, I see a list of environments, each representing a website that is now online.
What I cannot do though with VSTS CI/CD is to declare how these environments are torn down. In GitLab CI (which I used before), there exists a concept of stopping an environment and although this is just a stage in .gitlab-ci.yaml, running it literally removes an environemnt from the list of the deployed ones.
Stopping an environment can be useful when deleting autodeployable feature branches (aka Review Apps). In my case, I'd like to do this when an already shared static website needs to be removed.
VSTS does not seem to have a concept of unreleasing something that has already been released and I'm wondering what the best workaround could be. I tried these two options so far:
Create N new release definition pipelines, which call kubecetl delete ... for a corresponding static websites. That does make things clear at all, because an environment called k8s prod (website-42) in one pipeline is not the same one as in another one (otherwise, I could see whether web → cloud or web × cloud was called last):
Define a new environment called production (delete) in the same release defenition and trigger it manually.
In this case 'deploy' sits a bit closer to 'undeploy', but its hard to figure out what was last (in the example above, you can kind of guess that re-releasing my k8s resources happened after I deleted them – you need to look at the time on the cards, which is a pretty poor indication).
What else could work for deleting / undeploying released applications?
VSTS has not the feature "stop environment" (auto delete the deployed things on the environment) in release management. But you can achieve the same thing in VSTS YAML build.
So except the two workarounds you shared, you can also stop the environment by VSTS YAML build (similar as the mechanism in GitLab).
For YAML CI build, you just need to commit the file end with .vsts-ci.yml. And in the .vsts-ci.yml file, you can specify with the tasks to delete the deployed app.
Related
I need help to understand better how to create complete CI/CD with Azure Devops for APim. Ok I already has explored the tools and read docs:
https://github.com/Azure/azure-api-management-devops-resource-kit
But I still have questions, my scenario:
APim dev instance with APi and operations created and others settings, as well APim prod instance created but empty.
I ran the extract tool and got the templates (not all), still need the Master (linked templates), and on this point seat my doubt, I already have 2 repos too(dev and prod).
How can I create the Master template, and how my changes from dev environment will be automatically applied to prod?
I didn't used the policyXMLBaseUrl parameters not sure what Path insert there, although seems #miaojiang inserted a folder from azure storage.
After some search and tries I deployed API's and Operations from an environment to another, but we still don't have a full automated scenario, where I make a change in a instance and that is automatically available.Is necessary to edit policies and definitions directly on the repositories or run the extract tool again.
I'm trying to configure Azure DevOps Release pipelines for our projects, and I have a pretty clear picture of what I want to achieve, but I'm only getting almost all the way there.
Here's what I'd like:
The build pipeline for each respective project outputs, as artifacts, all the things needed to deploy that version into any environment.
The release pipeline automatically deploys to the first environment ("dev" in our case) on each successful build, including PR builds.
For each successive environment, the release must have been deployed successfully to all previous environments. In other words, in order to deploy to the second environment ("st") it must have been deployed to the first one ("dev"), and in order to deploy to the third ("at") it must have been successfully deployed to all previous (both "dev" and "st"), etc.
All environments can have specific requirements on from what branches deployable artifacts must have been built; e.g. only artifacts built from master can be deployed to "at" and "prod".
Each successive deploy to any environment after the first one is triggered manually, by someone on a list of approvers. The list of approvers differs between environments.
The only way I've found to sort-of get all of the above working at the same time, is to automatically trigger the next environment after a successful deployment, and add a pre-deployment gate with a manual approval step. This works, except the manual approval doesn't trigger the deployment per se, but rather let an already triggered deployment start executing. This means that any release that's not approved for lifting into the next environment, is left hanging until manually dismissed.
I can avoid that by having a manual trigger instead of automatic, but then I can't enforce the flow from one environment to the next (it's e.g. possible to deploy to "prod" without waiting for successful deployments to the previous stages).
Is there any way to configure Azure DevOps Release Pipelines to do all of the things I've outlined above at once?
I think you are correct, you can only achieve that by setting automatic releases after successful release with approval gates. I dont see any other options with currect Azure DevOps capabilities.
Manual with approval gates doesnt check previous environments were successfully deployed to, unfortunately.
I hope this provides some clarity after the fact. Have you looked at YAML Pipelines In this you can specify the conditions on each stage
The stages can then have approvals on them as well.
My question is about maintainability of vNext/Octopus processes vs XAML based processes. Or rather about the impossibility to maintain them sanely leading me to believe we are doing something terribly wrong.
Given:
Microsoft pushes to phase out its TFS XAML builds in favour of the vNext builds
Octopus Deploy is a popular deployment automation framework
We have many XAML based builds, but starting to port to vNext
The deployments are automated with Octopus Deploy
Concretely, we have three kinds of builds going on in QA:
Old XAML based compilation builds producing artifacts to be deployed
Ultimately just builds the code, zips it and places in a well-known location
New vNext compilation builds producing artifacts to be deployed
Same as above
Deployment builds
XAML based build definition per deployment environment. This is the source of truth for the particular deployment, containing all the configuration URLs, connection strings, certificate thumbprints, etc.. The build definition has over 100 build parameters. Each time a new environment is setup we clone an existing XAML build definition and change the parameters.
This build unpacks the build artifact, generates all the web/app config files based on the configuration parameters and kicks off Octopus Deploy with a lot of parameters using octo.exe and waiting for the end
Octopus Deploy process
Creates 3 packages from the build artifact previously unpacked by the XAML build to match three areas of deployment - web farm, background job engine cluster and the database
Delivers the relevant packages to the relevant tentacles.
The tentacles unpack and setup their respective packages
So, if we have 50 deployment environments, then we have 50 XAML deployment builds, each capturing the context of the respective environment. But the XAML deployment build delegates the deployment job to Octopus and here we are forced to have 50 Octopus projects - one per deployment.
Why is it so? We examined the option of having just one Octopus Project, but what would be the Release versions of such project? In order for us to be able to navigate amongst the gazillion releases, the release version must include:
The build version of the deployed code, e.g. 55.0.18709.3
The name of the deployment environment, e.g. atwfm
Using the example above this gives us 55.0.18709.3-atwfm, but sometimes we want to deploy the same build artifact in the same deployment environment twice. But the only Octopus project would already have the release 55.0.18709.3-atwfm, so how to deploy 55.0.18709.3 in atwfm again, without deleting the already existing release?
We could not find a workaround and so, we have Octopus project per deployment.
THIS IS ABSOLUTELY CRAZY because Octopus projects are a pain to update. Suppose we need to add a step - go do it in 50 projects. There are great advises on the Internet to use automation to edit multiple projects. Not ideal at all.
vNext, BTW, has the same problem. If I am to port the existing XAML builds to vNext I will end up with 50 vNext deployment builds. If I decide to add a step, I need to do it in all the 50 builds!!!
Note, that XAML builds do not have this problem (they have many others, though), because their the process is separate from the parameters. I can modify the workflow once and all the XAML builds are now updated with the new process change.
My question is - how do people work with vNext and Octopus, because our process drives me crazy. There must be a better way.
EDIT 1
I would like to clarify. We sometimes want to deploy the same build artifacts twice. We are not recompiling them and reusing the same version. No. We already have the build artifacts handy with the build version baked inside the artifact. We may want to deploy it the second time into the same environment because, for example, some databases in that environment have been misconfigured and now this is fixed and we need to redeploy. This does not mean we can rerun the already existing Octopus release, because the fix may involve tweaking the deployment parameters of the respective XAML deployment build definition. Hence we may be forced to restart the XAML deployment build, which never compiles code.
EDIT 2
First of all, why do we drive the deployment from TFS XAML builds rather than from Octopus? Historic reasons. We did not have Octopus at first. The deployment was done by our ad hoc code. When we introduced Octopus we decided to keep the XAML deploymenet builds for two reasons:
To save the cost of migrating all the XAML deployment builds with all the gazillion deployment parameters to Octopus. Maybe it was a wrong decision, maybe we could have automated the migration.
Because TFS has better facility to display test results. The deployment may end with deployment smoke tests and their results has to be published somewhere. We do not see how Octopus can help us publish the results, TFS can.
Why would one redeploy? For example, one of the deployment parameters is certificate thumbprint. When the certificate is renewed, this parameter must be changed (we do have automation for updating XAML build parameters). But often we discover that it was already deployed with wrong thumbprint. So, we fix the deployment and redeploy. Or, we discover some strange behavior of the deployed application and wish to redeploy with some extra tracing/debugging features.
There is a lot to unpack here, but I'll give it a go.
TL;DR It's the way you version the releases that's causing you all the pain. Change that and everything else will fall in to place
Lets start at the end and work backwards.
Octopus Deploy has a concept of Environments. This means that you can Deploy the same project to multiple environments and use Octopus's scoping mechanism to manage environment specific configuration.
So using your example.
Creates 3 packages from the build artifact previously unpacked by the
XAML build to match three areas of deployment - web farm, background
job engine cluster and the database
I set up an Environment in Octopus for each of your 50 Environments. (I'll use 3 environments in the example to keep it simple, but the principles apply no matter how many environments you have)
In my Dev Environment I have a single server so I create an environment called "Dev" and add the tentacle for that specific server. Then I tag the tentacle with the deployment type "Web", "Job", "Database"
I then set up a test environment which has 3 servers so I create the Environment and add the 3 servers. I then tag each tentacle with the deployment type "Web", "Job", "Database"
Finally I set up the Production environment. This has 5 web servers, 1 job server and 1 database server. I add all 7 tentacles to the environment, and tag them appropriately.
Now I only need 1 project to deploy to all 3 environments. In my project I have 3 steps.
Step 1 Deploy Web Site
Step 2 Deploy Jobs
Step 3 Deploy database
I can tag each of these steps to say what kind of tentacle I want to deploy to. Now when I run the deployment the link between the tags on the step, and the tags on the tentacle mean Octopus knows where to deploy the code.
Variables: Your variables can be scoped to an environment. So for example if your dev environment database connection string is dev.database.net/Instance and your test environment database connection string is test.Database.net/Instance then you can scope these in the variables section of the project. If your DNS is consitant with your environment names you could even use some of the built in variables to make adding environments more easy. i.e. ${Octopus.Environment.Name}.Database.net/Instance
Releases and version numbers: So here is where I think your problem lies. Adding the environment name to the release and trying to create multiple releases with the same version is basically causing you all of the pain.
Using the example above this gives us 55.0.18709.3-atwfm, but
sometimes we want to deploy the same build artifact in the same
deployment environment twice. But the only Octopus project would
already have the release 55.0.18709.3-atwfm, so how to deploy
55.0.18709.3 in atwfm again, without deleting the already existing release?
There are a couple of things here. In Octopus you can easily deploy again from the UI, however it sounds like you're rebuilding the artifact and trying to create a new release with the same version number. Don't do this! Each new build should have a distinct and unique build number / release number.
The principle I follow is "build once deploy many"
When you create a release it requires a version number, this release then flows through the environments. So I build my code and it gets a versions number 55.0.18709.3 then I deploy it to Dev. When the deployment has been verified I then want to "Promote" the release to test I can do this from within Octopus or I can get TFS to do this.
So I promote 55.0.18709.3 to test and then on to prod. If I need to know which release is in which environment, Octopus tells me this via the dashboard or API.
Finally I can "Orchestrate" the flow of releases through my environments using Build v.next.
So my end to end process looks something like.
Build vNext Build
Compile
Run Unit Tests
Package output
Publish package
build vNext Release
Call Octopus to create the release passing in the version number
Optionally deploy the release to the first environment on your way to live
I now have everything I need in Octopus to deploy to ANY environment with a single project and my environment specific configuration.
I can either "Deploy" the release to a specific environment or "Promote" the release from one environment to another. This can be done easily from within the Octopus UI
Or I can create a "Promote" using the Octopus plugin in TFS and use that to orchestrate the promotion of code through the environments.
Octopus Terminology.
Create release - This pulls together the Artifacts and Release number in Octopus to create an Immutable thing which will be deployed to one of more environments.
Deploy release - The act of pushing your code to a specific environment.
Promote release - Once the code has been deployed in to a single environment, it can them be promoted in to other environments
If you have a specific sequence of environments then you can use the "Lifecycles" feature of Octopus to enforce that workflow. but that's a topic for another day!
EDIT1 Response
I don't think the edit changes my answer, you can re-deploy the same release many times as you like. what you cannot do is create a new release with the same version number. You might want to decouple these steps could you add some more detail about what changes in the XAML build? You can change variables in a release, you can update them in octopus and then redeploy
EDIT 2 Response
That makes things clearer. I think you need to take the hit and migrate the parameters to Octopus. It's variable management is much better than XAML builds and although build vNext is comparable to Octopus it makes more sense to have the config in Octopus. As XAML builds are on their way out, it makes sense to move this stuff now. Whilst it might be a lot of work, at the end you'll have a much smother workflow and you can really take advantage of the power of Octopus.
The Test results point. I agree this is better suited to build vNext, so at this point you will be using build vNext as your Orchestrator and Octopus Deploy as your release management tool.
The process would look something like
Build vNext
Compile code.
Run Unit tests
Run Octopack
Publish packages
Call Octopus and Create release
Call Octopus to Deploy to "Dev"
Run Smoke tests
Run Integration Tests
Call "Selenium" to run Run UI tests
Call Octopus to Promote release to "Test"
Run Smoke tests
Run Integration Tests
Call "Selenium" to run Run UI tests
Call Octopus to Promote release to "Production" (Perhaps with a manual innervation)
Run Smoke tests
Run Integration Tests
Call "Selenium" to run Run UI tests
Quick question.
Is there a way to constrain/restrict what order users can can deploy builds to environments?
For example if I have these four environments configured with manual push-button deploy (not-automated) I can start all four together if I want. I don't have to wait for the other to be done before kicking off the next one:
DEV
TEST
STAGE
PROD
Microsoft seems to be missing this feature in TFS 2015. It would make sense to offer a deployment condition that states that previous environments must have successful deployments before you can run push-button deploy for the next.
Yes, I know, you are going to say "but you can automate that so the deploys run in the order you want." Management here does NOT want that. They want push button deployment for each environment WITH a constraint that previous environments must be completed first.
This means a manual start for each environment.
Other than having the release manager "eyeball" the situation before pushing the button for the next environment I can't see a way to configure this rule.
Any ideas?
There is not any restriction on manually deploy situation for now. This is designed for giving you the ability to override the release process.
Note that you can always deploy a release directly to any of the
environments in your release definition by selecting the Deploy
action when you create a new release.
In this case, the environment triggers you configure, such as a
trigger on successful deployment to another environment, do not apply.
The deployment occurs irrespective of these settings. This gives you the ability to override the release process. Performing such
direct deployments requires the Manage deployments permission, which
should only be given to selected and approved users.
Source Link: Environment triggers
Suggest you use automation triggers, you could use Parallel forked and joined deployments, in combination with the ability to define pre- and post-deployment approvals, this enables the configuration of complex and fully managed deployment pipelines to suit almost any release scenario.
If you insist on manual push-button deploy, you may have to ask the release manager "eyeball" the situation to restrict environment deployment order as you mentioned.
I have been researching and am trying to figure out the best branching and deployment strategy to accomplish the requirements below. Maybe I’m missing something but it is more complicated than it seems. Ideally, we’d just have one permanent branch, ‘master’, that could have specific commits tagged to mark releases to production.
Our current strategy is based on Git Flow and has permanent branches ‘master’ (only has releases to production) and ‘develop’. The primary thing that complicates using a multiple permanent-branches model is the concept of “promoting” the same build from the staging environment to production. Currently, this needs to be done in a separate source code branch (deployments to staging come from ‘develop’, deployments to prod come from ‘master’).
Tools: Git (VSTS), TeamCity, Octopus Deploy
Requirements (feature and hotfix lifecycles):
All code is reviewed via pull requests (enforced via branch policies)
All code gets deployed to a staging environment for testing
We can quickly go back to any snapshot of code that was deployed previously
If testing is successful, then the same build can be “promoted” from our staging environment to production (no need to build again)
Features accumulate over time before pushing out to production as a single release. Hotfixes have to be able to go through without getting caught up in the "all or nothing" next regular release.
I like the idea of having one permanent branch with tags (re: The master/develop split is redundant, http://endoflineblog.com/gitflow-considered-harmful), but having additional permanent branches may better facilitate deploying to different lifecycles/versions (feature and hotfix) to Octopus.
I have been wrestling with how best to pull this off and I may be over complicating things. Any feedback is appreciated.
It seems you have a number of questions and they are quite broad... I'll add some comments to each of your requirements as a conversation starter, but this whole thread might get blocked by moderators as it is definitely not the style of questions SO was made for.
All code is reviewed via pull requests (enforced via branch policies)
I haven't looked at VSTS for ages, but I'd expect they already support branch policies and pull-requests, so not sure if there's anything you need here other than configure settings in your repositories.
In case VSTS does not support that, you might consider moving to a tool that does e.g. BitBucket, GitHub, etc. Both of these have an on-premises version in case you can't (or don't want to) use the cloud hosted version.
All code gets deployed to a staging environment for testing
You achieve that with setting up lifecycles in Octopus Deploy, to make sure deployments/promotions follow the the sequence you want.
We can quickly go back to any snapshot of code that was deployed previously
You already have source control, so all you need now is traceability from the code that is deployed in an environment, to the deployment version in Octopus Deploy, the build job in TeamCity, the branch and exact commit in your source control.
There's a few things that you can do, to achieve that:
Define a versioning scheme that works for you. I like to use semantic versioning. "Major" and "Minor" versions are defined by the developers, and the "Patch" is the auto-incremented number from TeamCity (%build.number%). Every git push build the code and generates a unique build version (%major%.%minor%.%build.number%)
As part of the build steps in TeamCity, before you compile the code, make sure your source files are patched with the version number assigned by each build, the commit hash from your source control, and the branch name. e.g. if you are using .NET, make sure all the AssemblyInfo.cs files are updated with that version, so that the version is embedded in the binaries. This allows anyone to query the version looking at the properties of the binary files, and also allows you to display the app version on the app itself (e.g. status bar, footer, caption, about box, etc.)
Have TeamCity tag your source control with the version number of every build, so you can quickly see on your source control history. You probably only want to do that for the master branch, though which is what you care about.
Have Octopus tag your source control with the deployment version number and the environment name, so that you can quickly see (from your source control) what got deployed where.
Steps 1 and 2 are the most important ones, really. 3 and 4 are just nice-to-have. Most of the time you'll just open the app in the environment, check the commit hash in the "About", and do a git checkout to that commit hash...
If testing is successful, then the same build can be "promoted" from our staging environment to production (no need to build again)
Again, Octopus Deploy lifecycles, and make sure anything different in each environment is defined in the configuration file of the application, which is updated during the Octopus deployment, using environment-specific variables.
In terms of branch workflow, this last requirement makes it mandatory to merge changes into master (or whatever your "production" branch is) before the deployment lifecycle can begin.