http://ayende.comAyende @ RahienCopyright (C) Ayende Rahien 2004 - 2021 (c) 202660And mine was a response to your original tools matter post. :D http://ferventcoder.com/archive/2008/09/07/tools-matter-automated-builds--automated-deployments.aspx http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment16http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment16Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:02:07 GMTI just finishing an automated deployment at work. We use the following comination of tools/ solutions: Subversion, Draco.NET, NAnt, MSBUILD, Wix3, DBScript, SQL Examiner. The coolest part of the whole automated deployement and the hardest part is deployment of databases. We use only Micrtosoft SQL Server 2005 database at work. First I use open source tool DBScript to get the whole database in separate scripts in Subversion. Then I made a simple tool to make a MDF from those scripts (HINT: create an empty mdf file with SQL Express and attach this file through SQL express and execute the scripts one by one to fill the structure of the new mdf file) This simple tool is executed in the NAnt build script. Then during deployment I use the commandline tools of SQL Examiner to generate a diff sql script between the mdf file and the target database. And this diff script is executed by the same tool against the target database and voila database updated. The only thing I have difficulties with is the whole WIX3 part. Its hard to find good documentation for it. http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment15http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment15Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:05:34 GMTWe use a combination of msbuild, robocopy, SqlCompare API and Powershell 2. Msbuild and robocopy's uses are obvious. SqlCompareAPI we use to execute schema upgrades. Powershell 2 mainly for it's remoting abillity such as encrypting web.config and other config files. Most of these tasks are msbuild tasks or custom scripts. I find it all a bit messy and tedious to put together, plus PS2 remoting is only supported on Vista and Win2008 at the moment. I would love to see some better guidance and/or frameworks to help us out in this space... Rhino.Deployment has a certain ring to it.. :) http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment14http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment14Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:53:25 GMTYes, but how do you actually "push changes to srv1"? (The deployment script code is not running on srv1, and still needs to check for and create IIS virtual folders, install services, etc). Plus, IT nazis would want the exact same build to be installed first on QA and then on prod boxes. Yet somehow a bunch of parameters need to be different between QA and prod, some of which (like production passwords) they won't even let you check into SVN... I'm not saying that this can't be done, of course. But creating a fool-proof solution that works every time without prayer is not quite trivial, especially if you are starting from scratch (as in C#/BCL) http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment13http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment13Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:44:16 GMTAt Ingenio we're using a bunch of batch files, VBScript and XML to do automated deployment of dozens of services, web sites, scheduled tasks, COM+ apps, reports, and other stuff across the web farm. The hitch is that the system is getting long in the tooth (7-8 years old) and is a bit flaky. And yet... there still does not appear to be a decent commercial or open source tool that can handle stuff like this. Capistrano seems fine for Rails apps on *ix... but there's not much out there for Windows. I don't mind building a new tool but I wish I didn't have to for stuff like this which ought to fulfill a fairly universal need anyways. (Of course the devil is in the details and the assumptions you make up-front...) http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment12http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment12Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:24:54 GMTdepending on the ops environment. Ideally, I would be able to do it by simple build script, something like: -build -create file app_offline.htm on srv1 - push changes to srv1 -remove app_ofline from srv1 etc. http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment11http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment11Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:10:18 GMTOren, what would you personally use to deploy a simple "ASP.Net"-type project? Considering that there are dev/qa/prod environments, single SQL box per environment, and a few web servers? Would you roll the deployment script from scratch in C#? http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment10http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment10Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:03:08 GMTExcellent points, especially about how this can be started in isolation. Deployment processes are something that can suffer from death by committee. http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment9http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment9Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:54:02 GMT+1 for Capistrano. For Mono at least :) I'm not sure what it's Windows story is, if it even has one. http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment8http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment8Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:03:54 GMTJosh and others, I'm interested in why you wouldn't consider nant a good tool for automated deployment. http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment7http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment7Mon, 08 Sep 2008 17:37:22 GMTJosh, csc.exe can produce a really flexible build script http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment6http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment6Mon, 08 Sep 2008 10:10:00 GMTI'd be interested in some references for achieving this (without TFS). I definitely fall into the never tried it category. http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment5http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment5Mon, 08 Sep 2008 08:47:38 GMTCapistrano is a god send for deployments. > cap production deploy:migrations -- check out from SVN, run any pending migrations, restart the servers, done. http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment4http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment4Mon, 08 Sep 2008 07:58:19 GMTWe use TFSDeployer and it works quite ok (you need to be on TFS of cource) http://www.codeplex.com/tfsdeployer http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment3http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment3Mon, 08 Sep 2008 06:22:12 GMToutside of nant, I've never had a good deployment automation system. that's something I've always wanted. I wouldn't really consider a nant script a good automated deployment system, personally. http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment2http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment2Mon, 08 Sep 2008 04:53:00 GMTWhat kind of tool are you guys using to make automated deployment possible? http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment1http://ayende.com/3586/requirements-101-have-an-automated-deployment#comment1Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:02:38 GMT