uDeploy can have new builds pushed to in by Jenkins automatically using a plugin that provides a post-build action. Here’s what it looks like:
We also have an hour long uDeploy / Jenkins demo.
Quick Look at uDeploy & Jenkins
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uDeploy 4.6 Released
Version 4.6.0 of uDeploy is now available.
Supportal users can view the full release notes and download it.
Agent Updates
Free Delivery: 5 things Amazon taught me about Deployment Automation
Early this week, I noticed a lightbulb went out and we were out of spares. Instead of adding a trip to the store to my todo list, my first instinct was to order a lightbulb off Amazon with two day shipping. That would be a little crazy if I didn’t have Amazon Prime.
Prime has a one time annual fee, after which any purchase I make for the year has free two-day shipping. So instead of a $10 pack of lightbulbs that I pay $5 to get in a week, I just pay $10. The goods show up before I would bother to go to the store, for less effort, and without paying for gas.
The downside? Imagining the carbon footprint of flying that bulb across the country just because I was too lazy to swing by the store on the way home.
So, what does this have to do with automated software deployments? When you make it cheap and easy to do something, you change behavior in pretty radical ways.
1. Frequency Increases
One of the ways Prime is a winner for Amazon, is that it encourages me to buy more frequently. It’s easy and without shipping price penalties I feel like I’m getting a bargain. I also buy tons more music off iTunes than I ever did from music stores.
Likewise, automation makes deployments cheap enough that you do more deployments. We’ve seen customers increase their number of deployments to test environments by an order of magnitude once automated.
Small Things Count: There’s a surprising difference between having a web page where someone can easily request a deployment and automatically deploying to test as the result of a new build or a nightly schedule. On event/schedule gets has a bigger impact over self-service. In Amazon terms, this is “subscribe and save“. New parents, take note, this was made for diapers. Developers, this helps turn CI into CD.
2. It’s about effort not speed
uDeploy built-in properties run-down
A few folks suggested to me that a bit more information on the built-in properties and property scoping for uDeploy would be handy. Message received, and we’ll flesh out the documentation on that front. In the meantime, here’s a quick list of the automaticly available properties.
Agile is reaching Operations (via DevOps)
This week I presented at the Mile High Agile conference. Along with Urbancode, the usual suspects were there as sponsors. The agile project management vendors Rally and VersionOne had the biggest displays, and a pile of consultants and trainers filled most of the sponsor tables. But, then there was a traditional operations vendor who has little app-dev focus.
As I chatted with some attendees, the general response to Ops vendor and an Agile show seemed to be confusion. It made a world of sense to me. While developers, and managers were the most common types at the conference a number of operations folks attended. They were feeling pressure from Agile development teams to release more often, and while still very suspicious of Agile, wanted to pick up insight into what these teams were doing, and see if any of the Lean or DevOps techniques might apply to their own problems. Vendors who are traditionally in the operations space, will be targetting these people as well as app-dev teams looking to better work with their operations groups. They’ll do that under a DevOps banner.
I fully expect to see Ops vendors sponsoring more frequently at Agile events. Within a couple years, the attendees will also probably expect them, and understand their role in helping operations get nimble enough to support Agile.
Update: I presented at the show and the slides from my session “From XP and CI to DevOps: The evolution of automation and agile” are now posted on slideshare.
uDeploy 4.5 is Here
We’re excited to announce the release of version 4.5 of uDeploy – our Application Release Automation product.
uDeploy 4.5’s new features are a direct result of customer feedback, and make it even more powerful than before. The workflow editor has been enhanced, and is now cleaner and easier to navigate. It also delivers easy-to-model processes with splits and joins, conditional branching, and automated remediation strategies.
Additionally, uDeploy 4.5 makes deployments faster and more reliable with component templates. Users can now manage configurations in one centralized location, and then create components that inherit a configuration automatically; allowing component processes to be reused. Continue reading