Currently, we have automated the deployment of ST environment through OCTOPUS deploy tool and our target is to automate the deployment for VA and PT environment.
All the System Testing (ST) , Vulnerability (VA ), Performance testing ( PT ) machines are in enterprise network on Windows server.
As per our process, We want to release artifacts in VA and PT environment, which is already deployed in ST.
We have two challenges to automate the deployment for VA/PT environment as mentioned below :
• To automate the deployment in VA and PT, we don’t have fixed server for PT/VA, availability of server is in place when there is a requirement to do VA and PT for the projects.
This requirement for VA and PT might come after couple of releases in System testing environment.
• Second challenge we faced, we don’t frequently do deployment for VA and PT. e.g. After 7 to 8 release, we deploy website, services and .bak file in VA or PT server and in Octopus, we have only incremental release of ST.
So, we want to know, do you have any workaround for this process so we can make automate VA/PT deployment with the existing process.
Thanks for getting in touch! That’s great to hear your deployments to ST environment successfully! Usually to add environments to deploy to, you would add these to the existing lifecycle that your project follows.
Octopus can accomodate transient targets as well within your environments, allowing you to automatically remove targets from a deployment if they become unavailable, or deploy to them when they become available again to keep them up to date. We have some great documentation outlining this concept and relevant features at the following link.
Regarding your second challenge, there are a couple of potential ways to approach this. I’d like to hear if either of these help address your specific requirements.
You could define phases in your lifecycle as optional, so the releases don’t have to go through them to progress.
You could also define a channel in your project which allows you to deploy the project through a secondary lifecycle, which could include different environments. Channels is a very powerful feature, so I’d recommend reading through our docs if this is the approach for you.
Let me know what you think, and if I’ve misinterpreted what you’re after in any way please let me know.
You’re very welcome! That’s great to hear you’ve had success with channels! Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any further questions or concerns in the future.
