The Perficient webinar on March 1, 2017, discussed accelerating Sitecore DevOps on Microsoft Azure, highlighting Perficient's consulting expertise and extensive experience with Sitecore’s platform. Key topics included the definition of DevOps, infrastructure-as-code, and continuous integration and delivery using Microsoft technologies. The session featured insights on application management within Azure, benefits of Visual Studio Team Services, and deployment strategies such as blue/green deployments.

1. Accelerate Sitecore DevOps
on Microsoft Azure
Perficient Webinar – March 1, 2017

2. 2
About Perficient
Perficient is the leading digital
transformation consulting firm serving
Global 2000 and enterprise customers
throughout North America.
With unparalleled information technology, management
consulting, and creative capabilities, Perficient and its
Perficient Digital agency deliver vision, execution, and
value with outstanding digital experience, business
optimization, and industry solutions.

3. Perficient Profile
• Founded in 1997
• Public, NASDAQ: PRFT
• 2015 revenue $473.6 million
• Major market locations:
Allentown, Atlanta, Ann Arbor, Boston, Charlotte,
Chattanooga, Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus, Dallas, Denver,
Detroit, Fairfax, Houston, Indianapolis, Lafayette, Milwaukee,
Minneapolis, New York City, Northern California, Oxford (UK),
Southern California, St. Louis, Toronto
• Global delivery centers in China and India
• 3,000+ colleagues
• Dedicated solution practices
• ~95% repeat business rate
• Alliance partnerships with major technology vendors
• Multiple vendor/industry technology and growth
awards

4. 4
We have designed, architected, implemented, and delivered many large sites powered by Sitecore’s enterprise-class
Experience Platform. As a Platinum Implementation Partner, we have the expertise to help you create a relevant and
personalized experience that wows your customers.
Perficient + Sitecore
75+
CERTIFIED
SITECORE
DEVELOPERS
6
SITECORE
MVPs
1 of 20
SITECORE
PLATINUM
IMPLEMENTATION
PARTNERS
50+
CERTIFIED
AZURE
CONSULTANTS
MICROSOFT NSP
PARTNER OF
THE YEAR 2016
-ALL REGIONS-

5. 5
Tim McCarthy
Senior Solutions Architect
@tmccart_1
Introductions
George Chang
Senior Solutions Architect
Sitecore MVP, Cloud
@sitecoregeorge

6. 6
• What is DevOps?
• Infrastructure-as-Code on
Microsoft Azure
• Using Visual Studio Team
Services (VSTS) to enable
Continuous Integration /
Continuous Delivery
Agenda

7. 7
DevOps is the union of
people, process, and
products to enable
continuous delivery of
value to our end users.
― Donovan Brown, “DevOps on the Microsoft Stack”
What is DevOps?

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• Azure is a developer’s best friend
• Building the Azure environments with
Azure ARM Templates and PowerShell
• DSC – make sure IIS is there!
• Custom Extension – configure
Sitecore!
• Provisioning the Sitecore databases
into SQL Azure
Infrastructure-as-Code

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Do you currently use or plan to use Microsoft Azure for your Sitecore environments?
Yes, we currently use Azure for our Sitecore environments.
No, we do not and have no plans to.
We don’t currently, but we plan to in the future.
We’re not sure yet.
Poll #1 Placeholder

10. Demo
Building out a Sitecore Environment on Microsoft Azure via Code

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Application Management Options

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Sample Sitecore Azure App Service Configuration:
• Azure App Service (content management)
• Azure App Service (content delivery)
• Azure App Service (processing)
• Azure App Service (reporting)
• Azure SQL Server (core, master, reporting)
• Azure SQL Server (web)
• Azure Search
• Azure Redis Cache
• Application Insights
Note: You’ll need to bring your own xDB provider – that can be
xDB Cloud, a VM, or a hosted MongoDB service.
• New in Sitecore 8.2 update 1
• Uses native Azure Platform-as-a-Service
(PaaS) technologies
• Deployable with ARM templates
• Easily scale up or scale out through the
Azure portal
• Scale server roles independently
• Add more/remove instances automatically
based on conditions to save on costs
• Uses Application Insights for logging and
other insights into site metrics
• Best used with consumption-based Sitecore
licensing
Sitecore Azure App Service

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Sitecore Azure App Service

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There should be two tasks for a
human being to perform to deploy
software into a development, test,
or production environment: to pick
the version and environment and
to press the ‘deploy’ button.
― David Farley, “Continuous Delivery: Reliable
Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment
Automation”
Continuous Integration
and Delivery

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What?
Frequent automated builds to a integration
environment for the development team
Why?
Visibility to the development team
Instant feedback loop
Regular unit and integration testing
Minimize issues before deployment
Continuous Integration
How?
Centralized Code Repository
Code Reviews
Automated Builds
Unit Testing
Integration Testing

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What?
Frequent automated deployments to a production
environment
Why?
Minimize overhead and staff
Ensure quality and consistency
Provide value to users quickly
Mitigate risk with automation
Continuous Delivery
How?
Build Selection
Environment Transforms
Automated Deployment
Deployment Validation

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The key test is that a business sponsor could
request the current development version of the
software to be deployed into production at a
moment’s notice – and no one would bat an eyelid,
let alone panic.
– Martin Fowler
Continuous Delivery
Amazon, 2011
• Mean time between deployments: 11.6
• Max deployments per hour: 1,079
• Mean number of hosts simultaneously receiving a
deployment: 10,000
Results
• Reduction of outages: 75%
• Reduction of outage minutes due to deployment: 90%
• Percentage of software deployments causing an
outage: 0.001%

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Development Lifecycle
Development Life Cycle Flow Chart
Development
Task
Management
BuildTestDeploySourceControl
Start
Task Created and
Assigned
Feature Branch
Created
Integration Build
End
Code Complete
Pull Request Created
Code merged into
development branch
Automated Tests
Integration
Deployment
Tests Pass?
Yes
Issue Created and
Assigned
No
Yes
Approved
Pull Request
Approved? Denied
Feature Branch
Committed
Build
Succeeded?

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Release Lifecycle
Release Life Cycle Flow Chart
Task
Management
BuildTestDeploySourceControl
Start
Release Created and
Assigned
Release Branch
Created
Production Build
End
Automated Tests
Remove Production
Server from Load
Balancer
Tests Pass?
Yes
Yes
Build
Succeeded?
Issue Created and
Assigned
No
No
Deploy to
Production Server
Test Production
Deployment
Production
Deployment
Tests Pass?
Deployment Completed
Tests Passed
Reinstate
Production Server in
Load Balancer
Tests Failed

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Build and Release Process
Build
Release
Compile Code Execute Tasks
Config Transforms
Build Artifacts
Automated Testing
Dev Environment Staging Environment Prod Environment
Code Repository
Config Transforms Config Transforms

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Features:
• Dashboards
• Code Repository (Git and TFVC)
• Pull Requests
• Branch Policies
• Project Management
• Stories/Tasks/Bugs
• Burndown
• Kanban board
• Multi-team Management
• Builds
• Releases
• Package Management and Feeds
• Tests
• Test Plan Management
• Load Tests
Why VSTS?
• Integration
• Visual Studio
• Azure
• Windows Server
• Extensibility
• Octopus Deploy
• Slack
• Jira
Visual Studio Team Services

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Do you currently use or plan to use Microsoft Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS)?
Yes, we currently use Microsoft Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS).
No, we do not and have no plans to.
We don’t currently, but we plan to in the future.
We’re not sure yet.
Poll #2 Placeholder

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Visual Studio Marketplace

24. 24
• Begins with code repository
• Step-based process
• Variables and secure password storage
• Builds can be triggered by code commits or
schedules
• Automatic work item creation on failure
• Results in build artifacts to be used with
releases
Build Definitions

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• Begins with build artifacts
• Multi-environment support
• Approver support
• Infrastructure can be provisioned /
deprovisioned as a release task using ARM
templates
• Releases can be triggered by successful
builds or schedules
• Results in deployment to an environment
Release Definitions

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• Release definition step
• Delete existing resource group/VMs
• Create/update resource group/VMs
• Complete teardown and rebuild of
infrastructure
ARM Template Deployment

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• Strategy for zero-downtime deployments
• Two (or more) identical production
environments
• Current production environment stays up
while deployment is occurring in other
environment
• Once deployment is completed and validated,
traffic from the existing production
environment is redirected to the updated
environment
• The now-legacy environment can be kept for
the next deployment or spun down for cost
savings
Blue/Green Deployments

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Tim McCarthy: @tmccart_1
George Chang: @sitecoregeorge
Questions?

29. 29
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Next up:
Drive Digital Transformation with Innovation
March 15, 2017
1:00pm - 2:00pm CST
Perficient.com/insights/webinars

30. THANK YOU