This document discusses trends in application lifecycles including more frequent releases, customer responsiveness, stakeholder transparency, and compliance with regulations. It also describes a continuous deployment solution for .NET teams that integrates tools like Visual Studio, System Center, and Release Management to enable continuous integration, testing, and deployment across development, testing, and production environments.
The faster your software is deployed, the quicker you can get feedback. With release management in Visual Studio you can configure, approve and deploy your applications for any environment.
Let's have a look at how the software works and create a deployment from scratch.
DevOps with Visual studio Release Management (Pieter Gheysens)Visug
Are you looking for an efficient way to dev/test your applications in Windows Azure and you want to track your release process by automating your deployments for repeatable success? Are you struggling with a manual and error-prone deployment process which frustrates you every day? Are you looking for automation that is the same across different environments (Dev-Test-Acceptance-Production)? Do you need to build/package your application only once and deploy it with the exact same bits to any provisioned environment? Do you want to setup a formal approval workflow to promote a release to the next stage? If so, come and learn about the new release management features in Visual Studio Team Services.
TFS 2015 offers many great Release Management enhancements. A new web interface, dashboards, and tasks for deploying to Windows and Linux platforms among others.
The faster your software is deployed, the quicker you can get feedback. With release management in Visual Studio you can configure, approve and deploy your applications for any environment.
Let's have a look at how the software works and create a deployment from scratch.
DevOps with Visual studio Release Management (Pieter Gheysens)Visug
Are you looking for an efficient way to dev/test your applications in Windows Azure and you want to track your release process by automating your deployments for repeatable success? Are you struggling with a manual and error-prone deployment process which frustrates you every day? Are you looking for automation that is the same across different environments (Dev-Test-Acceptance-Production)? Do you need to build/package your application only once and deploy it with the exact same bits to any provisioned environment? Do you want to setup a formal approval workflow to promote a release to the next stage? If so, come and learn about the new release management features in Visual Studio Team Services.
TFS 2015 offers many great Release Management enhancements. A new web interface, dashboards, and tasks for deploying to Windows and Linux platforms among others.
Leverage Team Foundation to focus on application development, decrease rework, increase transparency into your application and increase the rate at which you can ship high quality software throughout the application lifecycle.
DevOps and Continuous Delivery with Visual Studio 2015 and VSTSSolidify
Som utvecklare är det ofta självklart att kodandet är den viktigaste aktiviteten i projektet. Men om inte funktioner för releaseplanering, källkodshantering, deployment och testning finns på plats så är det vanligt att dessa aktiviteter tar en stor del av utvecklingsarbetet.
DevOps och Continuous Delivery är synsätt som vi använder för att säkerställa snabba leveranser av god kvalitet. Microsoft Azure och Visual Studio har mängder av funktioner som underlättar arbetet så att arbetssätt och verktyg samverkar på ett effektivt sätt.
I detta seminarium kommer vi att förklara vad DevOps är för något och hur detta synsätt kan användas för att säkerställa snabba leveranser med god kvalitet. DevOps hjälper oss överbrygga arbetet i utveckling och drift med fokus på att säkerställa leverenspresision och kvalitet, bland annat genom att se till att bra lösningar för applikationsövervakning, felrapportering, paketering och deployment finns på plats.
Den andra delen vi kommer fokusera på är Continuous Delivery. Med den senaste versionen av Visual Studio Release Management visar vi vad Continuous Delivery är genom att sätta upp en komplett lösning som automatiskt tar kod till produktion. I Visual Studio 2015 sviten har vi ett helt nytt byggsystem och väl integrerade lösningar kring release management, deployment och automatiserad testning som gör plattformen förträfflig för att implementera en continuous delivery process. För att så snabbt och enkelt som möjligt tillgodogöra oss dessa koncept kommer vi använda molnplattformarna Azure och Visual Studio Online, med dessa kan vi flytta utvecklingsplattformen till molnet och få helt nya förutsättningar för snabbare releaser.
Så missa inte denna chans att vara en av de första att se en komplett Continuous Delivery-lösning byggd på den senaste Microsofttekniken!
The goal of this session is to put you on the road toward continuous delivery. It'll consists in a few introductory slides followed by a demo with the Microsoft's continuous delivery solution.
Accelerating software delivery with AWSRob Greenwood
Slides from a recent talk I gave at the DevOps Exchange Manchester, as part of the Digital City Festival 2020.
Theme: Empowering developers in the cloud.
Development teams are increasingly measured on features delivered, yet considerable time and effort is lost on unplanned (recovery) work.
I discuss how and why continuous delivery helps businesses accelerate their software delivery, and how to implement a continuous delivery pipeline using native AWS DevOps tooling.
Ever since the VSTS Product Team has started working in 3 weeks sprints to deliver new features to the product, it has been a real eye-opener to witness how fast the product is evolving and how many new features has been introduced since the beginning of Team Foundation Service, Visual Studio Online and now the current name of the product: Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS). In this demo-heavy session we will have a quick look at some of the new interesting features that were added in the last couple of months.
Visual Studio Release Management - VISUG 10 Years (February 2016)Pieter Gheysens
Are you looking for an efficient way to dev/test your applications in Windows Azure and you want to track your release process by automating your deployments for repeatable success? Are you struggling with a manual and error-prone deployment process which frustrates you every day? Are you looking for automation that is the same across different environments (Dev-Test-Acceptance-Production)? Do you need to build/package your application only once and deploy it with the exact same bits to any provisioned environment? Do you want to setup a formal approval workflow to promote a release to the next stage? If so, come and learn about the new release management features in Visual Studio Team Services.
LCNUG 2015 - what's new for agile teams in TFS 2015Angela Dugan
With the upcoming launch of TFS 2015, it's hard to keep track of all of the new features. This presentation is a quick synopsis of what has been added in the agile planning and testing space with the latest releases to TFS 2105 and VSO.
Tech Days 2015 nyheter i visual studio alm 2015Solidify
Moderna projekt kräver moderna verktyg. Med dagens krav på verktyg och tekniker kan det vara en tidsödande process att hålla en utvecklingsplattform med allt det innebär uppdaterad. Med Visual Studio ALM 2015 har vi en sammanhängande svit av lösningar som ger oss alla förutsättningar för modern utveckling.
Leverage Team Foundation to focus on application development, decrease rework, increase transparency into your application and increase the rate at which you can ship high quality software throughout the application lifecycle.
DevOps and Continuous Delivery with Visual Studio 2015 and VSTSSolidify
Som utvecklare är det ofta självklart att kodandet är den viktigaste aktiviteten i projektet. Men om inte funktioner för releaseplanering, källkodshantering, deployment och testning finns på plats så är det vanligt att dessa aktiviteter tar en stor del av utvecklingsarbetet.
DevOps och Continuous Delivery är synsätt som vi använder för att säkerställa snabba leveranser av god kvalitet. Microsoft Azure och Visual Studio har mängder av funktioner som underlättar arbetet så att arbetssätt och verktyg samverkar på ett effektivt sätt.
I detta seminarium kommer vi att förklara vad DevOps är för något och hur detta synsätt kan användas för att säkerställa snabba leveranser med god kvalitet. DevOps hjälper oss överbrygga arbetet i utveckling och drift med fokus på att säkerställa leverenspresision och kvalitet, bland annat genom att se till att bra lösningar för applikationsövervakning, felrapportering, paketering och deployment finns på plats.
Den andra delen vi kommer fokusera på är Continuous Delivery. Med den senaste versionen av Visual Studio Release Management visar vi vad Continuous Delivery är genom att sätta upp en komplett lösning som automatiskt tar kod till produktion. I Visual Studio 2015 sviten har vi ett helt nytt byggsystem och väl integrerade lösningar kring release management, deployment och automatiserad testning som gör plattformen förträfflig för att implementera en continuous delivery process. För att så snabbt och enkelt som möjligt tillgodogöra oss dessa koncept kommer vi använda molnplattformarna Azure och Visual Studio Online, med dessa kan vi flytta utvecklingsplattformen till molnet och få helt nya förutsättningar för snabbare releaser.
Så missa inte denna chans att vara en av de första att se en komplett Continuous Delivery-lösning byggd på den senaste Microsofttekniken!
The goal of this session is to put you on the road toward continuous delivery. It'll consists in a few introductory slides followed by a demo with the Microsoft's continuous delivery solution.
Accelerating software delivery with AWSRob Greenwood
Slides from a recent talk I gave at the DevOps Exchange Manchester, as part of the Digital City Festival 2020.
Theme: Empowering developers in the cloud.
Development teams are increasingly measured on features delivered, yet considerable time and effort is lost on unplanned (recovery) work.
I discuss how and why continuous delivery helps businesses accelerate their software delivery, and how to implement a continuous delivery pipeline using native AWS DevOps tooling.
Ever since the VSTS Product Team has started working in 3 weeks sprints to deliver new features to the product, it has been a real eye-opener to witness how fast the product is evolving and how many new features has been introduced since the beginning of Team Foundation Service, Visual Studio Online and now the current name of the product: Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS). In this demo-heavy session we will have a quick look at some of the new interesting features that were added in the last couple of months.
Visual Studio Release Management - VISUG 10 Years (February 2016)Pieter Gheysens
Are you looking for an efficient way to dev/test your applications in Windows Azure and you want to track your release process by automating your deployments for repeatable success? Are you struggling with a manual and error-prone deployment process which frustrates you every day? Are you looking for automation that is the same across different environments (Dev-Test-Acceptance-Production)? Do you need to build/package your application only once and deploy it with the exact same bits to any provisioned environment? Do you want to setup a formal approval workflow to promote a release to the next stage? If so, come and learn about the new release management features in Visual Studio Team Services.
LCNUG 2015 - what's new for agile teams in TFS 2015Angela Dugan
With the upcoming launch of TFS 2015, it's hard to keep track of all of the new features. This presentation is a quick synopsis of what has been added in the agile planning and testing space with the latest releases to TFS 2105 and VSO.
Tech Days 2015 nyheter i visual studio alm 2015Solidify
Moderna projekt kräver moderna verktyg. Med dagens krav på verktyg och tekniker kan det vara en tidsödande process att hålla en utvecklingsplattform med allt det innebär uppdaterad. Med Visual Studio ALM 2015 har vi en sammanhängande svit av lösningar som ger oss alla förutsättningar för modern utveckling.
RightScale Webinar: Continuous Integration and Delivery in the Cloud - How Ri...RightScale
Many organizations are moving toward continuous integration and delivery in order to streamline the application lifecycle and increase quality. RightScale uses cloud-focused continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) processes in our development teams to speed new capabilities to market. In this webinar we explore three case studies on how RightScale does CI and CD in the cloud for our own development processes.
Key Topics:
Decode the differences between CI, CD and DevOps
Combine and connect the tools needed for CI and CD
Leverage cloud infrastructure for CI and CD
Overcome challenges on the path to CI and CD
Agile and DevOps, when integrated into business process, can empower organizations to drive CI In support of market demands, in a significantly efficient and cost effective manner.
Managing Software from Development to Deployment in the CloudCloudBees
CloudBees' Harpreet Singh and Vivek Panday give an introduction to managing and deploying Java applications in the cloud. The presentation covers...
- What’s the cloud and what's a PaaS?
- Criteria choosing a PaaS
- Demonstration of taking applications to the PaaS
- PaaS services available today
Visual Studio ALM and DevOps Tools WalkthroughAngela Dugan
If you're considering moving to Team Foundation Server or Visual Studio Team Services, this deck will walk you through the highlights, of which there are a TON!
QA with Microsoft Test Manager and Lab ManagementRofiqi Setiawan
Plan, manage, and execute tests with Microsoft Test Manager and Lab Management in Visual Studio 2013 which will make it easier to conduct manual and automated testing across a variety of environments. This presentation covers the new exploratory testing approach offered by Microsoft Test Manager; the simplified setup and administration of Lab Management environments; and some of the other fit-and-finish features across the testing scenario.
How to Build and Maintain Quality Drupal Sites with Automated TestingAcquia
Automated testing has greatly improved the Drupal core development process. With automated testing over 24,500 unique core patches have been reviewed, and almost 19,000 test assertions are now run against every core patch. The result has been faster development cycle, more stable releases, and the ability to add features more quickly to Drupal core.
Transforming software development in a world of devices and services. This deck was originally presented by S. Somasegar, Scott Guthrie, and Brian Harry at the Visual Studio 2013 product launch. See how Visual Studio and Windows Azure support you in the transformational journey of software development driven by the new world of devices and services, and enable you to accelerate the delivery cadence of software projects required in today's changing environment.
Elevating Tactical DDD Patterns Through Object CalisthenicsDorra BARTAGUIZ
After immersing yourself in the blue book and its red counterpart, attending DDD-focused conferences, and applying tactical patterns, you're left with a crucial question: How do I ensure my design is effective? Tactical patterns within Domain-Driven Design (DDD) serve as guiding principles for creating clear and manageable domain models. However, achieving success with these patterns requires additional guidance. Interestingly, we've observed that a set of constraints initially designed for training purposes remarkably aligns with effective pattern implementation, offering a more ‘mechanical’ approach. Let's explore together how Object Calisthenics can elevate the design of your tactical DDD patterns, offering concrete help for those venturing into DDD for the first time!
A tale of scale & speed: How the US Navy is enabling software delivery from l...sonjaschweigert1
Rapid and secure feature delivery is a goal across every application team and every branch of the DoD. The Navy’s DevSecOps platform, Party Barge, has achieved:
- Reduction in onboarding time from 5 weeks to 1 day
- Improved developer experience and productivity through actionable findings and reduction of false positives
- Maintenance of superior security standards and inherent policy enforcement with Authorization to Operate (ATO)
Development teams can ship efficiently and ensure applications are cyber ready for Navy Authorizing Officials (AOs). In this webinar, Sigma Defense and Anchore will give attendees a look behind the scenes and demo secure pipeline automation and security artifacts that speed up application ATO and time to production.
We will cover:
- How to remove silos in DevSecOps
- How to build efficient development pipeline roles and component templates
- How to deliver security artifacts that matter for ATO’s (SBOMs, vulnerability reports, and policy evidence)
- How to streamline operations with automated policy checks on container images
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
The Art of the Pitch: WordPress Relationships and SalesLaura Byrne
Clients don’t know what they don’t know. What web solutions are right for them? How does WordPress come into the picture? How do you make sure you understand scope and timeline? What do you do if sometime changes?
All these questions and more will be explored as we talk about matching clients’ needs with what your agency offers without pulling teeth or pulling your hair out. Practical tips, and strategies for successful relationship building that leads to closing the deal.
Pushing the limits of ePRTC: 100ns holdover for 100 daysAdtran
At WSTS 2024, Alon Stern explored the topic of parametric holdover and explained how recent research findings can be implemented in real-world PNT networks to achieve 100 nanoseconds of accuracy for up to 100 days.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 5DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 5. In this session, we will cover CI/CD with devops.
Topics covered:
CI/CD with in UiPath
End-to-end overview of CI/CD pipeline with Azure devops
Speaker:
Lyndsey Byblow, Test Suite Sales Engineer @ UiPath, Inc.
Why You Should Replace Windows 11 with Nitrux Linux 3.5.0 for enhanced perfor...SOFTTECHHUB
The choice of an operating system plays a pivotal role in shaping our computing experience. For decades, Microsoft's Windows has dominated the market, offering a familiar and widely adopted platform for personal and professional use. However, as technological advancements continue to push the boundaries of innovation, alternative operating systems have emerged, challenging the status quo and offering users a fresh perspective on computing.
One such alternative that has garnered significant attention and acclaim is Nitrux Linux 3.5.0, a sleek, powerful, and user-friendly Linux distribution that promises to redefine the way we interact with our devices. With its focus on performance, security, and customization, Nitrux Linux presents a compelling case for those seeking to break free from the constraints of proprietary software and embrace the freedom and flexibility of open-source computing.
Observability Concepts EVERY Developer Should Know -- DeveloperWeek Europe.pdfPaige Cruz
Monitoring and observability aren’t traditionally found in software curriculums and many of us cobble this knowledge together from whatever vendor or ecosystem we were first introduced to and whatever is a part of your current company’s observability stack.
While the dev and ops silo continues to crumble….many organizations still relegate monitoring & observability as the purview of ops, infra and SRE teams. This is a mistake - achieving a highly observable system requires collaboration up and down the stack.
I, a former op, would like to extend an invitation to all application developers to join the observability party will share these foundational concepts to build on:
Securing your Kubernetes cluster_ a step-by-step guide to success !KatiaHIMEUR1
Today, after several years of existence, an extremely active community and an ultra-dynamic ecosystem, Kubernetes has established itself as the de facto standard in container orchestration. Thanks to a wide range of managed services, it has never been so easy to set up a ready-to-use Kubernetes cluster.
However, this ease of use means that the subject of security in Kubernetes is often left for later, or even neglected. This exposes companies to significant risks.
In this talk, I'll show you step-by-step how to secure your Kubernetes cluster for greater peace of mind and reliability.
Unlocking Productivity: Leveraging the Potential of Copilot in Microsoft 365, a presentation by Christoforos Vlachos, Senior Solutions Manager – Modern Workplace, Uni Systems
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
In his public lecture, Christian Timmerer provides insights into the fascinating history of video streaming, starting from its humble beginnings before YouTube to the groundbreaking technologies that now dominate platforms like Netflix and ORF ON. Timmerer also presents provocative contributions of his own that have significantly influenced the industry. He concludes by looking at future challenges and invites the audience to join in a discussion.
4. Continuous value
Plan
Operate
REQUIREMENTS
Agile portfolio management
Kanban customization
Work item tagging
BACKLOG
Visual Studio and
System Center
integration
Performance events
Build | Measure | Learn
Construct
Develop
Team Room
Git
Code Information Indicators
.NET memory Dump Analyzer
Load Testing as a Service
Operate
Collaborate
Release
RELEASE
WORKING SOFTWARE
Integrated release
management
Configuration-based
deployments
8. Release Management Client for Visual Studio 2013
is available with:
Release Management Server for Team Foundation
Server 2013
Microsoft Deployment Agent 2013
In this session we’ll take a look at Release Management for Team Foundation Server 2013.
Applications, and the associated set of user expectations, have evolved significantly over the past few years. Applications are expected to run on many different platforms, data is expected to be readily available, and social tools built in. In addition, as business needs and technology continues to change rapidly, developers need to be able to quickly deliver value to customers and integrate feedback. In this session, we’re going to dig deeply into how the 2013 wave of developer offerings better enable continuous delivery.
Managing releases can be a significant challenge. The requirements come from a broad array of sources, and can have technology teams asking a lot of questions. The kinds of questions they come with are “How do we elegantly shift from long release cycles to monthly, or even daily?” Other times, they want to know “How can we help set customer expectations about when bug fixes and feature requests go live?” So many people need to plan their tasks around the release cycle, so teams want to know “How can we make sure everyone understands the release pipeline so they can do their jobs?” And sometimes, there are legal or governmental pressures around compliance and regulation, leading to questions like “How can we feel confident we’re properly tracking, managing, and approving our releases?”.
As part of this continuous process of delivering value, one component that often gets overlooked is the release phase. As a distinct piece, it’s not always that hard to deploy a single instance of an application to a single environment. However, the promise of continuous value relies on the ability to continuously publish updated versions of an application across a variety of environments for various purposes, which can be very difficult to perform and manage. As a result, Microsoft continually invests a lot of effort in simplifying and scaling this process so that it can become more repeatable, predictable, and transparent.
When we think about the lifecycle of a specific version of an application, we often break it down into the stages it must go through to see the light of production. You’ll typically start with a development environment for a developer or small team to coordinate on. After the build passes that stage, it’ll need to be run through an integration environment where the work from the entire application unit is brought together. If that all goes well, the app will need to be deployed to a QA environment for greater testing. With success there, it’ll move on to one or more stages of production in order to be accessible to users.[Build]As a build moves down the pipeline toward production, more people get involved and the need for coordination increases significantly. You also have to account for the nature of the deployment environments, especially as load testing and other requirements may result in differences in the topography of the environment itself. You want to make sure each phase has the same build deployed in the same way. And, of course, if you invest in automation, there’s testing time to take into account for the process itself.
If we approach the process from a developer’s perspective, the steps abstract out a little bit. First, you’ll start off by writing code in your tool of choice. You’ll run builds and package as needed before provisioning an environment, deploying the app, and testing it. At the end, the app is approved and gets pushed out to production.[Build]However, it really turns out that the application is more likely to have lots of different builds deployed and tested before one passes the quality gate and can get pushed through. In addition, a build will likely need to go through the environments we discussed earlier, resulting in a need for the repeatable deployment model.[Build]Microsoft’s ALM platform is designed to support this approach, which makes it easier for issues that get raised during the test process to cycle back through the development cycle so that they can be addressed and pushed through the release cycle again.
A major goal is the ability to take a single build package and push it out to each environment in the same way.[Build]This drastically reduces the amount of manual effort required to update the environments and can make the entire process much smoother.
Another important aspect to each release environment is what we’ll refer to as the “stage stack”. This is a simple layout of the steps typically required to get a packaged app from a build location out to a prepared environment, through the necessary install and configuration, through the required tests, and finally approved for migration to the next stage. Microsoft has provided many of the tools to support this stack, although sometimes a little extra work is required to help it all work together.[Build]Lab Manager is available to help provision environments.[Build]PowerShell is ideal for configuring environments.[Build]There are some useful built-in tools for deploying and installing the application itself.[Build]And lots of companies invest in their own custom tools to configure applications.[Build]Running automated tests during the release process is becoming the standard for applications of every type.[Build]Microsoft Test Manager handles the testing aspects.[Build]And now with Release Management for Team Foundation Server 2013, this entire process is only going to get better.
Release Management for Team Foundation Server 2013 is a continuous deployment solution for .NET teams. It helps automate the deployment process and helps teams manage multiple environments. It also introduces a level of collaboration cross the release process, as well as providing an array or analytics and reporting. It was originally launched in 2009 by InCycle Software as InRelease and was acquired in the summer of 2013.
The release management authoring components are included with Visual Studio Test Professional, Visual Studio Premium, and Visual Studio Ultimate. The client will remain a separate application for the 2013 release, but it’s packaged and installed with the rest of the toolset. Everything needed to participate in a release process will be included in the Team Foundation Server CAL. Server components are integrated into Team Foundation Server 2013.The Deployment Agent (in the target servers, etc.),which are required for each node you deploy to, will continue to be licensed separately.
One major benefit of the new Release Management Server for Team Foundation Server 2013 is that it provides all the automated deployment goodness we were discussing earlier.
It also ensures that the deployments are pushed out the same way to all stages.
Not only does it automate the overall workflow, but it provides the ability to automate approvals where necessary, such as early phase deployments. You can still keep manual approvals for deployments deeper in the release cycle.
Finally, the whole process is recorded so that you can enjoy full traceability throughout the process. This is extremely valuable in scenarios where there are strict compliance requirements for legal or other reasons.
Let’s take a look at how the new release management infrastructure fits into your development environment.[Build]First, you’ll deploy Release Management Server.[Build]Next, you’ll install deployment nodes on the target systems in your deployment environments.[Build]You can then configure Release Management Server to pull builds from TFS and push them out to the specified environment.[Build]There is also a client app and Web UI that allow users to interact with the release management, workflow, and reporting features.A release typically gets triggered by an automated event, whether it’s a check-in or on a schedule. However, you can manually create a release as well. Once a release is begun, it works its way down the “release path”, which might be “Dev to QA to Production” with automated and/or manual gates at each.The paths are composed on the various servers grouped into environments on which the testing for the stage is performed. Once an application needs to be deployed to a new environment, the server will queue deployment requests to all the required target servers for each component of the application. This allows an atomic deployment of all the components.The Release Management Deployment Agent running on each target server monitors the Release Management Server continually, at a configurable interval, and will pick the installation requests for the one or many components it needs to install locally.The Deployment Agent will then find and download the release package, provided by the Release Management Server. RMS calculates the location using the TFS API, if built by TFS, or using a predefined UNC path if not. Finally, the Deployment Agent downloads any additional executables, such as batch files, PowerShell scripts, EXEs, etc, to be run as part of the installation. These are additional deployment activities beyond the installation itself. Creating test data or triggering automated tests are common scenarios here.
See script.
Release Management Server automates all the manual tasks involved in releasing applications, with a focus on the error-prone and repetitive tasks that delay time-to-release. Thanks to its centralized configuration, development, operations, and quality assurance teams are able to define every application, component, and release path they need. Remember, Release Management Server is not a packaging solution or a MSI. However, it can work with your packaging tool or MSI to automate and track complex deployments from TFS to your target environment.The process editor provides a drag & drop experience that supports parallel deployments of any complexity. You can configure the workflow to include an array of built-in actions, or define your own. These range from running batch scripts local to a server or even managing armies of virtual machines hosted in Windows Azure. There is broad support for deploying applications and components out to IIS, SharePoint, SQL, and other target platforms. And if anything goes wrong, you can have your rollback, or rollforward, plans built right in.
Release Management Server provides a fully configurable workflow where you can manage every step and follow the status changes of your release. With its common platform for development, operations, and quality assurance, Release Management Server optimizes the release process by removing down time between approval and deployment. For example, a deployment can be automatically triggered by approval at the previous stage.Approvals can be defined by person or by group. The defined approver can also start, stop, approve, reject, restart, retry, abandon and even reassign releases.
To initiate a release, Release Management Server leverages your Team Foundation Server (TFS) source control and build automation. There are many ways to take advantage of this, such as by triggering a build from Release Management Server using a label or build actions. You can also use TFS build definitions to filter out builds to deploy for manually triggered releases. TFS build definitions can be leveraged to configure components and calculate the drop locations. The TFS API is also available to define TFS connections to deploy components from different TFS servers, and TFS groups can be used in the security configuration.
Release Management Server provides valuable insights into the entire release process. Armed with relevant and timely information, managers can achieve greater efficiencies by monitoring for continuous improvement. For example, you can keep track of the trend in releases, the amount of traffic in the release pipeline, any possible bottlenecks, and even get performance insights.
See script.
One challenge for releasing to multiple environments is dealing with different settings in each location. QA probably has a different DB server than Production, they might use different Oauth settings, etc. The custom work required for this to elegantly scale across an unknown number of potential environments is pretty substantial. However, Release Management for TFS offers an excellent solution.Its custom build process template also contains the logic to tokenize your configuration files. This logic assumes that in your solution, you have two version of your configuration files. One version is your normal configuration file used during local development, and the other is a corresponding file that has the same content, except that instead of having local values for your variables, tokens have been put there. The build activity will swap those two files before doing the build, so that you end up with the tokenized version of the configuration files in the drop location.
The release management services provide a configuration experience that is very familiar to anyone who has set up the Visual Studio test or lab infrastructure. Similar steps, dialogs, and processes are used to make it very easy to configure.
Release Management Server provides granular control for the entire release process that includes many stakeholders, including Development, QA and Ops. You can limit which group can view, edit, or create a given release template. You can also decide who can edit approvers for each release stage. For example, the development group can modify the approvers in the Dev stage but cannot modify approvers for the Production stage. Another example is how you can limit which group can edit the configuration values for each release stage. For example, the development group can modify the values in the Dev and Integration stages but cannot modify Production. Finally, you can limit the stage types a given environment can support. For example, you can limit which production servers can be used.
When something fails during the deployment process, it can often be difficult to track down exactly what went wrong. And even once the issue is discovered, there is often a lag in communication for letting other people who what happened. With Release Management Server, there is much greater traceability and transparency for the entire process.
In summary, the new release management features for Visual Studio 2013 and Team Foundation Server 2013 provide a robust offering that helps deliver on the promise of continuous delivery. Teams will be able to release more frequently, and customers will benefit from better software, faster. Stakeholders throughout the organization will have better insight as to the status of the product and its release cycle. And finally, managers will feel confident that they’re meeting their compliance and regulation requirements along the way.