Category: ALM

RFC Octopus Data Center Manager

I’ve been using Octopus Deploy since early 2014. Around version 2.2 or 2.3 is when I started investigating Octopus and then implementing it in an enterprise scale environment. It’s been over a three year long journey for myself. A ton of changes have been made to Octopus during that time and it’s not without a sense of appreciation and respect that...

Setting up continuous deployments with Octopus Deploy and TFS

One reader asked in my Octo.exe deep dive if I had published how to setup continuous deployments. I had mentioned it in the deep dive and while I’d rather do a comprehensive piece to see how many different ways we could set up a continuous deployment, a simple post on how to setup continuous deployments in TFS is just as effective for the...

Octopus 3 now available!

Monday, July 20th 2015 was a big day for the .NET ecosystem. Microsoft officially released Visual Studio 2015 and Release Management 2015. Coincidentally, Octopus Deploy 3.0 was released as well. While I’m habitually (or obsessively) focused on Octopus Deploy, I use Visual Studio and have a mild interest in what Release Management 2015 has to offer. With the simultaneous releases of Octopus Deploy and...

The Octo.exe – your utility knife for automation

If you’ve started using Octopus Deploy and want to fully maximize it’s potential via automation but you don’t know where to start, you need to begin investigating the Octo.exe. The Octo.exe is a neat little utility that allows you, through the command-line (and by extension, PowerShell) to interact with your Octopus Server without using the web interface. There’s a number of...

Chicago ALM Users Group – Agile Metrics

Yesterday night I attended the Chicago ALM Users Group session on Agile Metrics, given by Doc Norton. It was a very interesting topic and a great presentation altogether. Rather than reiterate the subject itself, you can view a video that Doc has available on his blog. A big thank you to Angela Dugan (blog) for organizing the event and to Polaris Solutions for sponsoring. Another...

Backing up projects on Octopus Tentacles? Think twice

I’ve noticed many of our Octopus teams use the File System – Backup Directory step template from the library to implement a backup step. Unfortunately, I’ve seen minimal prudence from said teams implementing backups. Many of these teams simply backup their project across most if not all of their environments while having no rollback steps whatsoever. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Octopus Step...

Encore presentation on Octopus Deploy for Chicago ALM Users Group

I had another Octopus Deploy presentation today in Chicago for the Chicago ALM Users Group. Big thanks to Angela Dugan (@OakParkGirl) for letting me ramble on for Octopus for well over the time alloted. Had some good questions from audience members and interaction as well. I tried changing some things around in the presentation and adding more content but alas it...