Category: Octopus Deploy

July 10, 2015

Octo.exe – exporting/importing project pitfalls

Over a year ago, I mentioned that the Octo.exe supports the ability to export a project from one server to another server. This feature last year needed a lot of work and was a bit difficult to understand, but at the time I didn’t have a pressing need for it. After working with it extensively over the past couple of weeks, I’m...

Categories Octopus Deploy/Tip Comments: 0

July 2, 2015

Variables are your friend

To truly harness and appreciate the power and elegance of Octopus Deploy, you need to use variables. Variables are not a foreign concept to programmers, but within Octopus there are a few different types of variables available which may cause a little confusion. We’ll cover all these different types of variables in this deep dive, how to wield variables to your advantage and best...

Categories Octopus Deploy Comments: 3

February 27, 2015

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...

Categories Continuous Deployment/Octopus Deploy Comments: 6

February 25, 2015

Octopus Deploy 3.0 details emerge

For months, I’ve been anticipating Octopus Deploy 3.0. The details have been slowly emerging over the past few months dating back to late November 2014 from several blog posts from the Octopus team. Each post has revealed some detail about the upcoming changes and technical details behind 3.0. Looking back on all the blog posts, I found four that explicitly state Octopus...

Categories Octopus Deploy/Opinion Comments: 0

February 12, 2015

From the frontline: Octopus Server performance tuning

We’ve been running Octopus Deploy since 2.0 back in January 2014 as part of our head-to-head battle royale with Release Management 2013. We decided on Octopus in February and our pilot testing started in late March early April with a handful of teams and users. Our shiny server (*ahem* virtual machine) with Octopus Deploy was chugging along and we all had an oh so wonderful user...

Categories Octopus Deploy/Performance/Tip Comments: 0

February 10, 2015

The Zen of Deployment Automation

I work with a lot of users using our Octopus Deploy server on a daily basis. It seems that not all, but many of our users don’t fully grasp the philosophy behind automated deployments so I thought a rant was in order. If you’re using Octopus Deploy or even thinking about implementing it, Octopus is indeed a great first step into automation...

Categories ALM/Continuous Deployment/Octopus Deploy/Opinion Comments: 7

February 3, 2015

Automating Deployments with Octopus Deploy Presentation at SDC

I meant to post this weeks ago. [gview file=”/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Automating-Deployments-with-Octopus-Deploy-Final-20150111-SDC-2015.pptx” profile=”11″ save=”0″]

Categories Conferences and Meetups/Octopus Deploy/Presentations/Software Development Community Comments: 2

January 27, 2015

Versioning in Octopus Deploy (Part I)

Versioning – NuGet and Octopus Deploy will force this issue of versioning on your projects and it’s in your best interest to give it some thought. Within Octopus, your releases are versioned as well as your NuGet packages however packages are versioned externally of Octopus, so some prudence will pay dividends down the road. I’ve found that one of the biggest hurdles with versioning is where...

Categories NuGet/Octopus Deploy Comments: 3

December 19, 2014

Thoughts on Octopus Deploy 2.6

Now that Octopus Deploy 2.6 was just released, I feel I can publish some of my opinions on it. I installed the pre-release on my Azure instance weeks ago just before Thanksgiving and I’ve just upgraded to the official release (2.6.0.778). Even though 2.6 is a minor update, it is a game changer. Changes listed on Octopus Deploy 2.6 are: Lifecycles to control promotion...

Categories Announcement/Octopus Deploy/Opinion Comment: 1

December 17, 2014

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...

Categories ALM/Continuous Deployment/Octopus Deploy Comment: 1