4 ms·

Deploy multiple ASP.NET web apps to a single AWS instance

47 points by mythz 12y ago

qntmfred 12y ago
nice post. we do something similar, except using MS Web Deploy. We also explored Octopus but wanted an agentless mechanism. We're also keeping our eye on Desired State Configuration
- mythz 12y ago
  Yep, I think the nice thing about using purpose-specific tools like OctopusDeploy is that it lets you escape Cloud/Platform specific deployment tools making it easier to switch between cloud providers if you want to. i.e You can save money later by moving off the Cloud once you have a better idea what capacity you need to handle your load, and then deploy to better value hosting providers like http://www.hetzner.de http://www.hetzner.de
- daigoba66 12y ago
  Octopus looks neat. But I'm still not sold on NuGet as a deployment package. We also use Web Deploy, and our build outputs a zip file and deploy script per app. They're executed/deployed via a master deploy script.
doczoidberg 12y ago
what is the advantage in comparison to just use azure?
- mythz 12y ago
  We've found AWS has a richer ecosystem for the things we want to use, e.g. We're using PostgreSQL RDS for our managed RDBMS. It's also nice to be able to point your deployments to any server instead of being coupled to Cloud-specfic tooling. i.e. If Cloud costs ever get out of hand we can point to the better value and performing dedicated hosts like hetzner, with minimal migration effort.
  - radicalbyte 12y ago
    > if Cloud costs ever get out of hand Smart, because that's the next line in the Microsoft play-book.
  - sequence7 12y ago
    I assume you could just deploy to an Azure/Rackspace/Other VM or to a physical server rather than an AWS VM if you decided to, there's nothing PAAS specific here. Is that correct?
    - mythz 12y ago
      Right, it can point and deploy to any Windows Server that has an OctopusDeploy tentacle (deploy agent) installed on it.
junto 12y ago
Were are using this setup, but instead of AWS, we are deploying to Rackspace. The TeamCity-Octopus combination works brilliantly together. We also use FluentMigrator.net to migrate databases automatically throughout our environments: https://github.com/schambers/fluentmigrator https://github.com/schambers/fluentmigrator You can also use Octopus to run Powershell scripts. You can deploy one off tasks or re-runable tasks to your entire server farm with one click. I can recommend https://twitter.com/DevOpsGuys https://twitter.com/DevOpsGuys to help you get this setup.
sequence7 12y ago
Is there much benefit to using Octopus as opposed to an extra MsBuild step that does a publish? I've had TeamCity set up to do continuous integration/deployment without much pain so I was wondering if I'm missing out on something or it's just a different way to the deployment/publish step?
- mythz 12y ago
  You can easily configure different things of IIS/ASP.NET like Port Bindings, App Domains, Config Transforms, SSL Sites, etc. We also use it to bundle and deploy out-of-project artefacts. One nice feature is that it keeps all your releases and can easily redeploy a previous known working configuration.
  - junto 12y ago
    Don't forget rollback. That has saved us a number of times. One of the things I like about Octopus is rather than deploy over the existing instance it deploys a version alongside. Then if everything is hunky-dory with the deployment process it simply tweaks IIS to point at the new deloyment folder. I don't believe that MSDeploy does that. I think it just overwrites the existing source. Also, can MSDeploy deploy to multiple servers? Anyway, Octopus is very neat and tidy. We also recycle app pools and restart windows services using Powershell scripts as deployments out of Octopus for some legacy apps that don't support distributed caching and the cache is stale. It's quick an dirty but it works.
tedchs 12y ago
I previously tried helping a software team deploy their .Net app on Windows VMs. As a Linux engineer, I was shocked at the lack of built-in remote deployment/management options, especially those able to be automated. FTP and SMB shares, the built-in options, are not appropriate for the Internet. Why does Windows Server not ship with an SSH/SFTP server? I ended up deploying a Windows build of OpenSSH just to get remote access parity with Linux servers. Unless things have changed recently, Windows really needs a better out-of-the-box application deployment story.
- schrodinger 12y ago
  There's a built in deployment method called "msdeploy" that makes it super easy to deploy a website. It's either one click from visual studio, or highly scriptable from the command line. My company hasn't manually deployed code in years, it's one click in team city to build and deploy.

47 points by mythz 12y ago

nice post. we do something similar, except using MS Web Deploy. We also explored Octopus but wanted an agentless mechanism. We're also keeping our eye on Desired State Configuration

mythz 12y ago
Yep, I think the nice thing about using purpose-specific tools like OctopusDeploy is that it lets you escape Cloud/Platform specific deployment tools making it easier to switch between cloud providers if you want to. i.e You can save money later by moving off the Cloud once you have a better idea what capacity you need to handle your load, and then deploy to better value hosting providers like http://www.hetzner.de http://www.hetzner.de
daigoba66 12y ago
Octopus looks neat. But I'm still not sold on NuGet as a deployment package. We also use Web Deploy, and our build outputs a zip file and deploy script per app. They're executed/deployed via a master deploy script.

doczoidberg 12y ago

what is the advantage in comparison to just use azure?

mythz 12y ago
We've found AWS has a richer ecosystem for the things we want to use, e.g. We're using PostgreSQL RDS for our managed RDBMS. It's also nice to be able to point your deployments to any server instead of being coupled to Cloud-specfic tooling. i.e. If Cloud costs ever get out of hand we can point to the better value and performing dedicated hosts like hetzner, with minimal migration effort.
- radicalbyte 12y ago
  > if Cloud costs ever get out of hand Smart, because that's the next line in the Microsoft play-book.
- sequence7 12y ago
  I assume you could just deploy to an Azure/Rackspace/Other VM or to a physical server rather than an AWS VM if you decided to, there's nothing PAAS specific here. Is that correct?
  - mythz 12y ago
    Right, it can point and deploy to any Windows Server that has an OctopusDeploy tentacle (deploy agent) installed on it.

junto 12y ago

Were are using this setup, but instead of AWS, we are deploying to Rackspace. The TeamCity-Octopus combination works brilliantly together. We also use FluentMigrator.net to migrate databases automatically throughout our environments: https://github.com/schambers/fluentmigrator https://github.com/schambers/fluentmigrator You can also use Octopus to run Powershell scripts. You can deploy one off tasks or re-runable tasks to your entire server farm with one click. I can recommend https://twitter.com/DevOpsGuys https://twitter.com/DevOpsGuys to help you get this setup.

sequence7 12y ago

Is there much benefit to using Octopus as opposed to an extra MsBuild step that does a publish? I've had TeamCity set up to do continuous integration/deployment without much pain so I was wondering if I'm missing out on something or it's just a different way to the deployment/publish step?

mythz 12y ago
You can easily configure different things of IIS/ASP.NET like Port Bindings, App Domains, Config Transforms, SSL Sites, etc. We also use it to bundle and deploy out-of-project artefacts. One nice feature is that it keeps all your releases and can easily redeploy a previous known working configuration.
- junto 12y ago
  Don't forget rollback. That has saved us a number of times. One of the things I like about Octopus is rather than deploy over the existing instance it deploys a version alongside. Then if everything is hunky-dory with the deployment process it simply tweaks IIS to point at the new deloyment folder. I don't believe that MSDeploy does that. I think it just overwrites the existing source. Also, can MSDeploy deploy to multiple servers? Anyway, Octopus is very neat and tidy. We also recycle app pools and restart windows services using Powershell scripts as deployments out of Octopus for some legacy apps that don't support distributed caching and the cache is stale. It's quick an dirty but it works.

tedchs 12y ago

I previously tried helping a software team deploy their .Net app on Windows VMs. As a Linux engineer, I was shocked at the lack of built-in remote deployment/management options, especially those able to be automated. FTP and SMB shares, the built-in options, are not appropriate for the Internet. Why does Windows Server not ship with an SSH/SFTP server? I ended up deploying a Windows build of OpenSSH just to get remote access parity with Linux servers. Unless things have changed recently, Windows really needs a better out-of-the-box application deployment story.

schrodinger 12y ago
There's a built in deployment method called "msdeploy" that makes it super easy to deploy a website. It's either one click from visual studio, or highly scriptable from the command line. My company hasn't manually deployed code in years, it's one click in team city to build and deploy.