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My Release templates consists of couple of hard coded values like Installation Path, documents folder paths etc. To create a new template, i need to change those values in so many places and it's very time consuming for bigger templates.

I have implemented agent based release and my questions are:

  1. Is it possible to configure such values with variables in the scope of each stages of releases like QA, Staging, Production etc.

  2. What is the difference between agent based release templates and vNext templates.

Daniel Mann
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Sreekanth Mohan
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1 Answers1

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  1. No. For agent-based releases, you can only set values at the level of individual actions. I understand the pain of having a lot of values to change, but this actually points out a problem with your environments: they are too different. Your environments should be as close to the same as one another as you can get. Having a lot of values that differ from environment to environment is pointing out that your environments are too different.
  2. vNext release templates do not use deployment agents -- they instead use Desired State Configuration/Powershell or Chef to orchestrate deployments. It's a fundamentally different model of deployment with its own set of challenges. That said, the "vNext" features are pretty clearly the path forward.

The idea with the vNext templates is that your PowerShell/DSC scripts are source-controlled artifacts, and you use RM to invoke the script with the correct parameters on the appropriate environments.

This makes change control of your environments easier to manage: Your environment's configuration and the proper running state of the software is something that's source controlled and easily reviewable.

Daniel Mann
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  • Thank you for the details. I have an application and that needs to be release accross multiple websites/environments/servers. To create a new template for the same server, I can copy an existing template. But there are couple of values like installation path, document path, back up path repeated in multiple actions. Any chance to configure it ? – Sreekanth Mohan Feb 06 '15 at 08:51
  • Cant you use Tags? If you tag all of the same servers and target that tag you should be able to deploy to multiple nodes in one go.. – MrHinsh - Martin Hinshelwood Feb 06 '15 at 19:02