How to ensure that a release stage is executed by every agent of the agent pool

Question

I have set up a multi-agent job for an Azure Release Pipeline. There are two agents in the agent pool. The job needs to be executed by every agent in the agent pool.

The settings shown in the above schedule two agent jobs whenever a release is triggered. If both agents are idle while the deployment starts, everything works as expected and both agents execute the job. But, as soon as one agent is busy at that time the behavior becomes unexpected and both jobs are executed by the same agent consecutively.

How can I ensure that every agent of the agent pool is executing the defined agent job?

We're going to need more info. Which part of this is relevant to you? https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/licensing/concurrent-jobs?view=azure-devops — Train, Aug 07 '19 at 13:19
I am using two self-hosted agents assigned to the same agent pool. How can I provide you more information that is relevant to the question? What exactly do you need to know? — millokeller, Aug 07 '19 at 13:49
Sorry I misunderstood the question. I misread `as soon as one agent is busy at that time the behavior becomes unexpected and both jobs are executed by the same agent consecutively` it makes more sense. — Train, Aug 07 '19 at 14:01
Each job consumes a parallel job that runs on an agent. When there aren't enough parallel jobs available, the jobs are queued up and run one after the other. That's why it uses the same agent. Enough agents need to be available at the time off execution or it's gonna queue it to the same agent. — Train, Aug 07 '19 at 14:05

Mengdi Liang · Answer 1 · 2019-08-07T18:19:53.440

0

This is as designed. If one agent pool has two agents A and B, while A is busy, the build job will running with B. So in pool, if some agents are busy, the pipeline will running with other free and available agent.

The precondition of Parallel job is that you must has enough agents free and available. That's why as soon as one agent is busy at that time the behavior becomes unexpected.

edited Aug 07 '19 at 18:19

answered Aug 07 '19 at 14:10

Mengdi Liang

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But then the jobs will running in only one agent? no? – Shayki Abramczyk Aug 07 '19 at 14:23
If only one **free and available** agent in the pool at this time, it will running in this free agent. – Mengdi Liang Aug 07 '19 at 14:24
The free agent I mentioned is not busy. – Mengdi Liang Aug 07 '19 at 14:44
I meant to the demand that it will not can help because it will running in only same one agent. – Shayki Abramczyk Aug 07 '19 at 14:46
Yes, sorry I just misread the job as two agent jobs. But after check the description again, this customer just want to run one job with parallel. So, I remove my work around. – Mengdi Liang Aug 07 '19 at 14:49
Is there a possibility to check for this precondition? Can I postpone the start of the parallel job until enough agents are free and available? – millokeller Aug 08 '19 at 05:36
The cumbersome method is that go agent pool to check the state of agent manually. I try to test for get the in progress agent with API, so that you can use powershell to get this as build precondition. But unfortunately failed. – Mengdi Liang Aug 08 '19 at 08:15

How to ensure that a release stage is executed by every agent of the agent pool

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