Slides for Continuous Deployment talk on agileday 2013 in Vilnius - tak (in lithuanian) here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti1Pfu9dnYY

1. Continuous Deployment
Titas Norkūnas / @varsketiz

3. Assembla the Product
~ 350.000 Projects tracked
~ 350.000 Repositories hosted
~ 850.000 Users registered
~ 5.000.000 Tasks created

4. Assembla the Team
● 40 People (20 Developers)
● 20 Countries
● 15 Different Timezones
● 163 Prod Deploys in April

5. Assembla the Team

6. Assembla the Team
Me
Colleague I work with the most

7. Have you heard about
Continuous Deployment before?

8. How often do you deploy?

9. This is about
● The Why
● Common concerns
● The How
● Good to haves and common issues
● How we did it

10. Why bother?
Agile manifesto:
"Our highest priority is to satisfy the
customer through early and
continuous delivery of valuable
software."

11. Why bother?
Agile manifesto:
"Working software is the primary
measure of progress."

12. Why bother?
Agile manifesto:
"Simplicity – the art of maximizing the
amount of work not done – is
essential."

13. Why bother?
MVP:
"The minimum viable product is that
version of a new product which
allows a team to collect the maximum
amount of validated learning about
customers with the least effort."

14. Why bother?
Your favorite tech company does it:
● Github
● Amazon
● Heroku
● Linkedin
● Etsy
● ... <endless list> ...

15. Why bother?
Your favorite tech company does it:
● Github
● Amazon - Prod Deploy every 11s!
● Heroku
● Linkedin
● Etsy
● ... <endless list> ...

16. Benefits
● Deliver value ASAP
● Advance every day
● Always be informed
● Have a fast feedback cycle
● Create a top-notch environment

17. Concerns
● But isn't that dangerous?
● That will cost much more!
● It will reduce quality!
● That's just cowboy-coding!

18. But isn't that dangerous? - No.
● Less changes in every release
● Minimal issue fix and deploy time
● Deploys are standard

19. That will cost much more! - No.
● Automated deploys - one time fee
● Cheap a/b testing
● Always ASAP code delivery

20. It will reduce quality! - No.
● Hide features that are
not ready
● Never rush to "make it"
● Keep all current testing
practices

21. That's just cowboy-coding! - No.
● Standardize configuration
● Standardize migrations
● Standardize all environments

23. The How
● "Continuous" team mentality
● Proper Continuous Integration
● Deployment Automation
● Metrics and Alerts

24. There is only one rule to
Continuous Deployment - keep
your Mainline deployable.

25. Define deployable

26. Automated tests pass

27. Automated tests pass, code
reviewed and tested by peer or
QA

28. Automated tests pass, code
reviewed and tested by peer or
QA, code tested on production
by a subset of users

29. Mainline stability
● Don't break the trust to save 5
minutes
● Don't assume you know everything
● Don't block others

31. Continuous Integration
Branch →
Mainline →

32. Continuous Integration
2?1
Mainline →
Branch →

33. Continuous Integration
Mainline →
1 ?
4
Branch →
3
Mainline →
Branch →

34. Backmerge from Mainline to
branch for integrate and build.
Premature integration is evil

35. Deployment Automation
● Easy - with a click of a button
● Risk-free - be able to rollback
● Consistent - no surprises
● Traceable - who, when what

36. Easy - with a click of a button

37. Risk-free - be able to rollback

38. Consistent - no surprises

39. Traceable - who, when, what?

41. Metrics and Alerts
● Real-time
● Monitor key business metrics
● Have a dashboard for app metrics
● Alert on abnormalities not
thresholds

42. Business metrics

43. Application Metrics

44. Abnormalities, not thresholds

45. The good to haves
● Fast tests and fast deploys
● Configuration automation
● Fast developer onboarding
● Uniform migration strategy

46. Fast tests and fast deploys

47. Configuration automation

48. Fast developer onboarding

49. Uniform migration strategy

50. "Continuous" is a game-changer.
How does it change the game for
other people in the company?

51. How Assembla did it

52. Release Count Evolution

53. Release Count Evolution
Frustration

54. Release Count Evolution

55. Release Count Evolution

56. Release Count Evolution
LOL Vacation

57. Release Count Evolution

58. Common issues
● Wait, but how do I deploy schema
changes without downtime?
● I need manual testing in my
workflow...
● Does not scale.