Choose which target server and database to deploy a release

[Peter]

We are evaluating using BuildMaster for our team and have some questions when comparing it to our current automated deployment approach.

We would typically like to configure a deployment plan that is consistent (i.e. the same) for a number of separate environments. When we deploy an application we would typically like to select which database and target server we would like to deploy to, and have the deployment complete the same steps, but just change the target server and database connection.

It appears that with BuildMaster we would have the following limitations:

1. We would need to setup a separate deployment plan for each server that we want to target.
2. We could not share/link action groups because the actions within the group would be run on a specific target server, not parameterized in some way.
3. We would need to copy an action group to share the same actions for a separate target server, then edit each action in the group to change the target server (note that some actions would likely run on a build server rather than a target server too).

With a lot of servers involved, if these steps are required it would make it difficult to manage.

An alternative would seem to be that if we could tie the selection of a target server and database connection to variables most of these limitations would be eliminated.

Are we missing something when considering BuildMaster's capabilities? If not, would use of variables for changing the target server or database connection be something that may be included in a future release perhaps?

Thanks!

[Tod]

When you share/link action groups, you may select a "Default Server" for the actions, which means you can link them across environments and still have the actions run on different servers (just select the local BuildMaster server for the actions, that will be overridden by the selected default server of the group). If you choose a separate build server for your actions instead, that will take precendence over the default server unless the build server is the same as the BuildMaster server; if that's the case you can just put those actions in a separate group.

As for the database selection, we could update that action to allow selection via a variable or have a default option that chooses the DB based on the environment it's in.