Diff / monitor?

Question

My company’s system is built from a collection of ASP.NET websites, web services, Windows services, and databases. (about 40 people said)

We support three environments: QA, PREPROD and LIVE; but managing what is installed (and works) in each environment is a real pain. We seem to spend more time debugging what is installed and working in every environment that actually develops functions.

I am looking for an environment-level diff tool - something that will tell me what is different between environments, what services work in each environment, etc. etc.

Is there any existing tool there?

Thanks!

Answer 1

My development team is currently using a tool called ConfigMerge (available on CodePlex) to help us control the source files of our web.config files. You may not like SCM much, but such a tool can help you manage the deployment of configuration files, since you can save one file common to all your servers and break down the individual XML elements that need to be changed for each server. Let the ConfigMerge tool create the final result and deploy it.

This does not help you do the “configuration diff,” but it can help reduce the need.

Answer 2

We use the build server, which is responsible for the automatic deployment of sites, services, etc. with successful builds in our development environment.

Since we use TFSBuild, we use TFSDeployer, which controls the build quality setting. When it is flipped to a “stage,” some powershell scripts execute to move the assembly into our staging environment.

For production, we also use TFSDeployer with one minor change. Instead of directly accessing production folders, it moves it to backup folders on production servers. The infrastructure team then manually copies it from its place to the final resting place. This ensures that no one is accidentally deployed for production.

Everyone said it took several weeks to set up and work out any excesses. Since then, everything is happier, and we always know for sure what is in every environment.

Answer 3

add to the fact that everything is said, you can also use FinalBuilder, this is an awesome build automation tool that saved me a lot of time by doing something similar to what you are doing, it can automate the whole process, compiling a Visual studio project, file comparison, FTPing.

hope this helps.

Answer 4

The closest I can think of is the Visual Studio Team System Deployment Designer . You can create a system model and its logical deployment architecture, and you can test it for physical deployment. For example, you can check the correct configuration of virtual directories, checking versions and patches of components and servers, etc ...

You can also create reports showing each diagram and a list of all resources and parameters for each application, logical server, endpoint or zone on the deployment diagram. You can also include a list of validation errors and deployment diagrams in the report. Application and infrastructure development teams can use this report to exchange information needed to assess conflicts between application requirements and data center policies.